Isidore de Seville : les prémisses d’une histoire de la littérature avant la lettre ?

Abstract

How was the history of literature written long before its birth? This article aims to analyse, on the one hand, the treatise De viris illustribus by Isidore of Seville in relation with the Suetonian model and with its Christian versions conceived by St. Jerome and Gennadius of Massilia; on the other hand, it approaches some significant chapters of the isidorian Etymologiae. The examination of these erudite works, which are situated at a turning point of the transition between ancient and medieval cultures, could allow the contemporary historian of literature to recover the remote premises of his discipline.