French Literature

A

Belle Epoque

Before the pessimism of the 1920s set in, a brief period of optimism reigned in France. The early years of the 20th century, before World War I, are called the belle epoque (beautiful epoch) in France because they constituted an exhilarating period of economic prosperity and progress. Such inventions as the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, and the cinema had speeded up and enlivened modern life. The poems of Guillaume Apollinaire reflect the giddy times. He expressed society’s distaste for outmoded styles, such as naturalism, and its enthusiasm for the new and exciting—the Eiffel Tower, cubism, and the joyful life of cabarets and music halls. Apollinaire himself made bold experiments in form and style, eliminating punctuation and juxtaposing seemingly unrelated images.

Some writers did maintain continuity with 19th-century forms, especially playwrights Edmond Rostand and Jules Renard, but many others followed Apollinaire’s lead and created new forms. The extravagant farce of Ubu roi (1896; Ubu King, 1951) by Alfred Jarry and the highly poetic and densely packed dramas of Paul Claudel challenged conventions in drama. The novel Le grand meaulnes (1913; The Wanderer, 1928) by Alain-Fournier is a poetic and mysterious denial of the limitations the realists and naturalists placed on the human imagination. Similarly, philosopher Henri Bergson rejected the naturalist view that human destiny is shaped by predetermined factors and suggested that people have free will and limitless creative energy.

B

Dada and Surrealism

After the outbreak of World War I, many French writers and artists fled to neutral Switzerland. In Zürich, they formed the dada movement, led by Tristan Tzara. In 1920, after the most destructive war yet seen, the dadaists made Paris their center. Although dada is a child’s word for hobbyhorse, Tzara had selected it at random from a dictionary as a name for the new movement. To the dadaists, the meaninglessness of the name represented the assault they launched on reason. Their slogan, 'Plus rien, rien, RIEN, RIEN, RIEN' (Nothing more, nothing, nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING), reflected their nihilism, or lack of belief in anything. This viewpoint was born from the senseless slaughter of the war.

Dada led to surrealism, a movement that dates from the mid-1920s. Surrealism was headed in the beginning by André Breton, and included such poets as Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon. The surrealists believed that another reality lies beyond this one, and they sought to express this irrational sur-reality in their writing through such means as automatic writing, in which they wrote down whatever words came into their minds. Deeply influenced by the ideas of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, they attempted to tap the subconscious mind through the images of dreams and the free flow of conscious thought. They differed greatly from the “engaged” writers of the time who used their writing to display their commitment to causes. These authors included Maurice Barrès, who publicized his views on many political issues; Charles Péguy, who was dedicated to the cause of social justice; André Gide, who became interested in Communism; and Colette, who expressed feminist views in such novels as La vagabonde (1910; The Vagabond, 1912) and Chéri (1920; translated 1929). By 1938 the surrealist movement had split. One faction was led by André Breton, who had become a Communist, and the other was led by Philippe Soupault, who believed in no cause but art.

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C

Between the World Wars

Between the two World Wars, the novel remained the dominant literary genre. Colette, Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, François Mauriac, and others wrote novels reminiscent of the traditional psychological novel of Marie de La Fayette. However, considerable experimentation occurred as well, prompted in part by the growing presence of cinema. The four great novels of the period were radical experiments. André Gide's Les faux-monnayeurs (1926; The Counterfeiters, 1928) contests the very possibility of using an omniscient narrator or of writing a traditional novel in complex modern times. Gide’s book had significant influence on the nouveau roman (new novel) that developed in the 1950s. The second novel, Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932; Journey to the End of the Night, 1934) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, is based on Céline's own experiences as a soldier in World War I, as a doctor in the slums of Paris, and as a traveler to the United States and Africa. The narrative voice uses violent but everyday language to condemn the injustices and suffering of the common people of the world. La condition humaine (1933; Man's Fate, 1934) by André Malraux is the third of the great French novels from between the wars. It takes place during an uprising in China in the late 1920s and creates a new type of hero, the revolutionary adventurer engaged in the plight of the oppressed. Fascinated by film, Malraux adapted his novel L'espoir (1937; Man’s Hope, 1938), based on his own experiences of the Spanish Civil War, to the screen. Both books by Malraux deal with individuals struggling to triumph over destiny.

