The Cambridge History of French Literature

"From Occitan poetry to Francophone writing produced in the Caribbean and North Africa, from intellectual history to current films, and from medieval manuscripts to bandes dessine;es, this History covers French literature from its beginnings to the present day. With equal attention to all genres, historical periods and registers, this is the most comprehensive guide to literature written in French ever produced in English, and the first in decades to offer such an array of topics and perspectives. Contributors attend to issues of orality, history, peripheries, visual culture, alterity, sexuality, religion, politics, autobiography and testimony. The result is a collection that, despite the wide variety of topics and perspectives, presents a unified view of the richness of French-speaking cultures. This History gives support to the idea that French writing will continue to prosper in the twenty-first century as it adapts, adds to, and refocuses the rich legacy of its past"-- Provided by publisher Machine generated contents note: Introduction 1. Manuscripts and manuscript culture 2. The troubadours: the Occitan model 3. The Chansons de geste 4. Saints' lives, violence and community 5. Myth and the matière de Bretagne 6. Sexuality, shame and the genesis of romance 7. Medieval lyric: the trouvères 8. The grail 9. Women authors of the Middle Ages 10. Crusades and identity 11. Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's 'La Conquête de Constantinople' 12. Humour and the obscene 13. Travel and orientalism 14. Allegory and interpretation 15. History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the Matter of Troy 16. Mysticism 17. Prose romance 18. Rhetoric and theatre 19. The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages 20. What does Renaissance mean? 21. Sixteenth-century religious writing 22. Sixteenth-century poetry 23. Sixteenth-century theatre 24. Women writers in the sixteenth century 25. Sixteenth-century prose narrative 26. Sixteenth-century thought 27. Sixteenth-century travel writing 28. Sixteenth-century margins 29. Tragedy: early- to mid-seventeenth century 30. Tragedy: mid- to late-seventeenth century 31. Seventeenth-century comedy 32. Seventeenth-century poetry 33. Seventeenth-century philosophy 34. Seventeenth-century women writers 35. Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century 36. Seventeenth-century prose narrative 37. Seventeenth-century religious writing 38. Seventeenth-century margins 39. What is Enlightenment? 40. The eighteenth-century novel 41. The eighteenth-century conte 42. Eighteenth-century comic theatre 43. Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy 44. Eighteenth-century women writers 45. Eighteenth-century philosophy 46. Libertinage 47. Eighteenth-century travel 48. Eighteenth-century margins 49. The Roman personnel 50. Romanticism: arts, literature and history 51. Realism 52. French poetry 1793-1863 53. Symbolism 54. Madness and writing 55. Literature and the city in the nineteenth century 56. Nineteenth-century travel writing 57. Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France 58. Naturalism 59. Impressionism: art, literature and history (1870-1914) 60. Decadence 61. Avant-garde: text and image 62. Autobiography 63. The modern French novel 64. The contemporary French novel 65. Existentialism 66. Modern French thought 67. French drama in the twentieth century 68. Twentieth-century poetry 69. Francophone writing 70. Writing and postcolonial theory 71. Travel writing 1914-2010 72. French cinema 1895-2010 73. Writing, memory and history 74. Holocaust writing and film 75. Women writers, artists and filmmakers 76. Popular culture and the case of the bande dessine;e 77. Literature, film and new media Bibliography Index. 0......Page 1 00......Page 25 1......Page 35 2......Page 44 3......Page 52 4......Page 62 5......Page 71 6......Page 81 7......Page 91 8......Page 100 9......Page 108 10......Page 117 11......Page 126 12......Page 135 13......Page 145 14......Page 155 15......Page 163 16......Page 169 17......Page 177 18......Page 188 19......Page 196 20......Page 204 21......Page 212 22......Page 220 23......Page 228 24......Page 235 25......Page 244 26......Page 253 27......Page 263 28......Page 270 29......Page 277 30......Page 286 31......Page 298 32......Page 308 33......Page 319 34......Page 330 35......Page 340 36......Page 347 37......Page 357 38......Page 367 39......Page 374 40......Page 383 41......Page 393 42......Page 402 43......Page 409 44......Page 417 45......Page 428 46......Page 436 47......Page 444 48......Page 456 49......Page 465 50......Page 474 51......Page 485 52......Page 495 53......Page 503 54......Page 512 55......Page 520 56......Page 528 57......Page 537 58......Page 546 59......Page 555 60......Page 565 61......Page 573 62......Page 582 63......Page 591 64......Page 600 65......Page 609 66......Page 618 67......Page 627 68......Page 636 69......Page 645 70......Page 655 71......Page 663 72......Page 673 73......Page 686 74......Page 695 75......Page 704 76......Page 713 77......Page 724 78......Page 734 "From Occitan poetry to Francophone writing produced in the Caribbean and North Africa, from intellectual history to current films, and from medieval manuscripts to bandes dessinées, this History covers French literature from its beginnings to the present day. With equal attention to all genres, historical periods and registers, this is the most comprehensive guide to literature written in French ever produced in English, and the first in decades to offer such an array of topics and perspectives. Contributors attend to issues of orality, history, peripheries, visual culture, alterity, sexuality, religion, politics, autobiography and testimony. The result is a collection that, despite the wide variety of topics and perspectives, presents a unified view of the richness of French-speaking cultures. This History gives support to the idea that French writing will continue to prosper in the twenty-first century as it adapts, adds to, and refocuses the rich legacy of its past"-- Provided by publisher