19th Century Used

French literature of the nineteenth century is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French from (roughly) 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts. For more on this, see French art of the 19th century. more...

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The period covered spans the following political regimes: Napoleon Bonaparte's Consulate (1799-1804) and Empire (1804-1814), the Restoration under Louis XVIII and Charles X (1814-1830), the July Monarchy under Louis Philippe d'Orléans (1830-1848), the Second Republic (1848-1852), the Second Empire under Napoleon III (1852-1871), and the first decades of the Third Republic (1871-1940). For more on French history, see History of France.

Prominent trends

Note: the use of the terms "realism", "symbolism", "naturalism", etc. in this article is highly problematical. (1) The sections below do not imply a strict chronology: in the last half of the century, "naturalism", "parnassian" poetry and "symbolism", etc. were often competing tendencies at the same historical moment. (2) While some writers did form into literary groups defined by a name and a program or manifesto, in some cases these expressions were merely pejorative terms given by critics to certain writers or have been used by modern literary historians to group writers of wildly different projects or methods. Nevertheless, these labels can be useful in describing broad historical developments in the arts. Readers are cautioned to treat such labels with discretion however.

Romanticism

French literature from the first half of the century was dominated by Romanticism -- associated with such authors as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, père, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alphonse de Lamartine, Gérard de Nerval, Charles Nodier, Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier and Alfred Vigny -- and their revolutionary work in all genres (theater, poetry, prose fiction). The effect of the romantic movement would continue to be felt in the latter half of the century in wildly diverse literary developments, such as "realism", "symbolism", and the so-called fin de siècle "decadent" movement (see below).

French romanticism is a highly eclectic phenomenon. It includes an interest in the historical novel, the romance, traditional myths (and nationalism) and the "roman noir" (or Gothic novel), lyricism, sentimentalism, descriptions of the natural world (such as elegies by lakes) and the common man, exoticism and orientalism, and the myth of the romantic hero. Foreign influences played a big part in this, especially those of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller. French Romanticism had ideals diametrically opposed to French classicism and the classical unities (see French literature of the 17th century), but it could also express a profound loss for aspects of the pre-revolutionary world in a society now dominated by money and fame, rather than honor.

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