Abstract EN:

This study's aim is to examine the notion of literary genres taking Ovid’s metamorphoses as its starting point. Inheritor of the alexandrine blending of the genres and Augustan poetics, the author has an experimental approach to genre. The tonal, thematic, lexical and stylistic kaleidoscope of the metamorphoses bears witness to this. Although identification of structural characteristics corresponding to given genres (epic, hymn, elegy, tragedy, bucolic) is attempted here, it has however been deemed impossible to catalogue the work as a whole. The hybrid association of a continuous canto and digressions simultaneously subverts the epic progression and the diverse genres integrated therein. Ultimately, the question of frontiers must be raised. The limits set by tradition tend to fade to the advantage of the crossbreeding on which the text's coherence is founded. The myths change meaning when the genre changes. The sense of playfulness and the ascendancy of the storyline explain the metamorphosis imposed on literary masterpieces. Finally, this text challenges the mythical ideal of purity drawn up by the rhetoricians and poeticists of antiquity.