French Literature

I

Introduction

French Literature, the literature of France, from the mid-800s until the present. French literature is considered one of the richest and most varied national literatures, noted especially for its examination of human society and the individual’s place within society. French literature does not include francophone literature—works written in the French language but originating in other countries, such as Canada or Senegal.

French literature reflects the cultural and political history of France. Until the French Revolution of 1789, France had a social and political system that was arranged by rank or class, with rules governing how members of one class interacted with members of another. Every aspect of culture and society followed a hierarchical structure, including literary genres and literary styles. The hierarchy of genres had epic poetry at the top and the more common prose genres, such as the novel, at the bottom.

The French Revolution, which lasted from 1789 to 1799, was a crucial time in French history, and it signaled a change in the French literary landscape as well. Conducted in the name of equality and freedom, it brought a democratic spirit that leveled rank, privilege, and hierarchical order in government and all other areas of society. Thus, for example, in the early 1800s writers associated with the romanticism movement called for the abolition of all the literary rules established by the L’Académie Française (The French Academy), which had been the chief institution of literary regulation under the old regime.

Since the time of the Revolution, French writing has been characterized by creative freedom and innovation, culminating in such 20th-century movements as dada, surrealism, existentialism, theater of the absurd, the new novel, and postmodernism. Paradoxically, despite these experiments and innovations, French literary traditions have endured, as have the values of the old order. Thus, the inventive and rebellious Albert Camus saw himself in the tradition of classical novelist Madame de La Fayette, and the 20th-century exponent of existentialism Jean-Paul Sartre claimed kinship with 17th-century playwright Pierre Corneille.

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II

The Middle Ages

The medieval period of French literature encompasses nearly six centuries, more than the remaining periods of French literary history combined. It begins with La séquence de Sainte Eulalie (The Life of Saint Eulalia), a church song in fourteen couplets that dates from the late 800s. The era ends with the printing of the complete works of poet François Villon in 1489. Much of French medieval literature is sacred in the sense that it deals with the lives of saints and the church lore of miracles and mysteries. At the same time, many writers addressed the deeds of French nobility and kings, as well as those of the Crusaders, who fought to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. By focusing on both religious and political subjects, literature was in harmony with the worldview of the time, which assigned equal power to church and state.

France’s political situation was relatively stable during the Middle Ages, although after the reign of the emperor Charlemagne ended in 814, epidemics, famine, and war among the great lords nearly destroyed the country. The reign of Hugh Capet, which began in 987, brought stability to France and established a hierarchy with Capet at the top that promised social and political stability. His descendents led France in the long campaigns of the Crusades (1096-1291) and the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453).

The feudal social and political institutions of medieval France were based on a pact between a lower vassal and a higher lord: The lord gave land and protection to the vassal in exchange for vows of fidelity and service. The social and political hierarchy led downward from the king through the dukes and counts to the lower nobility, bourgeoisie (middle class), and peasants. This order reflected the medieval view that all of creation emanated downward from God and the celestial realm to nature and the earthly world. Literary genres fell into two competing categories in France during the Middle Ages. Some genres affirmed the hierarchical social structure, and others questioned it. Scholastic quests after eternal truths, liturgical dramas on biblical themes, and epic poems known as chansons de geste all affirmed the social structure. Courtly literature (cultivated literature written at French courts) and satirical literature questioned it, although in different ways.

A

Early Literary Forms

Scholasticism is the name given to the medieval way of learning and teaching. It consisted of studying the Bible, the Sententiarum libri quator (Four Books of Sentences) by 12th-century Italian theologian Peter Lombard, and other texts considered authoritative. These books revealed sacred truths as they were understood in the medieval world order, and scholastics studied them by writing commentaries on points they felt the texts resolved inadequately or did not cover at all.

Liturgical dramas enacted in Latin the stories of Christmas, Easter, the Ascension, and other biblical events. Performance of these dramas dates from the beginning of the 10th century. To reach a larger audience these dramas became more theatrical and were often given in French, beginning in the 12th century. In addition, performances moved from in front of the altar to the open space in front of the church. Toward the end of the 12th century, priests began to mix into the plays comical and even grotesque elements to represent Hell and the Devil on stage. More sophisticated scenery represented the Garden of Eden, Jerusalem, and other biblical sites. Le jeu d'Adam (Adam's Play) and La sainte résurrection (The Holy Resurrection), both written in the mid-12th century, are two prominent liturgical dramas.

Sacred theatre nearly disappeared during the Hundred Years’ War, but it was revived in the 15th century in the form of mystery plays. Mystery plays were based on written texts with an average length of about 20,000 verses, primarily on subjects from the Bible. They had enormous stage settings and featured casts of hundreds. The plays often formed part of a larger festival that celebrated the life of a local patron saint or the founding of a city.

