Book Description

This splendid introduction to French literature from 842 A.D. to the present decade is the most imaginative single-volume guide to the French literary tradition available in English.

Conceived for the general reader, this volume presents French literature not as a simple inventory of authors or titles, but rather as a historical and cultural field viewed from a wide array of contemporary critical perspectives. The book consists of 164 essays by American and European scholars, and covers the history of French literature from 842 to 1989.

Customer Reviews (1)

French Literature in Context
The book is very interesting and very well written.It is composed of individual articles and essays rather than chapters, which makes it very refreshing. In this book, French Literature is placed in its historical,political, social, and philosophical context.This approach allows thereader to make more sense of the authors as well the texts.Literature isalso viewed in the context of other artistic manifestations as well as inits different media. The only downside that I found is that, since the bookdoes not aim to be exhaustive, some authors do not seem to find their placein it, Duras and Yourcenar for example. ... Read more

Book Description
This book traces the history of French literature from its beginnings to the present. Within its remarkably brief compass, it offers a wide-ranging, personal, and detailed account of major writers and movements. Developments in French literature are presented in an innovative way, not as an even sequence of literary events but as a series of stories told at varying pace and with different kinds of focus. Readers can thus take in the broad sweep of historical change, grasp the main characteristics of major periods, or enjoy a close appraisal of individual works and their contexts. The book is written in an accessible and non-technical style that will make it attractive to students and to all those who enjoy French Literature. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of a classic anthology, updated for the modern student.Selections in French, with introductory material and notes in English.Includes time lines, introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors. ... Read more

Product Description
Updated for the 2008 AP French Literature Exam - Featuring the complete texts of L'École des femmes, Pierre & Jean, Candide, Le Cid and the required poems on the 2008 Advanced Placement French Literature required reading list, this anthology saves the expense and inconvenience of otherwise obtaining several separate texts. ... Read more

Book Description
This comprehensive new Guide maps the history of French literature from Rabelais, Ronsard and Montaigne to Beckett, Perec, Duras and Koltes.A sharp and lively chronological narrative develops original readings of authors and texts and discusses the literary, historical and socio-cultural contexts of their production. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good reference.
The content and context held much interest because of its well-presented subject matter.

For an inquiry, A GUIDE TO FRENCH LITERATURE: FROM EARLY MODERN TO POSTMODERN really came in handy for a quick reference and for awell-done narrative that read almost like a novel.Recently someone hadmentioned the poet Lamartine to me. Coincidentally, this book for personalenjoyment included the needed reference about his work.Later, theexcellent index led back to the relevant text and the end notes (abibliographyby itself!).The easy access to needed information and thehighly readable narrative to pleasant reading yielded an overall excellentbook.

The content covered a broad sweep of literary, sociological,political, and intellectual history with emphasis on explicating theliterary.The clearly written, chronological organization from 1515 andonwards joined to build both an enlightening narrative and a referencebook.The French-English translations in the narrative (except for titles)enlivened otherwise word-for-word ones; just the right amount of theseadditions (divergences) supported the text.A balanced amount ofpolitical, sociological, and intellectual background illuminated thewriters' prose, poetry, and drama. These writers' comparative viewpointswith predecessors, contemporaries, and successors provided depth; while theliterary details remained securely afloat to take along this reader.

The cover design depicting Pissarro's 'Rue Saint-Honore, Effect of Rain'with its picturesque city-life and its swiftly moving clouds over therooftops, pedestrians, and carriages convinced one to sit with this book ina warm, dry place until the final page. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of a classic anthology, updated for the modern student.Selections in French, with introductory material and notes in English.Includes time lines, introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors. These five volumes, along with a short novella and a play by Moliere, include all the material currently recommended by the Advanced Placement courses for French literature. ... Read more

