A misread Proust but is it still alive? Note on the critical reception of Proust’s novel in the 40s and 50s

Abstract

Brazil has known an early and ample reception of the work of Marcel Proust; important writers like Augusto Meyer, Jorge de Lima, Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Gilberto Freyre have not concealed their admiration for the French author. How to study this reception? If the intention is not to have just a simple catalog of names, the choice of texts, readers, context is needed then. The aim of our approach, besides its comparatist dimension, is to examine the reading of Jean-Paul Sartre and Antonio Candido, two important literary critics and readers of Proust, in the 1940’s and 1950’s.