Rhétorique, poétique, spiritualité: La technique épique de Corippe dans la "Johannide"

In the Iohannis the African poet Corippus, circa A.D. 550, celebrates the recent triumph of John Troglita, a Byzantine general, over insurgent Moors : an event which he regards as a victory of the Roman world over barbarians and of Christians over pagans. This study demonstrates that the poem belongs simultaneously to the panegyrical and epic genres. Then follows a survey of the neo-classical principles governing such a composition and an analysis of the epic style of Corippus (narrative, descriptions, catalogues, speeches, narrator’s intrusion), of the world view and of the spirituality pervading the poem. Corippus was aware that he might produce merely an impoverished classical epic : this is why he made of the Iohannis an original Christian epic.