Abstract
According to Valéry, art exists when there are several ways of doing the same thing. But consubstantial with the art of doing is the art of losing. The sense of loss defines aesthetic modernity, which values the idiosyncratic, and thereby induces a history of ever-new individualities, as opposed to eternal tradition. The defining criteria of modernity (originality, sincerity) were gradually defined in the pre-romantic era, from the mid-18th century, when the very word " literature" emerged. This idea of evolving forms represents a radical change in our relationship with time. However, not every work is a hapax : genius can only be measured in relative terms (in relation to contemporaries and predecessors).
This is how the history of literature came into being, replacing the paradigmatic mode (imitation of a great model) with the " syntagmatic mode " or successive mode, from which emerge the ideas of progress, distance (its corollary), and therefore the feeling of loss. The Renaissance itself is defined by a feeling of distance from Antiquity, a distance that the Middle Ages were unaware of, as they lived precisely within the continuity of the ancient world.
