French teacher Mr.Lalit Rao discusses 10 most important French writers of the 19th century !!

© Mr.Lalit Rao (French teacher, translator & interpreter)

On the historical side, the 19th century in France was a period of Premier Empire (1804-1815) and Second Empire (1851-1870). Putting an end to the French revolution, Napoléon was crowned emperor in 1804. He took the name of Napoléon 1st. This was the period of the first empire. It was during the first empire that a large part of Europe was conquered. On December 2, 1851, a relative of Napoléon had himself proclaimed emperor under the name of Napoléon III. This is the period of the Second Empire. Initially, it was an authoritarian regime but later it became liberal. The 19th century was a wonderful period of diversity for literature in France as it witnessed four major literary movements. They are : Le Romantisme, Le Réalisme, Le Parnasse and Le Symbolisme. Each of these movements had specific characteristics. Now, it is time for me to talk about these ten great writers who continue to be read not only by the students and passionate readers in schools, universities and homes of France but also in many other countries of the world.

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Arthur Rimbaud was born on 20th October, 1854 in Charleville into a traditional bourgeois and conservative family. He was a mythical poet, a prodigious linguist, a fortune teller and the forerunner of the symbolists and surrealism.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris on 9th April, 1821. He was a theoretician of art, the precursor of symbolism, a cursed poet, a master of the sonnet. As a child Baudelaire was destined to eternal solitude. Baudelaire was associated to two cults of Art and Dandyism.

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
He was the founder of romanticism in French literature, champion of the catholic renewal. In 1791-92, Chateaubriand traveled to America in hope of finding the elusive Northwest Passage. He visited Philadelphia, New York, Niagara Falls and ventured as far as Ohio. This voyage resulted in the publication of two romances in the tradition of Rousseau’s ‘‘Noble Savage’’ ‘Atala’ (1801) and ‘René (1805).

Emile Zola (1840-1902)
Emile Zola was the master of naturalism, an ethnographer of France , the builder of a romantic empire. Zola was a writer of enormous influence in France and abroad, once much scorned by the literary establishment he came to be recognized as a major literary figure of the 19th century France.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Gustave Flaubert was the inventor of naturalism. He developed a precocious literary talent from around the age of 14. He was a repressed romantic, the great novelist of inaction, boredom and immobility and a convict of style. American author Henry James called him the writer’s writer in recognition of his obsession with literary form.

Guy de Maupassant (1840-1893)
Guy de Maupassant was Flaubert’s heir apparent, a naturalist writer, the master of the short story and inventor of the psychological fantasy. He was Flaubert’s disciple and mingled with his circle of great writers namely Turgenev, Daudet, Zola and others and learned much of Flaubert’s technique of objectivity and precision in style.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)
French writer Honoré de Blazac was born in Tours on 20th May, 1799. He was a historian of the human ways of life, a creator of the universe, a precursor of the realism, a convict of literature. His novels reflect his revolt against the well to do, middle class family.

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Verlaine was one of the cursed poets, for him music came before anything else. He was one of the best symbolists. His musical sensitivity and delicate suggestion of mood made him one of the best writers of the Symbolists.

Stendhal (1783-1842)
French writer Stendhal was a man of passion, master of the subjective realism, champion of improvisation. He was the writer who dissected the psychology of love. The term ‘‘Beylisme’’ is used to suggest Stendhal’s strong belief in the life energy man uses to pursue love and power.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Victor Hugo was the creator of ‘romantic drama’, first versifier of the 19th century, and the defender of the oppressed. Although Hugo was widely popular as novelist and dramatist, his lasting reputation depended on his verse.

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