Seeing in religion a historical as much as a theological fact, the 18^th century has had a profound bearing on the relation between poetry and the gods. We attempt here in three steps to retrace its evolution. We start with Hölderlin, who was the first to reflect in his poems on the questions raised by the historical transformation of the gods. We continue with Baudelaire who, though he still belongs to what could be called a theological age, tests the latter’s limits. We end with Celan, the poet of the Holocaust, whose attempts to reach the sacred can only take place beyond what can be seen as God’s death in Auschwitz.