Landmarks in French Literature |
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Page 46
... true advance . For the contortions of the " Precious " writers were less the result of their inability to write well than of their desperate efforts to do so . They were trying , as hard as they could , to wriggle themselves into a ...
... true advance . For the contortions of the " Precious " writers were less the result of their inability to write well than of their desperate efforts to do so . They were trying , as hard as they could , to wriggle themselves into a ...
Page 51
... true bent of his genius lay . Thus it was that the type of drama which he impressed upon French literature was not the romantic type of the English Elizabethans , but the classical type of Senecan tragedy which Jodelle had imitated ...
... true bent of his genius lay . Thus it was that the type of drama which he impressed upon French literature was not the romantic type of the English Elizabethans , but the classical type of Senecan tragedy which Jodelle had imitated ...
Page 57
... true to say that no reader who wishes to realise once for all the great qualities of French prose could do better than turn straight to the Lettres Provinciales . Here he will find the lightness and the strength , the exquisite polish ...
... true to say that no reader who wishes to realise once for all the great qualities of French prose could do better than turn straight to the Lettres Provinciales . Here he will find the lightness and the strength , the exquisite polish ...
Page 63
... true that behind and beyond the radiance of Louis and his courtiers lay the dark abyss of an impover- ished France , a ruined peasantry , a whole system of intolerance , and privilege , and maladministration ; yet it is none the less true ...
... true that behind and beyond the radiance of Louis and his courtiers lay the dark abyss of an impover- ished France , a ruined peasantry , a whole system of intolerance , and privilege , and maladministration ; yet it is none the less true ...
Page 72
... true that a refined and splendid worldliness was the dominant characteristic of the literature of the age , it is no less true that here and there , in its greatest writers , a contrary tendency - faint but unmistakable -may be ...
... true that a refined and splendid worldliness was the dominant characteristic of the literature of the age , it is no less true that here and there , in its greatest writers , a contrary tendency - faint but unmistakable -may be ...
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Common terms and phrases
age of Louis artistic Balzac beauty Bossuet brilliant Bruyère Chansons Chansons de Geste character characteristic charm CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES civilisation classical complete Corneille critical detail Diderot doctrine dominating doubt drama eighteenth century elaborate English exquisite extraordinary fact feeling Flaubert Fontaine French literature genius human ideals imagination immense important infinitely influence intensity Jean de Meung language Les Misérables less letters Lettres Provinciales literary literature of France Louis XIV master melancholy ment Middle Ages mind modern Molière Molière's Montaigne Montesquieu movement nature ness never noble novels Paris Parnassiens Pascal passion perfect Philosophes play poems poet poetical poetry precisely produced profound prose qualities Rabelais Racine Racine's reader realise Renaissance rhetoric Romantic Rousseau Saint-Simon seems sense sentences Shakespeare soul spirit splendid splendour strange style subtle supreme things thought tion tradition tragedy triumph true truth vast verse Victor Hugo vision Voltaire Voltaire's whole words writers
Popular passages
Page 71 - Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
Page 60 - Quelle chimère est-ce donc que l'homme ? Quelle nouveauté, quel monstre, quel chaos, quel sujet de contradiction, quel prodige ! Juge de toutes choses, imbécile ver de terre; dépositaire du vrai, cloaque d'incertitude et d'erreur ; gloire et rebut de l'univers.
Page 129 - Les choses les plus souhaitées n'arrivent point ; ou , si elles arrivent, ce n'est ni dans le temps ni dans les circonstances où elles auraient fait un extrême plaisir.
Page 128 - L'on voit * certains animaux farouches , des mâles et des femelles, répandus par la campagne, noirs , livides, et tout brûlés du soleil, attachés à la terre qu'ils fouillent et qu'ils remuent avec une opiniâtreté invincible : ils ont comme une voix articulée ; et quand ils se lèvent sur leurs pieds , ils montrent une face humaine , et en effet ils sont des hommes.
Page 126 - ... a pris racine au milieu de ses tulipes et devant la Solitaire; il ouvre de grands yeux, il frotte ses mains, il se baisse, il la voit de plus près, il ne l'a jamais vue si belle, il a le cœur épanoui de joie; il la...
Page 60 - Nous sommes plaisants de nous reposer dans la société de nos semblables : misérables comme nous, impuissants comme nous, ils ne nous aideront pas; on mourra seul.
Page 118 - Jupin pour chaque état mit deux tables au monde : L'adroit, le vigilant, et le fort, sont assis A la première ; et les petits Mangent leur reste à la seconde.
Page 123 - Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient, mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux que nous ennuyons.
Page 14 - ... n'ai jou que faire. Mais en infer voil jou aler, car en infer vont li bel clerc, et li bel cevalier qui sont mort as tornois et as rices gueres, et li...
Page 240 - Oui l'oeuvre sort plus belle D'une forme au travail Rebelle, Vers, marbre, onyx, émail!