Abstract: The first works to introduce a corpus of classical Arabic poetry into France were the Chrestomathie arabe by Silvestre de Sacy (1806) and the anthologies of his students, Humbert and Grangeret de Lagrange. Educational manuals complete with linguistic commentaries, they also contained aesthetic judgements and displayed Orientalist leanings. At the crossroads of the classical and the Romantic, the works initiated a significant debate on the value of Oriental poetry.
