Abstract: This text outlines the key points of a new reading of the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes as it resurfaced at the end of the seventeenth century, seen as a crisis of political representation of temporality and as an effort to respond to the establishment of a cultural presentism bent on subverting the very idea of modernity. Analyzed this way, the Querelle can still have an impact on our conception of “classical” time and the relevance of “classical” texts today.
