See also: Pseudépigraphe

A pseudépigraphe is a work whose Nom of the author or it title are false.

Authors and pseudonyms

Certain authors write under a name other than theirs, known as “Pen name”, for various reasons. The objective can be to protect the honor from the family: it is the case for example of François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire; of Jean Poquelin Baptist, known as Molière; of Dawn, Dudevant baroness, known as George Sand.

The choice of a pseudonym can also make it possible to escape the police force or the censure, policy and/or nun: thus, Yves-Marie Congar tells in her newspaper that the review Christian Témoignage proposed to him to publish chronicles under pseudonym. In the same way, the researcher Christian Luexenberg, whose linguistic speciality relates to the old and modern languages Means and of the Middle East, and therefore, works on the historico-critical research on the Coran, is not as German as its pseudonym indicates it - its safety requires that it publish under a name of loan.

More simply, it can be a question of making cohabit several fields of competence: thus, a Médecin author of works of medicine can also write Detective novels under another name.

In certain cases, the pseudonym is high with the row of the fine arts: one can quote Emile Ajar and Romain Gary, Fernando Pessoa, or Rrose Sélavy.

Works put under the name of an other

The most known pseudépigraphes are of religious origin: thus of the Letter of Aristée or of the pseudépigraphe S of the Bible. However, the practice is very current and old: many are the texts of the Antiquité wrongfully allotted to such or such author. It is usual in this case to attach in the name of the author proposed the “pseudo” prefix. Most known are:

• the Pseudo-Hésiode, author of the Shield of Héraclès ,
• the Pseudo-Denys Aréopagite, author of the celestial Hierarchy
• the Pseudo-Longin, author of the Treated sublime
• the Pseudo-Apollodore, author of the Library
• the Pseudo-Apulée, author of the letter bringing back the origins of the Greek Bible of the Seventy
• the Pseudo-Aristée
• the Pseudo-Frédégaire
• the Pseudo-Augustin
• the Pseudo-Hygin
• the Pseudo-Scymnos
• the Pseudo-Galien
• the Pseudo-Callisthène
• the Pseudo-Plutarque
• the Pseudo-Abdias
• the Pseudo-Callisthène

See too

• Apocryphal book

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