Eighteenth-century France witnessed an abundance of poetic creativity that was considerably overshadowed by the subsequent practices of the Romantics, keen to present themselves as the inventors of modernity. Although they were nourished by the works of their predecessors, and often inspired by them, the Romantics insisted on the absolute originality of the poet, whereas the poetry that was composed during the last three reigns of Ancien Régime (Old Regime) France can only be fully appreciated with reference to a sort of collective creativity, whereby features that were common to various works of poetry were considered to be more important than their differences. It is noteworthy that until the very end of the …
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Citation: Menant, Sylvain. "Poetry in 18th-century France". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 January 2022 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19636, accessed 21 November 2024.]
