The ‘Prelude’ to this collection of articles devoted to praise and blame in Antiquity deals with the epidictic genre in its great variety in the 17th century, to emphasise the importance of reference to the ancients. The aim is to highlight the importance of reference to the ancients, and to highlight the specific nature of the issues at stake through overviews of literary and theoretical works (Molière, La Fontaine, Boileau, Racine, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, as well as Guez de Balzac, Lamy, Le Gras, Rapin, Nicole, Bossuet, Fléchier).