Online text: GALLICA - INTERNET ARCHIVE

The treatise is the first part of a work commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu that remained incomplete due to the latter's death. The first volume deals only with elegy and tragedy. The text is of particular interest for its typology of characters, in which the latter are carefully described in terms of age, profession, social rank, moral disposition and passions.

LATER EDITIONS:
Second edition: La poëtique de Jules de La Mesnardiere. Tome premier, Paris, Antoine de Sommaville, 1640.
Various copies of the first edition exist that lack the errata corrige and are newly dated 1640.

RECENT EDITIONS:
Reprint of the edition of 1640: Genève, Slatkine Reprints, 1972.