Imaginaire mélancolique et rhétorique sacrée dans La Dernière Semaine de Michel Quillian

Abstract

There are few areas of late 16th-century literature in France from which melancholy is absent. Religious literature does not escape it either, as testified by a very popular theme of vanitas. It is also evident in apocalyptic writing where religious rhetoric and melancholy meet. The French apocalyptic epics of the time take advantage of these possibilities to reinforce the effectiveness of the message. This article explores the melancholic landscapes in Michel Quillian’s La Dernière Semaine and considers the place that this imagery and these themes might have had in its author’s parenetic design and rhetorical choices.