The romanticism of the classics 1802. Dialogue des morts, or how to make literary history with a piece of circumstance

On 26th february, 1886, the Comédie-Française celebrates Hugo’s birthday anniversary with a short occasional play by Renan, le Dialogue des morts. The authors of the XVIIth and XVIIIth century, in the elysian fields, are celebrating the expected birth of the next genius of french literature. This occasional work is also literary theory indeed : it cancels the usual artificial opposition between classicism and romanticism, and promotes an appeased vision of national literary history.