The essay deals with Antoine Berman’s analysis on the translation into French of Milton’s Paradise Lost made by Chateaubriand (1836). This translation is one of the few works which the French scholar considers as a good example of the method of translating, which he calls literal, which he would like to be used to translate literary works. The scholar shows how the process of “litéralisation” works and what it gives, that is to say a word-by-word translation, which however does not consist of a mere copy of the text which is being translated. The works that are useful to understand this process are the translation itself and its commentary written by Chateaubriand himself. In the latter, Chateaubriand explains why he chose to translate Milton’s verses by using prose and shows he is aware of the originality of his method of translating with respect to the one used in that period.