Andrew Michael Ramsay’s Defence of Fénelon: Classical Poetics or Political Discourse?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents the hypothesis that Discours de la poesie épique is the first political text written by Fénelon’s disciple, Andrew Michael Ramsay. In 1716, Ramsay published a new edition of Les aventures de Télémaque along with a discourse that follows the rhetoric of classical poetics in which he defends its moral content. Scholarship on Ramsay has pointed out that he made use of the connection he had with his preceptor in order to aggrandize the Jacobite aspirant and legitimize his ascension to the British crown. In the light of these political principles and the criticism of the epic genre, we will analyse a case that reflects the close connection between the development of epic poetry, poetics, and political ideology.