Abstract
Chateaubriand gives French romanticism its first impetus withLe Genie du christianisme, a work that proclaims, in aesthetic and literary matters, the superiority of the Christian religion over the polytheism of the classics. It has long been believed that the romantic period coincided in France with a notable decrease of the fortune and the influence of the Greco-Roman world. This is far from certain: In 1852, Baudelaire attacks the representatives of what he calls “L'Ecole paienne” (“The Pagan School”). Gerard de Nerval, Theophile Gautier and Heinrich Heine are the authors Baudelaire is mainly aiming at. What is, in the French romantic accord, the importance of that “Ecole paienne”? What part does Greco-Roman polytheism play in Nerval's work, especially in theVoyage en Orient and inLes Chimeres? This revival of ancient paganism constituted a weapon for scepticism against the Christian religion and the Catholic church.
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