Historically, politically and socially, France
underwent many changes during the nineteenth century, and
the world of literature reflected these changes. Several movements
emerged, only to be replaced by others. The first to surface
was Romanticism, which was influenced to a great extent by
Rousseau’s philosophy. The Romantic writers sought freedom
from the restrictions of the classical literary style. Main
figures of the Romantic period included Victor
Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred, Comte de Vigny, Alfred
de Musset, Gérard de Nerval, Prosper Mérimée,
Alexandre Dumas père, and Théophile Gautier.
The Romantic period then gave way to Realism with writers,
especially novelists, such as Stendhal, George Sand, and Honoré
de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert. The Realist movement began
in the mid-19th century, as a form of reacting to the focus
and approach used by Romanticism, which was a lot more subjective.
The realists tried to describe human behaviour and surroundings
exactly as they act or appear in life.
Realism was followed by Naturalism, a much more subtle change
than that between both earlier movements. Naturalists believed
that an objective and empirical presentation of human beings
should be used to use as a basis for literary works. This
objective presentation of life shows how human behaviour is
controlled by instincts, emotion, social and economic conditions.
They tended to adopt the biological determinism presented
by Charles Darwin and likewise, Karl Marx’s economic
determinism. Main exponents of this literary movement in France
include the novelist Émile Zola and the authors, Edmond
Louis Antoine de Goncourt and Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt,
both brothers.
Another literary movement to appear in France during this
century was what was known as Symbolism. This line of thinking
made writers express their thoughts, opinions, values and
ideas through the use of symbols, or vague suggestions, instead
of straight forward and more direct statements. This aesthetic
movement emerged as a reaction to the other 19th century movements,
and held the view that the true interpreter of reality was
in fact the imagination. Prominent French writers which contributed
to this movement included Gérard de Nerval, Charles
Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, Stéphane Mallarmé
and Paul Valéry Rémy de Gourmont.
