La Légende des siècles ou l’éclatement de l’épique

This paper examines the notion of “explosion” undergone by the epic genre in Victor Hugo’s La Légendes des siècles as a twofold phenomenon: not only the dislocation and dispersion into a multitude of “small epics” announced by the book’s subtitle, but more essentially a redefinition of the epic as a specific mode of seeing the world. Such a fresh approach is studied in the light of Auerbach’s and Staiger’s theories about the epic considered as a mode of exteriorisation and elucidation.