The rise of modern French ‘histoire littéraire’ is charted in a separate entry [see Literary History]. The present entry lists some of the main histories of French literature currently available. These are numerous and cater for all levels of interest. [For other Francophone countries see bibliographies for the relevant entries.]
Of the classic early 20th-c. histories, the most impressive in some ways is the single-author, single-volume Histoire de la littérature française (1895, frequently revised) of the principal founder of the discipline, Lanson. At the same time L. Petit de Julleville edited a much longer Histoire de la langue et de la littérature françaises (8 vols., 1896-9), for which Brunot treated the history of the language. In 1923 came the 2-volume Littérature française of J. Bédier and P. Hazard, which retained its classic status for a quarter-century (in 1948 P. Martino produced a new edition).
There have been several multi-volume histories in French since 1950. The Histoire de la littérature française (new edn., 1955-64), directed by J. Calvet, contains 10 volumes, each written entirely by one author, as is the case in the 16-volume Littérature française (1970-9), directed by C. Pichois. The five volumes published by the Presses Universitaires de France under the heading Précis de littérature française (1985-91, one volume per century from the 16th to the 20th) are collective works, each under a separate editor. The first volumes of another collection launched in 1992 by the same publishers under the heading ‘Collection Premier Cycle’ follow a similar pattern of multiple authorship, with the exception of M. Zink, Littérature française du moyen âge (1992).
Two general histories stand out. Volume 3 of the Histoire des littératures in the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade is entitled Littératures françaises, connexes et marginales (1978); as well as excellent chapters on periods, genres, and authors, it contains sections on francophone, regional, and patois writing. The Histoire littéraire de la France (1974-80), under the general direction of P. Abraham and R. Desné, contains 12 multi-author volumes which, from a generally left-wing perspective, provide a good account of the historical development of French literature in relation to social, political, and economic movements. In addition, the brief Histoire de la littérature française (1991) by R. Balibar, published in the ‘Que sais-je?’ series, radically scrutinizes all three terms, ‘histoire’, ‘littérature’, ‘français’, and suggests a different way of telling the story.
There are many histories of individual genres or particular periods. Some of the former are mentioned here under the relevant entries; of the latter the most impressive is the rich Histoire de la littérature française du XVIIe siècle (5 vols., 1948-56) of A. Adam. One might also mention the personal but well-documented account of recent writing by P. de Boisdeffre, Histoire de la littérature de langue française des années 1930 aux années 1980 (1985).
In English there have been a number of one-volume surveys, such as G. Saintsbury's A Short History of French Literature (1882), L. Strachey's Landmarks in French Literature (1912), and G. Brereton's A Short History of French Literature (1954), all of which naturally bear the marks of their author and his time. Of collective publications, the six volumes of French Literature and its Background (1968-70), edited by J. Cruickshank, each contain some 15 essays by various hands on authors and historical topics. In A Literary History of France (6 vols., 1967-74), edited by J. Charvet, each period, for the most part a century, is treated by a single author. A totally different approach is to be found in A New History of French Literature (1989), edited by D. Hollier, which submits the traditional narrative to an idiosyncratic fragmentation into some 200 short essays, some unexciting, some brilliant.
[Peter France]
