THE FRENCH LITERATURE, ITS FAMOUS WRITERS & GREAT MASTERPIECES "A word is a b ud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the p en which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream."- Gaston Bachelard (1884-19 62), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. French literature Written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France France itself ranks first in the l ist of Nobel Prizes i n literature by country French language is a romance dialect derived from Vulgar Latin Beginning in the 11th century, literature written in medieval French was one of the oldest vernacular (non-Latin) literatures in western Europe French literature came to dominate European letters in the 17 th century In the 18th century, French became the literary lingua franca and diplomatic language ofwestern Europe Famous French Writers 1.Honoré de Balzac, 1799-1850 French novelist and playwright. one of his most famous works, La Comédie Humaine - was a commentary on all aspects of life, a collection of all the works that he penned under his own name considered by many literary critics as one of the "founding fathers" of realism 2.Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989 actually Irish, however, he did his wri ting primarily in French considered the last great modernist and some would argue that he was the first post- modernist perhaps best known for the theatre of the absurd and in particular his play, En attendant Godot, (Waiting for Godot). 3.Albert Camus, 1913-1960 Algerian born author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 first African born author to do so, and he was the second youngest writer to do so in literary history best known for two novels of the absurd L'Étranger (The Stranger) and Le Mythe de Sisyphe. He was perhaps best known as a philosopher and his works certainly reflected his commentary on life at the time. 4.Victor Hugo, 1802-1885 would describe himself first as a humanitarian who used literature as a means to describe the human conditions and the injustices of society. his two most famous works: Les Misèrables (The Miserables), and Notre-Dame de Paris (referred to by the popular title, The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
