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After a quick study of the rare tragedies that borrow their subject from history, S. Saïd analyzes the complex relationship between tragedy and history in contemporary criticism. After criticising the “historical method”, illustrated by the works of E. Delebecque, R. Goossens and A. Podlecki, which deal with punctual allusions to political events and their actors, the paper accounts for more recent studies attempting to define more broadly the “historic moment of tragedy” and highlight a political message allowing, thanks to the distance which the myth creates, for an exploration of the relationships between the elite and the masses, as well as a “negociation” between their respective fields of interest.