The role of the magazine "La nouvelle revue francaise" in the formation of the European literary canon

The paper establishes the place of the literary magazine «La Nouvelle Revue Française» in the XX century literary field and examines how the editorial policies could influence the new European literary canon. NRF, created by André Gide in 1909, as well as the associated publishing house «Gallimard», counted amongst their authors almost all the important names of the modernist culture. Siding neither with the conservatives nor with the avant-gardists, NRF managed to create its own literary circle which accumulated a considerable symbolic power. This paper argues that a key moment in the magazine’s history was the death of Marcel Proust, whose emerging cult was used by the NRF circle as a means to establish their version of the French canon.