French Literature: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring People have been writing literary works in French for a thousand years, since the 11th century.What began as a small stream of texts copied by hand has become a vast river of printed poems, dramas, novels, stories, biographies, and autobiographies in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of forms created and enjoyed now not only in Europe but on many continents.French was long the true lingua franca of cultural elites in many countries.Yet, French has also been a language of revolutionary aspirations and of those campaigning for human rights.This Very Short Introduction is a guide to the most distinctive works from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and into the Baroque and Enlightenment periods, and then into the explosion of writings and movements from Romanticism to the twenty-first century.The concept of character serves as a guiding thread through these many periods.What kinds of individuals appear as protagonists? What can we inf