Héroïde

A héroïde is a term in French literature for a letter in verse, written under the name of a hero or famous author, derived from the Heroides by Ovid.

The dramatic action is psychological, the story replaces the dialogue and the reader's imagination must be taken sufficiently to make it able to reconstitute the evolution of the drama to which it is only given the view of one of the characters.

According to Marmontel: "The poet is both the decorator and engineer, not only must he trace back in his verses the location of the stage, but also reconstitute the action, the movement, in one word everything that would be missed if the poem was dramatic."

The letters of Heloise and Abelard supplied Beauchamps, Colardeau and Dorat material for several héroïdes.

Modern writers, freeing themselves from the constraints enforced on poetry by earlier poetics, also abandoned old didactic modes, such as the elegy, the ode, the dithyramb the stanza and the héroïde, letting them fuse in either the meditation or the complaint, only forms under which the poet seems to want to express his thoughts.