ANDRE GIDE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INFLUENCED

The important influence Andre Gide exerted on twentieth-century thought was recognised by Sartre in 1951, the yearofGide'sdeath. But it isGide's connection with influence of a different kind that this article will be highlighting. Its aim is to bring to the fore Gide' s own theoretical writings on influence, which are still relati vely disregarded, in order to demonstrate the extent of his interest in the subject of influence throughout his long life.2 The argument will be that Gide's own theories on influence were constantly of critical importance to him and that four of them in particular were indispensable in his encounters with others, through social intercourse or his readings, as well as at the moment of artistic composition, and that, together, they constituted a personal system of conduct to which he had frequent recourse and which he needed desperately to rely upon during the period of his maturity. 3 By pursuing such a line of argument, the full extent of Gide's interest in the question of influence should become clearer.