L’épopée historique au XVIIe siècle en France : une histoire paradoxale

Any history of the French epic must be envisaged as that of the genre’s engagement with historical times, following its purpose in the European tradition. A paradoxical history indeed, as the epic, while hailed as the pinnacle of literature in the 17th century, went through two successive and antagonistic periods of blossoming, both undervalued or even despised by literary history: the first wave consisted of parodies (notably the Virgile travesti); the second and immediately succeeding phase produced serious-minded historical epics. This phenomenon will be analyzed with the methods of sociocriticism, because it can only be understood in the light of the relationship between literature and the crisis of the Fronde, then with the hope raised by the victory of the King’s faction and the accession to power of Louis XIV in the midst of a quarrel opposing ancients and moderns.