Book Description
In this examination of the role of ornament in nineteenth-century French literature, Rae Beth Gordon shows that ornament, far from being a simple accessory, raises problems that are at the very heart of aesthetic experience: limits and their transgression, illusion and seduction, pleasure and tension, harmony and confusion, excess and marginality. After placing texts by Nerval, Gautier, Mallarm, Huysmans, and Rachilde within the context of the history and techniques of the decorative arts, she reveals in these works the powerful role played by decorative figurations of syntax, diction, and composition. Gordon's detailed textual analyses yield spatial parallels with specific ornamental configurations (interlace, arabesque, decorative frame, horror vacui, trompe l'oeil). These patterns are then studied in relation to a dynamics of desire. Ornament, taken as the site of desire and illuminated by the theories of Charcot, Clrambault, Freud, Winnicott, and Lacan, highlights important differences between romanticism, symbolism, and decadence. Not only does the author relate ornament to artistic representations of the sublime, the grotesque, and hysteria, but she also reveals that the function of ornament in literature anticipated psychiatric and aesthetic research on decorative form in the fin de sicle. ... Read more

Book Description
The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French is far more than a simple revision of the original Oxford Companion to French Literature, published in 1959, and described by The Listener as the `standard work of reference for English-speaking enquirers into French literature'. As the change in title implies, this completely new work presents an authoritative guide not only to ten centuries of literature produced in the territory now called France, but also to the rich literary output of other French-speaking countries around the world.The scope of the Companion is deliberately open and inclusive, challenging and extending the traditional canon. Literature is understood in a broad sense, ranging from strip cartoon and pamphlet to tragedy and epic, and particular attention is devoted to francophone writing from outside France. Written by an international team of specialists, entries cover individual authors and works - over 3,000 of them - from the troubadours to Cesaire, and from La Princesse de Cleves to La Vie mode d'emploi. Each is discussed in detail within their historical, cultural, and intellectual context.Among the new features of the Companion are the substantial essay-entries, reflecting up-to-date scholarship and theoretical debates on topics such as:- literary movements and genres- historical subjects such as chivalry, or Occupation and Resistance in wartime France- movements of thought from Scholasticism to feminism- linguistic topics- the sciences- the arts and media, including opera, cinema, and pressAs a divertissement for readers, an entry on `Quotations' lists 100 well-known quotations from the canon of French literature.Adventurous and wide-ranging, The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French will be an indispensable and hugely enjoyable reference work for all scholars, students and general readers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Peter France for French Literary Studies
The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French is well written, clear, concise.It takes you 30 seconds to 5 minutes to read any subject and yet get a pretty good idea about it.I am at the Graduate Level of FrenchStudies and I have found every entry that I have searched for:fromcritics' profiles to genre definitions, it has all the major authors andtheir writings, as well as explanations about historical and politicalissues relevant to French Literature.It is a strictly informative text;by this I mean that it does not intend to express any particular point ofview.Finally, the editing and printing make it very easy to use and read. ... Read more

Book Description
The French slave trade forced more than one million Africans across the Atlantic to the islands of the Caribbean. It enabled France to establish Saint-Domingue, the single richest colony on earth, and it connected France, Africa, and the Caribbean permanently. Yet the impact of the slave trade on the cultures of France and its colonies has received surprisingly little attention. Until recently, France had not publicly acknowledged its history as a major slave-trading power. The distinguished scholar Christopher L. Miller proposes a thorough assessment of the French slave trade and its cultural ramifications, in a broad, circum-Atlantic inquiry. This magisterial work is the first comprehensive examination of the French Atlantic slave trade and its consequences as represented in the history, literature, and film of France and its former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.

Miller offers a historical introduction to the cultural and economic dynamics of the French slave trade, and he shows how Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Voltaire mused about the enslavement of Africans, while Rousseau ignored it. He follows the twists and turns of attitude regarding the slave trade through the works of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century French writers, including Olympe de Gouges, Madame de Staël, Madame de Duras, Prosper Mérimée, and Eugène Sue. For these authors, the slave trade was variously an object of sentiment, a moral conundrum, or an entertaining high-seas "adventure." Turning to twentieth-century literature and film, Miller describes how artists from Africa and the Caribbean--including the writers Aimé Césaire, Maryse Condé, and Edouard Glissant, and the filmmakers Ousmane Sembene, Guy Deslauriers, and Roger Gnoan M'Bala--have confronted the aftermath of France's slave trade, attempting to bridge the gaps between silence and disclosure, forgetfulness and memory. ... Read more

