The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature

Autorentext

Brian Nelson is Professor Emeritus of French Studies and Translation Studies at Monash University, Victoria, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His publications include Perspectives on Literature and Translation: Creation, Circulation, Reception (co-edited with Brigid Maher, 2013), The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola (Cambridge, 2007) and translations of the novels of Émile Zola.

Klappentext

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

Zusammenfassung
A highly readable and accessible introduction to French literature from the Middle Ages to the present, through a sequence of chapters on major French writers of their time. A comprehensive and engaging account of the riches and pleasures of one of the world's great literary traditions.

Inhalt

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.