In between rewritting and expansion of the text: from genesis to post-editorial creation of Gilles Deleuze’s Proust et les signes

Abstract

The following article aims to present aspects of the editorial rewriting process and the possibilities to approach the elements in the work Proust and the signs by Gilles Deleuze. This book has new editions at three different times (1964, 1970, 1976) on which three preliminary articles were also published, respectively (1963, 1970, 1973), showing traces of a creation from which no preparatory documents remained, but which develops, in addition to the versions mentioned, in writings that precede them - as is the case of “Dires et profils” texts published in 1946 in the magazine Poésie. Thus, we seek to explore such documents through two perspectives. The first is an approach centered on the conditions of enunciability and writing practices, combined with the construction of an avant-texte through publications in which Deleuze begins to develop with his reading a reflection on Marcel Proust's novel, In search of lost time, which soon announces elements that will be partly taken up in the 1964 essay. While the second approach, more focused on the scriptural movements that emerge from the comparison between the different versions of Proust and the signs through the version comparison software of the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits, Machine pour l’étude diachronique et interprétative du travail de l’écrivain (MEDITE). Thus, by elaborating hypotheses regarding the changes found, we seek to examine the productivity of the text processing and comparison software as a tool in the study of the post-editorial phases of creation, adopting the preliminary article “L'unité de A la recherche du temps perdu” from 1963 and the first edition, Marcel Proust et les signes, from 1964.