Book Description
Timeless literary masterpieces--such as Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and The Miserables (1862), Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), and Camus' The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947)--have been the subject of copious literary criticism since their publications. This volume has been developed specifically to help students and general readers reach a deeper understanding of eight French novels, enabling them to develop a true appreciation for why the works have been regarded as masterpieces. Lucid yet challenging literary analysis focuses on plot and character development, themes, style, and biographical and historical context. This guide offers a fuller sense of the historical and literary environment in which each author worked. Librarians and educators were consulted in determining which eight novels to include. In addition to those listed above, full treatment is given to Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and the perennially popular tale The Little Prince. These eight works cover a time period of more than 100 years, reflecting the development of the French novel and the literary movements of this era. An introductory essay provides a concise overview of French literature through the 1800's and early 1900's, identifying additional seminal works beyond those fully discussed here. For readers desiring to pursue further research, an extensive bibliography has been compiled, offering sources for additional novels, criticism, reviews from the time of publication, and biographical information. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A supplementary guide to aid comprehension
Masterpieces Of French Literature is a literary analysis written especially to help students better understand eight classic French novels. "The Stranger", "The Plague", "The Three Musketeers", "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Madame Bovary", "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Les Miserables", and "The Little Prince" are all examined in terms of narrative style, philosophy, historical relevance, biographical context, and much more. Although brief summaries of the novels are offered, Masterpieces Of French Literature is intended as a supplementary guide to aid comprehension and exploration, and not as a substitute for reading the work, nor is it the mechanical dissection and parsing of a Cliff's Notes - the essays here flow with far more depth, insight, and curiosity. Highly recommended for literature and literary studies shelves.

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Product Description
Learn French and favorite songs from bible camp and Sunday school. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A terrific way to learn French!
In Teach Me French, the author creatively uses Bible stories and well-known spiritual songs - ultimately making learning a foreign language - a fun and exciting venture for any child or grown-up!

Having tested this on my 1 year old niece: Parents will get a kick out of reading this illustrated booklet to their young children. In turn these young tikes will actively listen for proper word pronunciations in order to sing along. The entire booklet is in French with full English translations in the back.

The quality of this booklet/CD combo far exceeds expectations and will provide hours of entertainment, as well as language skills to anyone interested.

Reviewed by Betsie

WOW!
Wow! What a find for parents of preschool (and older) children! This Teach Me French Spiritual Songs Compact Disc contains twenty-one songs, and is packaged with a workbook containing all the words to every song - in French. Then, in the back of the workbook, you will find the words also written in English.

Having this workbook will make all the difference for children who experience this CD. It is very similar to a child's color-book, and would provide children everywhere with hours of coloring fun as they listen and learn another language. Using the workbook, children who have learned to read will be able to follow the words of each song, as well as the conversations of two young characters, Marie and Pierre, as they talk to each other and their friends. The conversations of Marie, Pierre, and their friends are written in the same way that a play is written, making it very easy to listen and follow along with their words. In addition, there are pictures of Marie and Pierre to color, as well as many other pictures depicting scenes of campfires, Vacation Bible School, Sunday school, and many others.

***** This 28-page book and 60-minute audio also features authentic singers and speakers, allowing a child to effectively master the correct pronunciation of the new language.

I can think of no better way to introduce a new language to a young child than through the use of this new Teach Me offering - French Spiritual Songs. *****

Reviewed by Ruth Wilson of Huntress Reviews. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of a classic anthology, updated for the modern student.Selections in French, with introductory material and notes in English.Includes time lines, introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors. These five volumes, along with Focus Publishing's FRENCH Literature Student Edition Series, include all the material currently recommended by the Advanced Placement courses for French literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

gorgeous love poems
a must have for lovers.in french and english. perfect if you have a french lover. only complaint is that many of the poems aer about love lost, or past love. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of a classic anthology, updated for the modern student.Selections in French, with introductory material and notes in English.Includes time lines, introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors. These five volumes, along with Focus Publishing's FRENCH Literature Student Edition Series, include all the material currently recommended by the Advanced Placement courses for French literature. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (7)

Excellent choice
The chosen stories are excellent--all of top quality, both from a literary and (often) from a philosophical perspective. It is very easy to use the fine translation side-by-side with the original French.

