The article discusses the Gérard de Nerval’s voice in the debate on the sources and origins of French national literature. The main subjects of analysis are two of his articles from 1830, the prefaces to choice of poems of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baïf, Belleau, Du Bartas, Chassignet, Desportes, and Régnier, as well as to selection from German poetry. In the light of the dispute in the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century over the greater importance of trouvères or troubadours as the fathers of national literature, Nerval’s position is less rigid and lacking pathos. He recalls the medieval noble and folk literature, one which is the product of chivalric culture unifying many groups and the other, “Gallic” whi...