Question | Answer |
Les Serments de Strasbourg | First document written in old French. Dated 1842. Written in Latin, Langue d'oil, and German. Partitioned the empire of Charlemange among grandsons: Luis the German, Charles the Bald, and Lothar. |
Langue d'oil | Spoken to the north of Gironde River to the Alps. Future French. |
Langue d'oc | Spoken to the south of the Gironde River. |
Le chanson de Roland | Greatest and earliest chansons de geste. Belongs to geste du roi. Focus is Charlemagne's campaign against Muslims in 778. Roland is his nephew. Franks slaughter Roland's army & Charlemagne seeks revenge. Probable author is Turold. Written ~1100. |
Chansons de geste | epic poem of 12th & 13th centuries transforming warrior into gentleman celebrating martial exploits of Carolingian France. Emphasis on honor, feudal loyalties, and religious obligations. ,anonymous authors, |
the Romances | Created by formally educated poets in 12th century. Flourished in Middle Ages. Subject from Antiquity but focus is on individual, not communal, actions. |
Troubadors | Aristocratic poets, with formal educations, who wrote of courtly love (love from afar) in 12th & 13th. Origin: Provence. Language: Provençal. Lady often married for money or family. Reflection of feudal loyalty. |
Bernard de Ventadour | Finest troubador poet. Musician. 12th. Traveled in England. Work known for emotional power, lyric delicacy, and simplicity. |
Jaufre Rudel | Troubador. 12th. Story of faraway love that eventually birthed Rostand's play "La Princesse Iontaine" in 1895. |
Bertrande Born | Troubador & Soldier. 12th. Poetry often violently militant, egged on Richard in his was with Phillip II of France. Represented in Dante's inferno carrying his own severed head as lantern. Also wrote pretty poetry. |
Arnaut Daniel | Troubador. 12th. Master of hermetic tradition. Master of trobar clus. Invented sestina (6 line unrhymed stanzas with elaborate word repitition). Admired by Petrarch and Dante. Gave speech in Provençal in Divine Comedy. |
William IV, Duke of Aquitaine | Earlist Troubador with surviving poetry. |
Eleanor of Aquitaine | Great patron of troubador's (Will's grandkid). Marriages to French and English kings expanded audience for chansons de geste. |
Chrétien de Troyes | 12th. Wrote 5 Arthurian romances. Well regarded work of medieval literature. Extension of chansons de geste but little role for ladies. Adapted courtly love style to narrative & adventure. Lancelot & Guinevere. Introduced Holy Grail. |
Marie de France | Late 12th. Earliest known French female poet. Creator of verse narratives on magical and romantic themes that inspired the "lais." Celtic themes. Composed in England. |
lai (lay) | Medieval poetic and musical forms cultivated by trouvères, poet-musicians of Northern France. Short, romantic poems. Octosyllabic. Sung. |
Roman de la Rose | 1225-1230. Most influential allegorical work popular into Renaissance. Celebrates and undermines courtly love. 2 authors. Birthed the the Querrelle des Femmes. Dichotomy of approach to love. |
Guillaume de Lorris | Wrote the first 4,058 lines of the Roman de la Rose. Young couple's love portrayed as a dream. Dreamer plucks rose = conquest of lady. Work left unfinished with frustrated dreamer. |
Jean de Meun | Added more than 17,700 lines to Roman de la Rose. Lost the allegory in favor encylcopedic info and opinions designed to impress others of bourgeois. Misogynistic tone via love is synonymous with procreation. |
Christine de Pisan | 1364-1430. Grand Rhetorician. Poet. Most notable female medieval author. Works of courtly love and works championing women. Wrote bio of Charles V of France, her father was his court astrologer. |
Guillaume de Machaut | 1300-1377. Grand Rhetorician. Poet and Musician. Compositions led to the Ars Nova music style of 14th century. Popularized new genres of rondeau, ballade, lai, & virelai. Leader of new rhetoric and poetic art. |
Jean Froissart | 1333-1400. Grand Rhetorician. Medieval poet and court historian. Lived at Black Prince's court. Wrote Chronicles: important, detailed document of feudal times. 100 Years War. Emphasized pegeantry and chivarly, overlooked suffering. |
François Villon | 1455-1463. Grand Rheotrician, poet, thief, & vagabond. Great lyric poet. Short vivid verse of low society lower than Chaucer's pilgrims based on his life. Themes: Parody, lewd jokes, men going to gallows. Crossed medieval courtly ideal. |
Grand Testament | Author François Villon. Imprisoned at Meugn-sur-Loire in 1461 and wrote the testament addressing sorrows and horrors of life. |
Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis | Author François Villon. Compares passing of pretty women to yesterday's snows. Includes heroine of grandparent's generation. "Joan, the beautiful girl from Lorraine, whom the English burnt at Rouen." |
Jean Lemaire de Belges | 1473-1525. Poet, historian, pamphleteer. Forerunner of Renaissance style and thought. La Concorde des deux langages reconciles influence of Italian Renaissance with French tradition. |
Clément Marot | 1496-1544. Greatest poet of French Renaissance. Added grace and personal warmth to French verse (eclipsed by the Pléiade). Introduced the elegy, eclogue (short pastoral poem), epigram (witty poem inscribed on monument), and others. |
