[A la recherche du temps perdu] recapitulates the entire literary tradition, from the Bible to Flaubert and Tolstoy, and all literary genres. Proust’s novel also espouses the romantic and symbolist dream, shared by Mallarmé and Wagner, of a synthesis of all the arts, painting, music and architecture. Thus are born works which escape the constraints of their time period, their country, their author, and whose glory continues to grow. It has often been said that, if England has Shakespeare, Germany Goethe, Italy Dante, France had no one writer to equal them. The number of critical works devoted to the author of the Recherche suggests that France now has, and will have tomorrow, Marcel Proust.