Influence rétrospective et regard prophétique : le cas de Proust et Bassani

This article explores the idea of retrospective influence in comparative literature. This concept allows to go beyond the traditional idea of reception and to discover hidden analogies between texts. As a matter of fact, retrospective influence permits to settle the prophetic power of some literary works that happen to reveal in advance themes and narrative structures that will be fully developed only in later books. We will analyse intertextual connexions between Proust’s and Giorgio Bassani’s works. The purpose is to demonstrate that the Affaire Dreyfus’s episode in the Recherche is built on anachronic analogies between different historical periods, as Bassani does in his novels. Our analysis examines the double function of this particular stylistic device that works on two levels, textual and intertextual. Our hypothesis is that through Bassani’s work it is possible to discover, in the historical episodes of the Recherche, some disturbing and sinister intuitions that make Proust’s work really prophetic.