The Cambridge Companion To The French Novel

A unique and valuable insight into the novel in French over the past two centuries.

A fresh and comprehensive account of the literature of France, from medieval romances to twenty-first-century experimental poetry and novels.

This volume offers a unique and valuable insight into the novel in French over the past two centuries. In a series of essays, acknowledged experts discuss a variety of topics including nineteenth-century realism, women and fiction, popular fiction, experiment and innovation, war and the Holocaust, the Francophone novel, and postmodern fiction. They offer a challenging reassessment of major figures, while deliberately reading traditional views of literary history against the grain. Theoretical discussion is combined with close reading of texts and exploration of context, comparison with other genres and other literatures, and reference to novels from earlier periods. This companionable introduction includes a chronology and guide to further reading. From it emerges a strong sense of the vitality and energy of the modern French novel, and of the debates surrounding it.

This Companion focuses on the novel as a global genre and examines its role, impact and development.

An authoritative and accessible account of French literature from medieval romance to avant-garde poetry. It explores the medieval roots of modern literature; French tragedy; why the Romantics revered nature; how Proust helped create the modern novel; and the widely varying uses authors have made of the French language.

This accessible Companion provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive introduction to French music from the early middle ages to the present.

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