Abstract
The article provides an analysis of the category of verisimilitude (vraisemblance) that occupies a central place in the poetological system of French classicism. This category has already existed for a long time (both in poetics and rhetoric) as a peripheral one; theorists of classicism for the first time have turned the principle of verisimilitude into the dominant notion of the poetological system: this principle was applied to all major genres and to the main components of the poetic material — events, situations, actions, and characters. The definitions of verisimilitude in the texts of French theorists can be reduced to three main ideas: verisimilitude is 1) a certain universal pattern opposed to all that is singular, accidental and irregular; 2) something that “should be”; 3) something that is consistent with the general opinion. All the three definitions imply a distinction between verisimilitude and “truth”; however, this distinction may take different configurations. The verisimilitude can completely substitute the truth; it may include truth if that truth is believable; it may be mixed with truth. The first two definitions connect verisimilitude with the principle of imitation, and the third one — with the principle of persuasion; therefore, we can talk about two aspects of verisimilitude, mimetic and rhetorical (receptive). The correlation of the verisimilitude with the “opinions” of the recipients ultimately led to the notion of its national and historical relativity: the idea of the only possible verisimilitude that coincides with the opinion of the modern French public was replaced by the idea of the validity of various foreign opinions on verisimilitude.
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