A Short History of French Literature

Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Preface......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Contents......Page 10
List of Illustrations......Page 12
Introduction: The Long View......Page 14
Part I. The Middle Ages: From the Earliest Texts to 1470......Page 26
Overview of the Period......Page 28
The saints speak French......Page 44
Inventing love poetry: the songs of the troubadours......Page 47
The three matières and the move from history to fiction......Page 54
Courtliness and the rise of romance......Page 58
The chansons de geste......Page 61
Clerks, jongleurs, and townspeople......Page 65
Prose: history, romance, and the Grail......Page 70
Treatises, encyclopedias, and compilation in the thirteenth century......Page 75
The Roman de la rose and the allegorical tradition......Page 78
From the grand chant courtois to the formes fixes: the French lyric at its height......Page 82
The dit amoureux: between lyric and history......Page 88
Writing history......Page 93
Humanism, didacticism, licence and death......Page 95
The ‘Querelle du Roman de la rose’ and ‘La belle dame sans mercy’......Page 100
Theatre in the late Middle Ages......Page 102
The future of a poet with a past: François Villon......Page 105
Part II. The Early Modern Period: 1470–1789......Page 110
Overview of the Period......Page 112
From Burgundy to the French court: Jean Lemaire de Belges......Page 126
Rabelais: Pantagruel and Gargantua......Page 129
Religious controversy and literature: the circle of Marguerite de Navarre......Page 131
Rabelais’s later works......Page 135
Poetry: (i) from Marot to Labé......Page 136
Poetry: (ii) the Pléiade......Page 142
The late sixteenth century: Montaigne’s Essais......Page 146
New directions in the early seventeenth century......Page 151
Poetry: (iii) Malherbe and his contemporaries......Page 152
Questions of language and style......Page 154
Theatre: a retrospect......Page 156
Theatre: Corneille and his times......Page 158
Descartes and Pascal: the mid-century turn......Page 161
Literature and power in the age of Louis XIV......Page 165
Questions of psychology and ethics......Page 167
Lucidity and uncertainty......Page 171
‘Ancients’ and ‘Moderns’......Page 174
Outlines of the novel......Page 177
The end of a reign: literature at the turn of the century......Page 181
The letter-form: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Graffigny......Page 182
The philosophes in action: the Encyclopédie......Page 186
Rousseau: autobiography and fiction......Page 189
The sentimental and the erotic......Page 193
Diderot: the philosophe and his double......Page 198
Crossing the divide......Page 202
Part III. The Modern Period: 1789–2000......Page 206
Overview of the Period......Page 208
Literature and political action......Page 221
The Romantic individual......Page 223
Literature and sexuality......Page 226
The Napoleonic legend......Page 228
Romanticism in verse......Page 231
History and prophecy......Page 234
Prose fiction prepares for victory......Page 237
Stendhal and Balzac......Page 239
A colossus: Victor Hugo......Page 241
Poetry and society......Page 244
Writing by women, 1830–1880......Page 250
Theatre in the nineteenth century......Page 254
Literature before the law......Page 257
Flaubert’s war on stupidity......Page 258
Literature and science: the case of ‘Naturalism’......Page 260
Dreyfus and after......Page 263
Gide and Proust......Page 266
Literature and war: 1914–18......Page 271
In Mallarmé’s shadow......Page 273
Dada and surrealism......Page 277
Prose fiction between the wars......Page 280
The twentieth century’s Voltaire: Jean-Paul Sartre......Page 284
Literature and war: 1939–45......Page 287
The fortunes of the modern novel......Page 292
Writing by women in the twentieth century: a long revolution......Page 298
Theatre in the twentieth century......Page 305
Poetry in the later twentieth century......Page 310
Beyond the Hexagon......Page 314
Beyond the literary profession......Page 319
The Revolution remembered......Page 322
A final note, in which the story does not end......Page 326
Postface......Page 328
Suggestions for Further Reading......Page 330
Sources of Quotations......Page 338
Index......Page 346