The chansons de geste (songs of great deeds) of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries are epic poems that depict the Crusades and wars fought among the aristocracy. The first and most famous of these was the Chanson de Roland (1100?; Song of Roland). The Chanson de Roland describes Charlemagne’s holy war against the Saracens in Spain, his relationships with his vassals, feudal rivalries within his army, and the martyrdom of the hero Roland, who according to tradition was Charlemagne’s nephew. About 80 chansons de geste were written, and although their importance declined after the 13th century, prose versions continued to be written into the 15th century.

B

Forms of Protest

Not all medieval writings accepted the established social order in medieval France. Courtly literature protested against the restrictions of the feudal system and its values, and satirical literature exposed that system’s dark side. Courtly literature examined the social and personal consequences of a system that fostered arranged marriages and advocated the submission of the individual to higher forces and beings. Satirical literature expressed with realism, humor, and sometimes bitterness the reality of life behind the feudal ideal, often focusing on the lower classes.

A more refined culture began to emerge at the courts of the nobility in the late 11th century, an era of relative peace and economic prosperity. In 1137 Eleanor of Aquitaine became queen and brought to the court in Paris the rich and elegant culture of her home in southern France in the region of Provence. One tradition her reign fostered was that of the troubadours, lyric poets from Provence whose verses centered on love (see Courtly Love; Troubadours and Trouvères).

Eleanor’s daughters Aelis and Marie married French noblemen and brought provençal tastes to their own aristocratic courts. Marie’s court at Troyes became a center for discussions about the tensions between extramarital love and the institutions of marriage and the church. There Andreas Capellanus wrote in Latin his De Amore (1185?; Art of Courtly Love), and Chrétien de Troyes wrote his tales of Arthurian legend, Yvain, ou le chevalier au lion (1170?; Gawain, or the Knight of the Lion), Lancelot, ou le chevalier de la charrette (1170?; Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart), and Perceval, ou le conte du graal (1190?; Percival, or the Story of the Grail). These works immortalized the names and stories of the knights Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival.

Courtly literature also includes the Lais (1175?; Lays) of France’s first great female poet, Marie de France; the versions of Tristan et Iseut (late 12th century) of Thomas d'Angleterre and Béroul; and the anonymous Auccassin et Nicolette (1225?). Along with the tales of Chrétien de Troyes, these works constitute courtly literature. Although concepts of love and the relationship between the lovers and social institutions differ from work to work, the central idea that is either upheld or attacked in courtly literature is that love cannot exist within marriage and that the church is wrong to condemn adulterous lovers. In the stories about Tristan and Iseut, for example, the narrator approves of the lovers, despite the fact that the deceived husband is a king and that the church disapproves of their love. The narrator suggests that their love is destined and that God, if not the church, understands this. Many of the heroes and heroines of the lays, or short narrative poems, of Marie de France are also adulterous lovers. Chrétien de Troyes, however, attacks adulterous courtly love in all but one of his works and advocates the compatibility of love and marriage. Courtly love is therefore less an ideology than a set of issues concerning the nature of love and its meaning to the individual and to society.

Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose), begun by Guillaume de Lorris about 1235, is an allegorical poem in which a rose stands for the beloved and a garden for courtly life. It portrays a world in which love resembles the courtly love in literature of the time. The second part of the work, completed by Jean de Meun between 1275 and 1280, is very different. Although it continues the allegory of love, it contains long encyclopedic digressions that cover almost the whole field of medieval thought.

The chansons de geste and the courtly romances—despite their different positions on feudal society—were addressed to the same aristocratic audience. The middle class, however, developed a literature that reflected its own tastes and preoccupations. This was a narrative, satirical, picturesque, realistic, and sometimes smutty literature. Its masterpiece is Le Roman de Renart (The Romance of Reynard), a vast collection of fables featuring a wily character named Reynard the Fox and his adventures in an animal world that is organized in the image of French medieval society. Tales of Reynard were written in French from the 12th century into the 14th century. In the fables written in the 12th century, the literary parody and social satire are largely in good fun. But beginning in the 13th century, in works such as Renart le bestourné (Renard the Hypocrite) by Rutebeuf and Renart le nouvel (Renard the New) by Jacquemart Gelée, the authors strongly denounce feudal customs, abuses of justice, and religious hypocrisy.

Another middle-class form was the fabliau, a short narrative in verse that flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. About 150 fabliaux survive. They consist of the contes à rire (tales for laughing) and the contes moraux ou edifiants (moral or edifying tales). The contes à rire are bawdy, realistic, and sometimes vulgar. The contes moraux, on the other hand, aim to teach moral principles or to decry social vices and hypocrisies.

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