Marguerite de Navarre | 1492-1549. Queen of Henry II of Navarre. Patron of Arts and Author. Wrote Heptaméron: tales told by travellers returning for Pyrenean spa but delayed by flood. Added female voice to writing. Work led to the creation of modern French realist novel. |
Marc-Antoine de Muret | 1526-1585. French humanist. Classical scholar. Wrote Julius Caesar, play written in Latin. First tragedy with secular theme written in France. Friends with the Pléiade. |
François Rabelais | 1532-1552. French Renaissance writer, doctor, humanist, monk, and Greek scholar. Writer of fantasy, satire, grotesque, bawdy jokes, and songs. Widely traveled. Wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel. Work had no equal in his time. |
Gargantua and Pantagruel | Comic masterpiece. Exploits popular legends, romances, classical and Italian material. Volume 1: Pantagruel is giant with huge cravings for food & drink. Volume 2: Garguantua is story of Panta's father. Work condemned by Sorgonne. |
Pléiade | Group of Seven Poets who took inspiration from classical masters. |
Ronsard | The Prince of Poets. Court poet to French king, Charles IX. Head of the Pléiade. Wrote "Odes and Amours." Odes are sung with lute. Love is platonic but Ronsard encourages Cassandre to gather her rosebuds while she may because beauty fades at end of day. |
Joachim du Bellay | Poet & critic. Meeting with Ronsard is the beginning of French Renaissance poetry. Author of Pléiade Manisfesto: La défense et illustration de la langue française. Stated that French capable of depth and elegance of Greek and Latin, unlike contemporaries. |
Jean-Antoine de Baif | Poet of Pléiade. Studied with Ronsard under Jean Daurat. Invented vers Baifin, poetic line of 15 syllables. Mediated reforms in French spelling. |
Michel de Montaigne | 1571-1588. Founder of self-exploration & self-writing. Invents new literary art form, the essay (trial/experiment). Tests his own opinions in his essays. Adds marginal notes in 1588 copy for rest of life. It resides in Bordeaux's library. |
Jean Bodin | 1530-1596. Political philosopher. Wrote Six Books of Commonweale about principles of stable gov't. Widely influential in Europe because medieval systems changing to centralized states. Introduced concept of sovereignty into legal & political thought. |
Grand Rhétoriqueur | Grant Rhetorician. Any of principal poets in 15th and 16th century whose poetry based on historical and moral themes. Used allegory, dream, symbology, and mythology for didactic effect. |
Classical Movement | 17th century. Classical ideal of order, clarity, proportion, and good taste. (Baroque movement in the arts) Rude noble transformed to the ideal of "honnete homme" with virtues of eloquent speech, dance, manners, artistic appreciation, platonic love. |
Academie Francaise | Est by First Minister to Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu. Exists in present day. Maintains standards of literary taste. Membership limited to 40. Acts conservatively % opposes innovations in content/form but it did include most of the great names. |
Madame de Rambouillet | Noble hostess of salons. Influenced development of literature in first half of 17th. Nobles & educated men mingled as equals at her salons. Many imitated her. Salons emphasized refinement and delicacy of thought/expression. |
La préciosité movement | Litrary style birthed in the salons that emphasized the preciseness of words. |
Honoré d'Urfé | Préciosité Movement. Pastoral romances very popular in 17th and inspired later writers. Classicism introduced desire for moral analysis and refinement. Wrote L'Astrée, masterpiece of genre. |
L'Astrée | D'Urfé's magnum opus. Lives of love obsessed shepherds/shepherdesses. Astrée & Céladon unable to marry because of families' mutual enmity. Modeled from Spanish & Italian Romances. Stylized manners, conventional settings, contrived plot. |
Madame de La Fayette | Friends w/Rochefoucald. Masterpiece is La Princesse de Clèves, set in mid 16th with contemporary manners. France's first "historical" novel. Launched novel of character & influenced course of French fiction. Psychological portrait of thwarted love. |
Madeleine de Seudény | Novelist & Socialite. Published novels under brother's name, the dramatist Georges de Scudéry. In 1640 replaced Rambouillet with her own salon, Société du Samedi. Work based on important society figures of time, including herself as Sappho. |
François de Malherbe | Opposed the Pléiade. Insisted on strict form, restraint, & purity of diction. Paved way for French Classicism. Owes place in history to critical doctrine he imposed on his fellows. Made French poetry elegant, refined, but unimaginative. |
Théophile de Viau(d) | Antithesis of Malherbe, poet & dramaticist of pre-Neoclassical period. Defended spontaneity & inspiration in poetry. Epicurean viewpoint with apocalyptic visions and thoughts of death. |
Pyrame et Thisbé | important tragedy, finest play of 1620s, shares fresh lyrical charm of the pastorals. |
François de La Rochefoucauld | Aristocrat. Wrote the famous Maximes. |