French literature

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Middle Ages
- The origins of the French language
- The context and nature of French medieval literature
- The chansons de geste
- The romance
- Lyric poetry to the 13th century
- Satire, the fabliaux, and the Roman de Renart
- Allegory
- Lyric poetry in the 14th century
- Villon and his contemporaries
- Prose literature
- Religious drama
- Secular drama
The 16th century
- Language and learning in 16th-century Europe
- The elevation of the French language
- Major authors and influences
  - Poetry
  - Prose
The 17th century
- Literature and society
  - Refinement of the French language
  - The development of drama
  - The heroic ideal
  - The honnête homme
  - Racine’s fatalism
  - Nondramatic verse
- The Classical manner
  - Religious authors
  - Satire
  - The Ancients and the Moderns
The 18th century to the Revolution of 1789
- The Enlightenment
- Drama
  - Tragedy and the survival of Classical form
  - Marivaux and Beaumarchais
  - Bourgeois drama
- Poetry
- The novel
  - Rousseau
  - Laclos and others
From 1789 to the mid-19th century
- Revolution and empire
  - The poetry of Chénier
  - Revolutionary oratory and polemic
  - Chateaubriand
  - Mme de Staël and the debate on literature
  - Romanticism
  - Foreign influences
  - The poetry of the Romantics
    - Lamartine
    - The early poetry of Hugo
    - Vigny
    - Musset
    - Nerval
  - Romantic theatre
    - Hugo
    - Vigny
    - Musset
- The novel from Constant to Balzac
  - The historical novel
  - Stendhal
  - Sand
  - Nodier, Mérimée, and the conte
  - Balzac
- 19th-century thought
  - Literary criticism and journalism
  - Historical writing
  - The intellectual climate before 1848
  - Renan, Taine, and positivism
From 1850 to 1900
- New directions in poetry
  - Gautier and l’art pour l’art
  - Leconte de Lisle and Parnassianism
  - Baudelaire
- Realism in the novel
  - Diversity among the Realists
  - Flaubert
- Drama
- Naturalism
  - Zola
  - Maupassant
- The reaction against reason
  - The Decadents
  - The Symbolists
- The novel later in the century
From 1900 to 1940
- The legacy of the 19th century
  - Gide
  - Proust and Claudel
  - Valéry
- The impact of World War I
  - War novels and poetry
  - The avant-garde
  - Colette
- Political commitment
- Politics in the novel
  - Céline and Drieu
  - Malraux, Gide, and others
  - Politics subordinate to other concerns: Mauriac, Bernanos, and others
- Poetry
- Theatre
- The eve of World War II
The mid-20th century
- The German Occupation and postwar France
  - Sartre
  - Camus
  - Beauvoir
- Toward the nouveau roman
- Theatrical experiments
- Postwar poetry
- The 1960s: before the watershed
  - Structuralism
  - Lacan and Foucault
  - La Nouvelle Critique (French New Criticism)
Approaching the 21st century
- The events of 1968 and their aftermath
  - Derrida and other theorists
  - Feminist writers
- Other literature of the 1970s
  - Historical fiction
  - Biography and related arts
  - Detective fiction
- The 1980s and ’90s
  - Fiction and nonfiction
    - Postcolonial literature
    - Regional literature
    - Postmodernism
    - Prose fiction
  - Poetry
  - Drama

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Topics

Breton literature Anglo-Norman literature Walloon literature chanson de geste fabliau preciosity cénacle jongleur philosophe littérature engagée English literature African literature American literature Arabic literature Italian literature German literature Spanish literature Japanese literature Latin American literature Chinese literature

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Key People

Voltaire

Voltaire

French philosopher and author

Molière

Molière

French dramatist

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Swiss-born French philosopher

Jean Racine

Jean Racine

French dramatist

Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel

French philosopher and author

Michel de Montaigne

French writer and philosopher

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

French author

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

French writer

Rimbaud, detail from “Un Coin de table,” oil painting by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1872; in the Louvre, Paris

Arthur Rimbaud

French poet

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal

French philosopher and scientist

François Rabelais

François Rabelais

French author

Montesquieu

Montesquieu

French political philosopher

Samuel Beckett, 1965

Samuel Beckett

Irish author

Émile Zola.

Émile Zola

French author

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac

French author

Stendhal, oil painting by Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy; in the Bibliothèque Municipale de Grenoble, France.

Stendhal

French author

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert

French author

Pierre Corneille

French poet and dramatist

Dimitry Levitzky: portrait of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot

French philosopher

Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

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Quiz

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French author Emile Zola in his office on rue de Bruxelles, Paris, France; undated.

Exploring French Literature Quiz

Colette, in full Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, outstanding French writer of the first half of the 20th century.

French Writers Quiz

Hand with pencil writing on page. (handwriting; write)

Word Nerd Quiz

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

List

Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society

12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”