Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns (French: Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes) was a debate about literary and artistic merit that stirred the French literary and artistic world for most of the 17th century, and whose echoes continued throughout the 18th century. It started with a small number of debaters in the Académie Française, and grew to encompass most of the French educated community. This debate took its historical name from the publication, starting in 1688, of Charles Perrault's Parallèle des anciens et des modernes (Parallel of the Ancients and the Moderns), whose title provided the pretext for a play on words transforming "parallèle" into "querelle" (quarrel).