Saint François, un héros sentimental de l’époque moderne De Laurence Sterne à Julien Green

The sentimental novel invests affectivity into narrative and stages elevated feelings which are opposed to a more mundane reality. It is not surprising, therefore, that Saint Francis of Assisi figured as a hero of the eighteenth-century sentimental novel and continued to inspire authors well into the twentieth century. This article examines this phenomenon by studying the presence of Saint Francis in European literature.