The very good and the pretty bad--still would buy again
First the good.These stories are worth reading anyway, even if not trying to improve your French.Can't believe I never read Micromegas before!Can't believe it was written mid 1700s!So the selection of stories is an excellent one and the practice and vocabulary building comes quickly. For that reason, I'd unquestionably buy this again.

The bad.I know enough French to know that the translations are atrocious.Though I am not fluent in French, I believe I could have done a better, truer translation (with help of a French dictionary).Beautiful phrases are translated into mundane English cliches and some unknown French words are, on some occasions, "translated" into the identical (and equally unknown) word on the English side. Did the translater not have access to an English dictionary or did he not know what the French word really meant?

So -- definitely a useful buy for learning and practicing French and (particularly if you can read most of it in French) interesting stories as well.Just try not to refer to the English counterpart more than you must, such as for the periodic word translation.

Good Stories, Good Presentation
This book includes some great authors - the ones you should at least know about if you are going to learn the French language and appreciate French culture. I have always loved the idea of having the English translation on the opposite page. I think it makes learning structures easier. You see how we would write something in English, and then you see how the structure differs in the French version.

compare French to English translation
This is classic literature, a very good book.I'd be interested in a modern works like this as well.Seems like I saw one out there somewhere....

Great practice, but not necessarily for a novice
This is just the type of book I was looking for to increase my French literacy.Previous to buying this book, I would buy a book such as "L'Etranger" in French and also in English and read them side by side--so this book of French stories does exactly that in one book.It's also a plus that the stories themselves are are excellent from a literary point of view, and would be worthwhile reading, even just in English.

The only drawback is, as a novice in the French language, it was very challenging for me to read in French without resorting very frequently to the English side of the page. It made me want to find a similar book, but slightly less advanced, so that I could graduate up to this book.

If you are fairly new to French, this is not for you.If you are fairly fluent, this will be a pleasure read.If you are somewhere in the middle like me, with a few years of schooling in French but no practical experience, take it on as a learning opportunity, but you may not be able to read more than a few pages at one sitting. ... Read more

Book Description
The special, loving relationships between children and their dogs are celebrated in humorous rhyming poems and playful photographs. From waking ("Oh boy! Oh boy!/Look around. Don't you see?/ Another day has arrived/Just for me!") to bedtime, all the highlights of a dog's busy day are affectionately rendered, including the joyous belly rub ("Good human, good human./You are the best."), the walk, begging for food, barking at the mailman, and taking a car ride. Kids won't be able to resist this fresh, funny look at a dog's world! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Aucassin and Nicolette
Reading Aucassin and Nicolette was amusing and enjoyable. The love story of Aucassin and Nicolette is entwined with battles, journeys, and rebellion. It is a light-hearted parody that inlcudes mocking the church,fighting wars with fruit and cheese, and a king in childbed. The issues ofmedieval times are demonstrated when Aucassin and Nicolette's love ischallenged by social order, land, and isolation.Overall, every readershould find this story delightful in its simplicity. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of a classic anthology, updated for the modern student.Selections in French, with introductory material and notes in English.Includes time lines, introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors. These five volumes, along with a short novella and a play by Moliere, include all the material currently recommended by the Advanced Placement courses for French literature. ... Read more

