Intertextual and Paratextual Relations Between La Recherche and Le Dit

Abstract

This chapter first studies François Cheng’s intertextual reference to Proust in a ‘pivotal’ passage in Le Dit de Tianyi, re-examining Proust’s fluid sense of time from a Daoist point of view infused with water imagery. It incorporates a range of intertextual and paratextual materials included in the Chinese translation of Le Dit (additional preface , footnotes , interview, etc.), which provide further evidence of Cheng’s intention to displace and reappropriate Proust. These empirical observations will pave the way for the wide range of generic, structural, thematic, and conceptual parallels and comparisons between Proust’s and Cheng’s works explored in the next chapter.