The greatest of all the novels, and perhaps of French literature itself, is À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927; Remembrance of Things Past, 1922-1931) by Marcel Proust. In the seven parts of this masterpiece, Proust explored the depths of the human psyche, subconscious motivations, and the irrationality of human behavior, particularly in relation to love. The work’s historical and sociological interest stems from its vivid portrayal of France before and after World War I, documenting the twilight of traditional French society. The work’s artistic interest lies in Proust's claim to conquer time and mortality through memories that surface involuntarily and through art. Time is perceived in terms similar to the theories of Henri Bergson: in constant flux, with moments of the past and the present having equal reality.

Theater between the World Wars was characterized by a return to the themes of ancient myth, as playwrights sought universal and timeless values and truths to counteract the nihilism of their own times. The most successful examples of this mythic revival were the version of the Oedipus story that Jean Cocteau presented in La machine infernale (1934; The Infernal Machine, 1936), and La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (1935; Tiger at the Gates, 1955) by Jean Giraudoux. This trend continued after World War II, with a group of playwrights Jean-Paul Sartre called “the forgers of myth.” These writers included Jean Anouilh, Albert Camus, and Sartre himself.

D

Existentialism

Much literature after World War II was in reaction to the German occupation of France during the war. The works of authors who cooperated with the Germans or sympathized with fascist beliefs—including Céline, Drieu La Rochelle, and Robert Brasillach—were ignored after the conflict. But many writers who took part in the resistance movement were considered heroes after the liberation of France. They included Sartre, Malraux, Simone de Beauvoir, René Char, and especially Camus. For these writers, the experience of the occupation reinforced a belief in the absurdity of human existence. At the same time, resistance and collaboration, and the trials of collaborators held after the liberation, emphasized the idea of personal responsibility for one’s acts. This difficult position in which people found themselves during and after the war—responsible for their actions in a world beyond their comprehension—was explored in the philosophy of existentialism. Among works of existentialist fiction written during the war were Camus’s novel L'étranger (1942; The Stranger, 1946), Sartre’s play Les mouches (1943; The Flies, 1946), and Beauvoir’s novel L'invitée (1943; She Came to Stay, 1949). Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir continued to dominate the novel and theater after the war.

E

Other Postwar Developments

Many poets of the postwar period came out of the surrealist movement or were deeply influenced by it. They included Éluard, Char, Henri Michaux, Raymond Queneau, and Francis Ponge. Each of these poets is distinctive, and they share only the concept of poetry as a means to explore the mysteries of the world and the self. In the mid- and late 20th century, modern poetry in France (as in other countries) became increasingly personal, obscure, and hard to understand. One consequence has been a steady diminishing of the reading public for poetry.

The most important postwar development in the theater came in the 1950s with the théâtre de l’absurde (theater of the absurd). Absurdist plays point out the inadequacy of language for communication and the absence of meaning in everyday life. To this end they use inconsistent and even interchangeable characters, illogical or nonexistent plot development, and parody of the conventions of theatre. La cantatrice chauve (1950; The Bald Soprano, 1956) by Eugène Ionesco and En attendant Godot (1952; Waiting for Godot, 1954) by Samuel Beckett are the masterpieces of the theater of the absurd. Other authors of the movement were Arthur Adamov, Jacques Audiberti, Jean Genet, and Jean Tardieu.

The term nouveau roman (new novel) refers to a group of novels written in the 1950s. Common characteristics include the fragmentation of plot, chronology, and characters; the use of innovative narrative techniques; the blurring of boundaries between poetry, drama, and the novel; and the theme of the incommunicability of language. Among the best of the new novels are Molloy (1951; translated 1955) by Beckett, Moderato cantibile (1958; translated 1960) by Marguerite Duras, Le planétarium (1959; The Planetarium, 1960) by Nathalie Sarraute, La jalousie (1957; Jealousy, 1959) by Alain Robbe-Grillet, La modification (1957; A Change of Heart, 1959) by Michel Butor, and La route des Flandres (1960; The Flanders Road, 1961) by Claude Simon.

Much of modern French poetry, theater of the absurd, and the new novel have in common a deep skepticism and even pessimism about the possibility of knowing “reality,” especially through the use of language. In many ways, therefore, 20th-century literature moved toward silence. Poetry lost much of its audience. The theater of the absurd, in contesting traditional dramatic forms and emphasizing the inadequacy of language, left few alternatives for the future, while the new novel proposed to put an end to the novel as a method of storytelling. Raymond Queneau led a movement in reaction to this impasse, called Oulipo (for OUvroir de LItterature POtentielle; in English, Workshop for Literary Potentiality). Oulipo suggested that strict form and rules (often mathematical) be applied to literature, all inspiration be sacrificed to calculation, and literature become a sort of intellectual game.