Proust offers the ideal test case for a Utopian hermeneutic

Evidence

All of which, no doubt, remains abstract and itself unfulfilled, a set of empty critical imperatives, without some concrete technical demonstration of the way in which such a method would function. And this is all the more the case owing to Bloch’s characteristic choice of primarily popular or at least traditional artistic examples. I am not aware, for instance, that he has ever spoken of Proust, whom Benjamin translated, whose “temps retrouvé” Marcuse sees as the very archetype of instinctual anamnesis, whose great work indeed would seem to offer the very prototype of the novel of the artist; yet it seems to me that the creation of Proust suggests itself as privileged material for a Utopian hermeneutic, both as an illustration and as a test case. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 291

Categorization

• XREF: Jameson triangulates Bloch against Benjamin (who translated Proust) and Marcuse (who reads temps retrouvé as instinctual anamnesis) — a signature move of situating a theorist via his Frankfurt-school contemporaries. — connects to: Infantile wishes in Proust are the purest archetype of the Utopian impulse — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 292; Proust’s wish-structure reveals the future as necessarily more than expectation — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 293; Utopia is tested in novelistic form, not in abstract philosophy — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 359 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Jameson says Bloch never addressed Proust — worth chasing whether later Jameson (or other Bloch commentators) ever subjected Proust to the Utopian hermeneutic test.

Broader Connections

• Utopia is tested in novelistic form, not in abstract philosophy #corroborates (1.00) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 359
• Proust’s wish-structure reveals the future as necessarily more than expectation #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 293
• Reflection on the wish-element in thought is the sole route to Utopia #qualifies (0.72)