France's political position as the most powerful nation in Europe during the reign of Louis XIV was reflected in the preeminence French literature attained in the 17th century. This Golden Age literature still forms the foundation of French liberal education. The period showed a continuing trend toward the reinforcement of royal authority and, except at the end, of Catholic influence.In 1635, Cardinal Richelieu created the Académie Française with the aim of regulating language and literary expression. The conflict between two literary tendencies — one toward greater creative freedom, which modern critics call baroque, and the other toward an acceptance of literary rules — had been virtually resolved in favor of classicism by 1660. The components of this creed would be codified by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, the founder of French literary criticism, in his Art of Poetry (1674; Eng. trans., 1683), in which reason, proportion, and harmony were defined as the outstanding literary values.
France's greatest dramatists emerged during this period. Pierre Corneille, whose tragic masterpiece The Cid (1637), dramatizing the conflict between duty and passion, remains unequaled in the grandeur of its conception, wrote over 30 plays, most of them, after 1634, in accordance with the Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action. He was surpassed in popularity and critical esteem only by Jean Racine, whose simpler style and more realistic characters and plot structures, as in Andromache (1667; Eng. trans., 1675) and Phaedra (1677; Eng. trans., 1776), reveal a world of ferocious passions beneath a veneer of elegant poetry.
In the comic arena, Molière, ranging from the farcical to the sharpest explorations of social, psychological, and metaphysical questions, created a body of plays that seem as fresh and pointed today as they were when first produced. His masterpieces were Tartuffe (1664; Eng. trans., 1670) and The Misanthrope (1666; Eng. trans., 1709).
During the following century, the lively plays of Pierre de Marivaux inspired the term marivaudage, meaning the style in which the subtle psychological components of love and dalliance were portrayed by the playwright. Toward the end of the 18th century, Beaumarchais held the stage with his popular comedies The Barber of Seville (1775; Eng. trans., 1776) and The Marriage of Figaro (1784; Eng. trans., 1785), which also conveyed a subtly rebellious political message.
French theater in the 19th century was at first dominated by the romantic dramas of Victor Hugo, whose Hernani (1830; Eng. trans., 1830) liberated playwrights from the confining traditions of the past, and by those of Alexandre Dumas père. These were followed in popularity by the well-made plays of Eugène Scribe, Victorien Sardou, and Alexandre Dumas fils, who also defended social theses.
Perhaps more than any other form, French theater illustrates the profound literary revolution that has swept France since the days of Edmond Rostand's flamboyant Cyrano de Bergerac (1897; Eng. trans., 1937). The poetical plays of Jean Giraudoux, especially the astringent Madwoman of Chaillot (1945; Eng. trans., 1947), continued to appeal to postwar audiences, as did the productions of Jean Anouilh, some smiling, some ferocious.
But with Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (1950; Eng. trans., 1958), an altogether new drama, called the theater of the absurd, came into being, marking a sharp break with the past. Samuel Beckett best exemplified both the strengths and limits of this theater in Waiting for Godot (1953; Eng. trans., 1954) and Endgame (1957; Eng. trans., 1958). In these two plays the sets, the characters, and language itself disintegrate into an awesome void. The plays of Jean Genet, such as The Balcony (1956; Eng. trans., 1958) and The Blacks (1958; Eng. trans., 1960), also aim at destruction, but in a fuller, more theatrical, sacramental way. Yet however baffling and depressing these productions are, there can be no doubt that they powerfully illuminate the underlying somber concerns of the present era. Above all, they testify to the ever-present originality and vitality of French literature and confirm its enviable avant-garde role.
Source :
- Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia v.9.0.1
- www.discoverfrance.net
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