Book Description
Pierrot Mon Ami, considered by many to be one of RaymondQueneau's finest achievements, is a quirky coming-of-age novel concerninga young man's initiation into a world filled with deceit, fraud, andmanipulation. From his short-lived job at a Paris amusement park where hehelps to raise women's skirts to the delight of an unruly audience, tohis frustrated and unsuccessful love of Yvonne, to his failed assignmentto care for the tomb of the shadowy Prince Luigi of Poldevia, Pierrotstumbles about, nearly immune to the effects of duplicity. This"innocent" implies how his story, at almost every turn, undermines,upsets, and plays upon our expectations, leaving us with more questionsthan answers, and doing so in a gloriously skewed style (admirablyre-created by Barbara Wright, Queneau's principle translator). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A very important book in the development of modern fiction.
'Pierrot mon ami' was written around the same time as Celine's 'Guignol's Band', and, like that controversial classic, features a passive innocent on the margins of society, with carnies, circus acts, petty ex-criminals, mad artists - at one point, like Ferdinand, Pierrot becomes an assistant to a fake fakir.

'Pierrot' has slightly more reference to the Occupation than Queneau's other novels in the period - a fire razing a giant amusement arcade is said to have been started by one of the attractions, burning chairoplanes; an uproarious journey with a boar and a chimp is arguably a figure for anti-Semitism; a bottle of Vichy water is pronounced disgusting.

Another point of reference might be Sartre's famous short story 'The Wall'.Pierrot's imprisonment may be more metaphorical than actual - he is condemned to walk the same streets every day; on the one occasion he leaves, the rest of the book's cast go with him, while the strangers he meet used to work in the area - but it provokes the same Nietzchean laughter.

I point this out to show how much 'Pierrot' is of its time - Queneau is often dismissed for refusing to 'engage'.In any case, 'Pierrot' is a supremely anti-Nazi book, with its shifting perspectives, its formal games, its narrativeand semantic gaps, its instability of character, refusing the reader the reassurance of fixity or authority.

But if 'Pierrot' is of its time, it's also ahead of it.Together with Nabokov's 'The Real life of Sebastian Knight' and Borges' Ficciones, Queneau was at this moment pioneering anti-detective fiction, that genre later populated by Pynchon, Calvino, Eco, Sciascia et al, where the conventional rules of the detective story are invoked (a mystery, investigation), but its ideological function is displaced (resolution, restoration of social order).

'Pierrot' is full of mysteries - who was the woman Jojo Mouilliminche died for?Who was the Paldovian prince whose tomb Mouzzenergues faithfully curates?Who burned the Uni-Park where philosophers pay and brawl to see brief glimpses of female flesh, the hero is sporadically employed, and where he meets the boss's daughter who will sleep with everyone but him (well, he is a pierrot)?Are these things connected?There is a proliferation of clues, coincidences and patterns, but, perhaps because of the Occupation, there is less faith in the restorative powers of the genre.

Instead of fixing things in their proper place, 'Pierrot' is a book that celebrates play - every character is in some way connected to performance, and their every appearance is like a 'bit' or 'act' on the novel's stage.

The risks of chance
Pierrot turns away from CHOICE to follow coincidence, chance meetings,crossed paths, to follow, dream-like, the destiny that will take himaccross France with a tame monkey and a wild boar... A book dedicated tothe peace of accepting the direction life sets us, instead of stiding,giant steps, to determine a false life for ourselves. ... Read more

Book Description
"profound, complex, likable" novel, tr B Wright ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Sad and lonely boy wanders/wonders through college
Sad and funny and beautiful, Queneau watches the world and portrays the smallest of things in the most unique way. Celebrating the simpleton, Queneau looks back at his student years. His head is stuck in books. Hemeets few friends. Outside, the world swindles and connives and lies andquips. Outsiders take note, this book settles long after the last page isturned. A special, special book. A great introduction to the world ofQueneau.

The Last Days by Raymond Queneau
This novel (Queneau's second after "Le Chiendent" translated as 'the Bark Tree' by Barbara Wright) is a charming, witty novel aboutthe travails of severalFrench students preparing for their "bacheau" admirably cointerpointed with a secondary story of a petty swindler and a tertiary story of a waiter who comfabulates a fantastic betting schema based on the movements of the lunary planets and their shifts and motion. The deft translation gives the full flavor of the novel, and Queneau's writing is superbly sunny and wonderful. This is a must read for all those interested in the development of the French novel c. 1930-s to 1940-s. It's quite funny! ... Read more