Anti-Italian Sentiment and Temporal Leaps in Les Tragiques A Poetic and Nationalistic Weapon

Les Tragiques acts as a vehicle for strong anti-Italian criticism, with d’Aubigné drawing a contrast between ideological and political models and the Italianized society he observed. From 1577 to 1616, he formed the ideas for the seven books, which led him to establish a text-specific timeline wherein the lived past was absorbed by the present, meaning that this Italian threat was still around. The temporal games facilitated by the malleability of poetry thus became a weapon in a civil and confessional struggle that remained necessary.