La Belle Hélène de Constantinople Hybridation ou syncrétisme générique ?

This article shows that the apparent mixing of genres in the Belle Hélène de Constantinople rests in fact on the combination of clearly identifiable generic matrixes (saint’s lives, chanson de geste, and the romance) which rub shoulders with each other without losing their identity. If hagiography remains the dominant interpretative guide, these three generic models coexist in a state of equilibrium which relates more to hybridisation than it does to syncretism.