The focus of the present study is to define the nature of this threshold contextualizing it within philosophical conceptions of the subject. Proust is not an exception of this implicit rule of philological practice. For instance, lots of thoughts have been put in the question of his postmodern status favoring concepts of surface and permanent change, especially in the roman d'Albertine 1.
These critics have developed a dominant narrative, whereas contrary aspects of essentiality and substance, however visible in Proust's writing, were often denied lock, stock and barrel; or were historicized as a mere episode of the textual genesis of the Recherche 2. With this aim, the reflection is dedicated to a quite humble rhetorical figure, the allegory. Allegory in Proust was analysed first and foremost by Jauss, Stierle and De Man, in fact as an element of art or painting 3 , whereas the discussion of essentiality was held apart.
But there may well be some relations between the discourses of allegory and essence. This study supposes that allegory and its functionality are apt to reveal transcendental patterns in Proust. To understand these patterns, Proust's allegorical practice must be identified in connection with the transcendental paradigm, an analytical process which postulates a specific understanding of this very old anthropological device.
Furthermore, the conception of the subject implied in the transcendental function of allegory shall be illustrated. So we will approach the problem of the different conceptions of subject produced by metaphysical thought.
But let's first look at the history which illustrates allegory as an indicator of the relation of man to the transcendental sphere. By adopting this model in main aspects, the romantic period developed a pantheism of all-love which propagated the union between nature, God, and the feeling subject 5.
