Entre prophétie et prospective: Michel de Pure, de La Pretieuse (1656-1658) à épigone, histoire du siècle futur (1659)

Michel de Pure (1620-1680) has long remained known, at best, as an assiduous correspondent of the Corneille brothers, more dubiously as one of the many writers ridiculed by Boileau. Quite unfairly in de Pure's case, as was demonstrated unequivocally during the colloquium devoted to this talented and innovative polygraph in 2015. Among the multiple facets of Michel de Pure's unquestionable 'modernity' - a French neologism of his own making - his novels (among other writings) offer a sustained and fascinated yet anxiety-ridden reflection on the concept of Time, of future times in particular, a position emblematic of a period that is itself marked by an ambiguous shift from prophetic vision to prospective planning.