Note 362 — Chapter I · FROM MALHERBE TO BOILEAU.
Reading edition
It may be sometimes forgotten in the quotation of this famous line, that long poem was a technical term in French criticism, from the days of the Pléiade downwards, and means definitely an Epic, or Heroic Poem, not a long piece of verse. It is characteristic of Boileau to hit backwards at the modern epic, of which he was no admirer, in this rather treacherous praise of the sonnet, towards which he was equally lukewarm.