French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Duprat, Verisimilitude: Poetics and Theory of Fiction from the Cinquecento to Jean Chapelain
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Review published in Acta Fabula: "Revisiting the history of mimesis, or, the liberation of fiction in Neo-Aristotelian poetics" by Nicolas Corréard.
VERISIMILITUDE. POETICS AND THEORY OF FICTION, FROM THE CINQUECENTO TO JEAN CHAPELAIN (1500-1670)
Anne Duprat
Paris: Honoré Champion, "Bibliothèque de Littérature générale et comparée" series, No. 79, 2010.
- EAN: 9782745318145
- 416 pages
- 75 euros
Publisher's description:
From Renaissance Italian poetics to French Classicism, the theory of fiction has been the site of exceptionally rich epistemological confrontations between the discourse of literature about the world and those of faith, history, morality, and science. Read as a response to the Platonic condemnation of poetry as an illusion of resemblance, Aristotle's Poetics gave rise, at the turn of the 17th century, to theories of the fable capable of accounting for the supplement of being that literary fiction brings to its objects. Can these models, which predate the shifts in art theory and linguistics that today ground the logical segregation between fictional and veridical systems, help highlight the role that fiction plays in the verisimilar representation a society constructs of itself? This is the hypothesis put forward in this essay, which continues the analysis of this rationalist current of Italian poetics of fiction in the theoretical work of the Dutchman Daniel Heinsius (The Constitution of Tragedy, Leiden, 1611), and then in that of the poet and academician Jean Chapelain (1595-1674), who aimed to organize the forms of literary verisimilitude in France.
This study situates itself within the rich tradition of European comparative literature, tracing how Renaissance Italian poetics evolved into the foundational rules of French Classical theory. By examining the transition from Aristotle's rediscovery to the systematic frameworks developed by figures like Daniel Heinsius and Jean Chapelain, the author illuminates the shifting boundaries between literary invention and historical or scientific truth during the early modern period. Scholars of comparative literature, intellectual history, and early modern aesthetics will find this detailed genealogical approach particularly illuminating for understanding the philosophical stakes of poetic creation.
The book engages directly with the epistemological status of fiction, addressing how early modern writers defended poetry against traditional Platonic critiques by asserting its unique cognitive value. Through a close reading of treatises from the Cinquecento onward, the analysis highlights the emergence of the fable as a distinct mode of representing social realities and human experience. This text serves as a valuable resource for researchers investigating the long-term developments of mimesis, the theory of the novel and drama, and the historical relationship between literature and rationalist thought before the advent of modern linguistic frameworks.