Insights
François-René de Chateaubriand’s American writings occupy a distinctive place in French travel literature. They record an encounter with the young United…
Denis Diderot occupies a distinctive place in eighteenth-century French literature. He wrote fiction that behaves like philosophy, philosophy that borrows the…
Colette entered French literature with stories that appeared playful, intimate, and sometimes scandalous. Beneath their elegant prose, however, her early…
Louis-Ferdinand Céline remains one of the most difficult figures in modern French literature. His novels transformed the sound of prose, bringing speech,…
Pierre de Marivaux made comedy out of hesitation. In his plays, a glance can contradict a declaration, a disguise can expose social truth, and a seemingly…
Jules Michelet’s Histoire de France is one of the most ambitious historical works produced in nineteenth-century Europe. Written across several decades, it…
Leconte de Lisle occupies a distinctive place in nineteenth-century French poetry. His verse turns away from personal confession and immediate political…
The court of Louis XIV has often been remembered through its grandest images: Versailles glittering with mirrors, ambassadors waiting in ceremonial rooms, and…
François-René de Chateaubriand did more than give French literature a new style. He created a recognisable emotional figure: the solitary, sensitive,…
Paul-Louis Courier wrote in an age of restored kings, restricted newspapers, royal censorship, and bitter arguments about who had the right to govern France.…