Gérard de Nerval et le partage du rêve

The theme of shared dreams occupies an important place in Gérard de Nerval’s work. The great dreamers in his stories, from Raoul Spifame to Caliph Hakem and Francesco Colonna, dream of being two people, which allows them to escape from the solitary nature of the oneiric experience. The decline of this theme coincides with the poet developing writing with a first-person perspective. However, in narration that becomes centered on an isolated “I,” one can still discern the survival of the ideal of the double dream.