Proust Questionnaire
Encyclopedia
The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire
about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust
.
At the end of the nineteenth century, when Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confession album
belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure
, entitled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." At that time, it was popular among English families to answer such a list of questions that revealed the tastes and aspirations of the taker.
Proust answered always with enthusiasm. The original manuscript of his answers of 1890, at the time of his volunteer internship or some little time afterwards, titled "by Marcel Proust himself," was found in 1924. It was auctioned on May 27, 2003 for the sum of €
102,000.
The television host Bernard Pivot
, seeing an opportunity for a writer to reveal at the same time aspects of his work and his personality, traditionally submitted his guests to the Proust questionnaire at the end of the French broadcast Apostrophes.
Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton
, the host of the TV program Inside the Actors Studio
, gives an adapted version of the Proust Questionnaire to some of his guests. Lipton has often incorrectly characterized the questionnaire itself as an invention of Marcel Proust.
A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of Vanity Fair
magazine, answered by various celebrities
. In October 2009, Vanity Fair launched an interactive version of the questionnaire, that compares your answers to various luminaries.
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...
about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
.
At the end of the nineteenth century, when Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confession album
Confession album
The confession album, or confession book, was a kind of autograph book popular in late nineteenth century Britain. Instead of leaving free room for invented or remembered poetry, it provided a formulaic catechism. The genre died out towards the end of the century, with occasional brief revivals...
belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure
Félix Faure
Félix François Faure was President of France from 1895 until his death.-Biography:Félix François Faure was born in Paris, the son of a small furniture maker...
, entitled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." At that time, it was popular among English families to answer such a list of questions that revealed the tastes and aspirations of the taker.
Proust answered always with enthusiasm. The original manuscript of his answers of 1890, at the time of his volunteer internship or some little time afterwards, titled "by Marcel Proust himself," was found in 1924. It was auctioned on May 27, 2003 for the sum of €
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
102,000.
The television host Bernard Pivot
Bernard Pivot
Bernard Pivot, OC, CQ is a journalist, interviewer and host of French cultural television programmes. He is a member of the Académie Goncourt.-Biography:Pivot was born in Lyon, the son of grocers...
, seeing an opportunity for a writer to reveal at the same time aspects of his work and his personality, traditionally submitted his guests to the Proust questionnaire at the end of the French broadcast Apostrophes.
Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton
James Lipton
James Lipton is an American writer, poet, composer, actor and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994...
, the host of the TV program Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
, gives an adapted version of the Proust Questionnaire to some of his guests. Lipton has often incorrectly characterized the questionnaire itself as an invention of Marcel Proust.
A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
magazine, answered by various celebrities
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
. In October 2009, Vanity Fair launched an interactive version of the questionnaire, that compares your answers to various luminaries.
The questionnaire
There are two surviving sets of answers to the confession album questions by Proust: the first, from 1885 or 1886, is to an English confessions album, although his answers are in French. The second, from 1891 or 1892, is from a French album, Les confidences de salon ("Drawing room confessions"), which contains translations of the original questions, lacking some that were in the English version and adding others.| Confessions questions | Confidences questions | Proust's answers 1890 |
|---|---|---|
| Your favorite virtue | The principal aspect of my personality | The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired |
| Your favorite qualities in a man. | The quality that I desire in a man. | Feminine charms. |
| Your favorite qualities in a woman. | The quality that I desire in a woman. | Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship. |
| Your chief characteristic | ---- | ---- |
| What you appreciate the most in your friends | What I appreciate most about my friends. | To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness |
| Your main fault | My main fault | Not knowing, not being able to "want". |
| Your favourite occupation. | My favorite occupation. | Loving. |
| Your idea of happiness | My dream of happiness. | I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it. |
| Your idea of misery. | What would be my greatest misfortune? | Not to have known my mother or my grandmother. |
| If not yourself, who would you be? | What I should like to be. | Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be. |
| Where would you like to live? | The country where I should like to live. | A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated |
| Your favourite colour and flower. | My favourite colour. | The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony. |
| ---- | The flower that I like. | Hers/His - and after, all of them. |
| ---- | My favorite bird. | The swallow. |
| Your favorite prose authors. | My favorite prose authors. | Currently, Anatole France Anatole France Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters... and Pierre Loti Pierre Loti Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906... . |
| Your favorite poets. | My favorite poets. | Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny Alfred de Vigny Alfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family... . |
| Your favorite heroes in fiction. | My heroes in fiction. | Hamlet Hamlet The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601... . |
| Your favorite heroines in fiction. | My favorite heroines in fiction. | Bérénice Bérénice Berenice is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. Berenice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus.It was first performed in 1670... . |
| Your favorite painters and composers. | My favorite composers. | Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann Robert Schumann Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era.... . |
| ---- | My favorite painters. | Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance... , Rembrandt. |
| Your heroes in real life. | My heroes in real life. | Mr. Darlu, Mr. Boutroux. |
| Your favorite heroines in real life. | ---- | ---- |
| What characters in history do you most dislike. | ---- | ---- |
| Your heroines in World history | My heroines in history. | Cleopatra. |
| Your favorite food and drink. | ---- | ---- |
| Your favorite names. | My favorite names. | I only have one at a time. |
| What I hate the most. | What I hate most of all. | What is bad about me. |
| World history characters I hate the most | Historical figures that I despise the most. | I am not educated enough. |
| The military event I admire the most | The military event that I admire most. | My military service! |
| The reform I admire the most | The reform which I admire the most. | ---- |
| The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with | The gift of nature that I would like to have. | Will-power, and seductiveness. |
| How I wish to die | How I want to die. | Improved—and loved. |
| What is your present state of mind. | My present state of mind. | Boredom from having thought about myself to answer all these questions. |
| For what fault have you most toleration? | Faults for which I have the most indulgence. | Those that I understand. |
| Your favorite motto. | My motto. | I should be too afraid that it bring me misfortune. |