Abstract: This article examines the gradual formation of the literary canon of the French Renaissance theater, which subsequently largely predetermined the emergence and further evolution of classical drama. The subject of the study is the principles of dramatic art, which are formulated by poets and theorists of the XVI century in the framework of poetic texts and treatises. The purpose of the work is to identify possible stages of the formation of the theatrical canon in Renaissance France, to compare its principles with medieval theater, to determine to which stage the emergence of ideas about classical theater based on ancient models belongs, to identify the factors that influenced its development.    The novelty of the research lies in an attempt to comprehensively analyze poetic texts and treatises, which make it possible to recreate the processes that took place in the XVI century in the field of French theater, as well as to compare them both with the medieval tradition and with gradually emerging classicism. The relevance of the work lies in the fact that in literary studies there is a need to understand how the classical principles of French drama are formed on the material of poetical works of the Renaissance. As a result, it is obvious that in the process of forming the canon of the French Renaissance theater, three stages can be distinguished. The first of them is connected with the publication of the manifesto of Joachin Du Bellay, which fixes a "gap" in the field of drama in French literature and calls for filling it. For the implementation of the second stage, the figure of Etienne Jodel, the author of the tragedy "Captive Cleopatra", who embodied an attempt to revive the ancient tragedy, and the comedy "Eugene", becomes decisive. So in France of the XVI century. there was a national theatrical tradition, which can be considered a literary canon. The third stage of its formation was the recognition of Jodel's achievements at the level of poetry theory. In 1555 Jacques Peletier in "Poetic Art" cited both works as examples of tragedy and comedy, which contributed to the consolidation of the canon.

Abstract: This article discusses formation of the concept of “genre” in France of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, as well as codification of the corresponding term in literary language. The subject of this research is denominations of the category of genre used by the authors of theoretical treatises of the XV – XVI centuries, and the concept of “genre”, which was gradually introduced into the French theory of poetry. The goal is to determine the stages of development of the category of genre within the framework of French theoretical texts of the XV – XVI centuries, as well as denominations for the genre forms employed by the theoreticians, their similarities and differences. An attempt is made to identify at which point in French theory appears the interpretation of the term “genre” similar to the modern one. The novelty of consists in analysis of the concept of genre in diachrony based on the material of French treatises of the XV – XVI centuries. Majority of the texts considered in the article did not receive due attention within the Russian literary studies, which substantiates the relevance of studying French literary theory of the Renaissance Era. It is demonstrated that the authors of French treatises of the XV century denoted the concept of genre as “rithme”, “taille”, “manière”, “façade”, “espèce”, using them as synonyms within the framework of a single text. However, by the early XVI century, the genre form is viewed as a separate category; therefore, the number of denominations s is gradually reduced. For the first time, the term “genre” was used in the literary context in Pierre Fabre’s treatise of 1521; although at that time it partially keeps the meaning borrowed from Latin. The terms was codified later, in 1555, in Jacques Peletier’s “Art Poétique”; and from this point on it was applied by literary theoreticians for denoting different types of genre forms.