The Abbé d'Aubignac's Homer and the Culture of the Street in Seventeenth-Century Paris.

This article examines the seventeenth-century Parisian origins of the idea that Homer, the legendary ancient Greek poet, never existed, focusing on the French cleric and dramatist François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac (1604–1676). D'Aubignac's 1664 speech, later published as *Conjectures académiques*, argued that the *Iliad* was a stitched-together collection of songs performed by blind street singers rather than the work of a single author, a theory shaped by the social and cultural dynamics of Paris's newly renovated streets, especially the Pont Neuf. The article situates d'Aubignac's thesis within the broader culture of street performance and oral tradition, exemplified by the blind Savoyard street singer Philippot le Savoyard, whose repertoire consisted largely of courtly airs adapted for popular audiences. D'Aubignac's skepticism about Homer's existence reflected a broader tension between courtly literary culture and popular street culture, with the latter influencing early modern conceptions of authorship and oral poetry. Although d'Aubignac's ideas were largely dismissed in his time, they anticipated later twentieth-century Homeric scholarship, notably Milman Parry's work on oral epic traditions.