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French literature
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French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature.
French language is a romance dialect derived from Vulgar Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic and Frankish.
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Encyclopedia
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature.
French literature
The French language is a romance dialect derived from Vulgar Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic and Frankish. Beginning in the 11th century, literature written in medieval French was one of the oldest vernacular (non-Latin) literatures in western Europe and it became a key source of literary themes in the Middle Ages across the continent.
Although the European prominence of French literature was eclipsed in part by vernacular literature in Italy in the 14th century, literature in France in the 16th century underwent a major creative evolution, and through the political and artistic programs of the Ancien Régime, French literature came to dominate European letters in the 17th century.
In the 18th century, French became the literary lingua franca and diplomatic language of western Europe (and, to a certain degree, in America), and French letters have had a profound impact on all European and American literary traditions while at the same time being heavily influenced by these other national traditions (for example: British and German Romanticism in the nineteenth century). French literary developments of the 19th and 20th centuries have had a particularly strong effect on modern world literature, including: symbolism, naturalism, the "roman-fleuves" of Balzac, Zola and Proust, surrealism, existentialism, and the "Theatre of the Absurd".
French imperialism and colonialism in the Americas, Africa, and the far East have brought the French language to non-European cultures that are transforming and adding to the French literary experience today.
Under the aristocratic ideals of the ancien régime (the "honnête homme"), the nationalist spirit of post-revolutionary France, and the mass educational ideals of the Third Republic and modern France, the French have come to have a profound cultural attachment to their literary heritage. Today, French schools emphasize the study of novels, theater and poetry (often learnt by heart). The literary arts are heavily sponsored by the state and literary prizes are major news. The Académie française and the Institut de France are important linguistic and artistic institutions in France, and French television features shows on writers and poets (the most watched show in French history was Apostrophes, a weekly talk show on literature and the arts). Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in their sense of identity.
As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, although writers in English have won twice as many Nobels as the French.
Literatures of other languages of France
Besides literature written in the French language, the literary culture of France may include literature written in other languages of France. In the medieval period many of the competing standard languages in various territories that later came to make up the territory of modern France each produced literary traditions, such as Anglo-Norman literature and Provençal literature.
Literature in the regional languages continued through to the 18th century, although increasing eclipsed by the rise of the French language and influenced by the prevailing French literary model. Conscious language revival movements in the 19th century, such as Félibrige in Provence, coupled with wider literacy and regional presses, enabled a new flowering of literary production in the Norman language and others.
Frédéric Mistral, a poet in Occitan (1830–1914), was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904.
Breton literature since the 1920s has been lively, despite the falling number of speakers. In 1925, Roparz Hemon founded the periodical Gwalarn which for 19 years tried to raise the language to the level of other great "international" languages by creating original works covering all genres and by proposing Breton translations of internationally recognized foreign works. In 1946, Al Liamm took up the role of Gwalam. Other reviews came into existence and gave Breton a fairly large body of literature for a minority language. Among writers in Breton are Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Anjela Duval and Per-Jakez Hélias.
Picard literature maintains a level of literary output, especially in theatrical writing. Walloon literature is bolstered by the more significant literary production in the language in Belgium.
Catalan literature and literature in the Basque language also benefit from the existence of a readership outside the borders of France.
French Nobel Prize in Literature winners
The following French or French language authors have won a Nobel Prize in Literature:
French literary awards
Selected list of French literary classics
Fiction
- Middle Ages
- 16th century
- 17th century
- 18th century
- 19th century
- François-René de Chateaubriand - Atala, René
- Benjamin Constant - Adolphe
- Stendhal - Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black), La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma)
- Honoré de Balzac - La Comédie humaine ("The Human Comedy", a novel cycle which includes Père Goriot, Lost Illusions, and Eugénie Grandet)
- Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers
- Victor Hugo - Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Les Misérables
- Théophile Gautier - Mademoiselle de Maupin
- Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary, Salammbô, L'Éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education)
- Edmond and Jules de Goncourt - Germinie Lacerteux
- Guy de Maupassant - Bel Ami, La Parure (The Necklace), other short stories
- Émile Zola - Thérèse Raquin, Les Rougon-Macquart (a novel cycle which includes L'Assommoir, Nana and Germinal)
- 20th century
Poetry
Theatre
- Pierre Corneille - Le Cid, Horace
- Molière - Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, Dom Juan, L'Avare (The Miser), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, L'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives)
- Jean Racine - Phèdre, Andromaque
- Marivaux - Jeu de l'amour et du hasard
- Beaumarchais - Le Barbier de Séville (The Barber of Seville), La Folle journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
- Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac
- Jean Giraudoux - The Trojan War Will Not Take Place
- Jean Anouilh - Becket, Antigone
- Jean-Paul Sartre - No Exit
- Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot, Endgame
- Eugène Ionesco - The Bald Soprano, Rhinoceros
- Jean Genet - The Maids, The Blacks
Non-fiction
Literary criticism
Poetry
See also
External links
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- online texts
- online texts
- online texts
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- French literature on Commons
- site maintained by prominent French poet Jean-Michel Maulpoix
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