The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature

An engaging, highly accessible and informative introduction to French literature from the Middle Ages to the present.

Brian Nelson (Author)

9780521887083, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 June 2015

322 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'Divided into thirty short chapters, each of which is devoted to a 'major' author, this introduction is at once easy to read and solidly grounded in recent scholarship. … A succinct chronology of historical events is provided, as are suggestions for further reading.' Edward Ousselin, The French Review

In this highly accessible introduction, Brian Nelson provides an overview of French literature - its themes and forms, traditions and transformations - from the Middle Ages to the present. Major writers, including Francophone authors writing from areas other than France, are discussed chronologically in the context of their times, to provide a sense of the development of the French literary tradition and the strengths of some of the most influential writers within it. Nelson offers close readings of exemplary passages from key works, presented in English translation and with the original French. The exploration of the work of important writers, including Villon, Racine, Molière, Voltaire, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Proust, Sartre and Beckett, highlights the richness and diversity of French literature.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Chronology
1. Villon: a dying man
2. Rabelais: the uses of laughter
3. Montaigne: self-portrait
4. Corneille: heroes and kings
5. Racine: in the labyrinth
6. Molière: new forms of comedy
7. La Fontaine: the power of fables/fables of power
8. Madame de Lafayette: the birth of the modern novel
9. Voltaire: the case for tolerance
10. Rousseau: man of feeling
11. Diderot: the enlightened sceptic
12. Laclos: dangerous liaisons
13. Stendhal: the pursuit of happiness
14. Balzac: 'All is true'
15. Hugo: the divine stenographer
16. Baudelaire: the streets of Paris
17. Flaubert: the narrator vanishes
18. Zola: the poetry of the real
19. Huysmans: against nature
20. Mallarmé: the magic of words
21. Rimbaud: somebody else
22. Proust: the self, time and art
23. Jarry: the art of provocation
24. Apollinaire: impresario of the new
25. Breton and company: surrealism
26. Céline: night journey
27. Sartre: writing in the world
28. Camus: a moral voice
29. Beckett: filling the silence
30. French literature into the twenty-first century
Notes
Further reading.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature: history & criticism [DS]