Abstract

Proust’s legacy is a paradoxical one. In the Recherche, the need to overcome the «moi social» is theorized so that a «moi créateur» can be given, and yet, from the post-war period to the present day, legions of readers and interpreters have made every effort to trace the «moi créateur» back to the «moi social», from the work and its content to the author and his biographical events. Thus, a double, conflicting legacy emerges: that of the Recherche, which urges us to read within ourselves with the tools contained in the novel, and that of Marcel Proust, which, malgré lui, feeds the voyeuristic and fetishist cult of «Proustism». That the latter leads us astray is clearly demonstrated by the philosophical thesis contained in the essay on Sainte-Beuve’s method from which the Recherche itself originates, i.e. the thesis that the work only has value if it succeeds in restoring life in its profound meaning, to be sought beneath the surface of existence, drawing out truths that shine in the confrontation between the present and the past.