Croire dans les genres ?

For what reason sanskrit theatre was received with a great emotion by European Romantics, whereas long narrative poems after some time were disqualified as epics? This paper focuses on the comparisons and the connections made at the beginning of Western reception of sanskrit literature in the XIXth century, in attempt to understand the complex interplay of beliefs, expectations and affects in the process of reception of a remote literature which presides over the categorisation into literary genres, and consequently governs its assessment and its integration.