Learning French Literary Movements

By Dr C Jayanthi

Do you want to study French? IIT Madras faculty member offers advice on how students should go about French as a course. 

How should you as a student approach the learning of literature as a subject? Especially, the literature of a foreign country.  I have had the privilege of teaching French Literary movements, to English major students at Loyola College, Chennai.

The portions were vast—from the middle ages to 20^th century.  As much as it is tough for the professor, it is tough for the students as well, as he has to absorb and assimilate the subject matter at hand.

I began by giving the overview of literary movements, from the oral to the written tradition, the influence of Greek and Latin in scaling up the written tradition in France. The French did feel the oral tradition of the middle ages was crude with only stories of the glorification of warriors and little else.  They harked back to the Greek and Latin literary works which lay forgotten by the medieval kings of France. These literary works were a powerhouse of knowledge both literary and philosophic. These traditions enriched French language and literary both poetry and literature and led to great innovations in the craft of writing.

A student of Literature has to have a good grounding in the history of an era or century. It is in reaction to historical events that literature flourishes.  Let us take the nineteenth century in France for instance. The 19th literature in France evolved as a reaction to the French Revolution in 1789 where the country experienced tremendous bloodbath. The French people revolted against the monarchy and its terrible economic policies because of which the common people suffered a great deal.  The revolution impacted a lot of intellectuals and writers. Writers like Chateaubriand lost a lot of friends and family in the revolution. The loss had a deep impact on the psyche of these “romantic” writers, who wanted to focus on the “self”, sentiments, feelings, lyricism and move away from the carnage of the revolution, which was brutal in its impact on the people. The movement was called the romantic movement, and Chateaubriand was a leader of the movement.

Also Read: French Studies – Best places to learn the popular foreign language in India

These writers who focussed on the self and a worldview that was viewed through a prism of emotions were called “romantic writers”. They saw divinity in nature and in fact, Chateaubriand went back to Christianity in redefining values.

France, of course, gave the world the republic, which it altered the course of its history and literature.  “Man” became the centre of all writings, and there was a questioning attitude towards religion and dogma.  The romantics of course, went back to religion for solace after the bloodbath of the revolution but then after that there was the literary movement of realism, which said literary texts had to portray reality as it is, and document facts as in a reportage and not personalise events. Let the reader draw his conclusion of events. The greatest exponent of this movement was Gustave Flaubert who wrote realistic novels, the greatest of which was Madame Bovary, about a woman from the peasantry who reads romantic novels and fantasizes life based on that reality and is never able to accept the humdrum nature of her life and eventually commits suicide.  A very powerful novel which is based on the realistic movement that was influenced by the evolution of science and a more rationalist approach to life. Students would do well to take notes of the history of France at the time and the literary movements during that period and contextualise the writer and his writing style within a particular movement. This would help the student understand the movement better.

The realist movement had an offshoot, the naturalist movement wherein the writers were influenced by science, biology and genetics and writers tried to imitate science. The head of this movement was Emile Zola. He wrote novels on the lives of impoverished factory workers and he tried to show in a fictional manner how human behaviour is impacted by genes and genetic inheritance. For instance, in his novel, l’Assommoir, he tries to show how factory workers in Paris are consumed by alcoholism due to their living conditions and a hard life of poverty. Most in succeeding generations are not able to escape the consequences of alcoholism. The novel that was published in 1877, was a huge commercial success and remains one of the author’s masterpieces.

For a student to understand Zola, he or she has to focus on the historical background of 19^th century France, and how literature and the literary movements shaped the author’s writing.

Also Read: French training course for teachers at the University of Nantes

A student would find the 20th century literary climate also interesting. But then to understand the literary writings of the 20th century, a student has to understand the history of 20th century in and Europe. The two world wars destroyed people’s lives. People were being killed in huge numbers all on the basis of ideologies and alliances. There was despair all around. The writer then logically questioned religion and futility of existence. If there was really God, as religions stated then why would human beings kill each other? These events then led writers like Jean-Paul Sartre to question the futility of existence. He headed the literary movement called existentialism. He believed in a humanistic principle where man is responsible for his own actions. He propounded the philosophy that there is no external hell but that hell is how we are reflected as a “mirror image” in another person’s eye or how the world views us. The only way then to escape this hell is to take full responsibility for our own actions. The play “No Exit” by Sartre reflects this theme where hell is not a biblical hell but just a room where three people find themselves after death. They have to come to terms with the darker side of their nature and the reason why they find themselves in their predicament.

I have taken the example of 19th and 20th century literary movements to show students how they should tackle the study of French literature, to arrive at a more holistic understanding of the author and his works.

About the Author:

The author is currently Guest Faculty at IIT Madras Madras and teaches French language to BTech students. Dr C Jayanthi who has a PhD in Indo-French bilateral relation was Assistant Professor, Department of Foreign Languages at Loyola College, Chennai.