Les espaces d’une mémoire olfactive: une topographie des atmosphères de l’odorat dans "À la recherche du temps perdu"

<jats:p>This study examines the role of olfaction in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, showing how olfactory atmospheres structure memory, perception, and lived space. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach that combines literary analysis with phenomenological psychology – particularly the work of Hubert Tellenbach – it argues that olfaction cannot be reduced to the triggering of involuntary memory alone. Rather, it constitutes an immersive, pre-verbal, and continuous atmospheric experience that transforms the subject’s bodily and affective tonality. Through the analysis of two excerpts from the Recherche, the study reveals an intimate topography in which odors shape places, connect the body to time, and contribute to a poetics of enveloping that underlies the Proustian experience of reality.</jats:p>