Literature in France - 20th Century
Literary Movements - French Literary Works
Essayists and Critics
| 20th Century Literature in France | Novelists | Poetry | Roger Vercel | Théâtre
Libre | Guillaume Apollinaire | Nouveau Roman | Surrealism
The literature produced in 20th century France is of huge
quantity and diversity, including not only the works of novelists,
essayists, critics, playwrights and poets, but also the papers
of anthropologists, scientists and other influential thinkers.
The Novel
Just as in the 19th century, in the 20th century the novel
continued being the main literary form to be employed. Many
changes on political, social and economic fronts influenced
the novel, such as the world wars, globalization, the cinematographic
boom, the introduction of paperbacks and huge publishing houses,
among others. Despite all these changes and influential factors,
the French have managed to respect and maintain language and
form.
Some famous authors and novelists include Paul Bourget, Pierre
Loti, Colette, Marcel Proust, Jules Romains, Roger Martin
Du Gard, François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos André
Malraux, Édouard Peisson, Roger Vercel, and Joseph
Kessel.
Around the middle of the 20th century, fiction authors moved
away from the standard novel form, creating the nouveau roman
or new novel, sometimes called the antinovel, in which elements
such as the plot, message, style, theme, chronology were dispensed
with. Authors who adopted this form of writing included Antoine
de Saint-Exupéry, Vercors, Nathalie Sarraute and Alain
Robbe-Grillet, among others.
On the other hand, there were also authors who continued adhering
to the more traditional form of the novel, some of which are
Georges Simenon, Marguerite Yourcenar, Gilbert Cesbron, Jean
Louis Curtis, Pierre Daninos, Henri Queffelec and Roger Peyrefitte.
Theater
Many theatrical groups were created during the end of the
19th century and the early 20th century, the first of them
being the Théâtre Libre. Playwrights such as
Jules Renard and Eugène Brieux, among others, used
drama to express the new social realism. Symbolism was also
a style used in drama, especially by Maurice Maeterlinck Paul
Claudel.
Poetry
Poetry flourished mostly in the early decades of the 20th
century, with the works of poets such as Paul Claudel, Guillaume
Apollinaire, Paul Valéry. Around the second decade
of the century, a group of poets emerged, adhering to a style
produced by the Surrealism movement, while at the same time
another group of poets emerged opposing the movement. After
the 2nd World War some of the French poets with outstanding
works included Jacques Prévert, Francis Ponge, Jules
Supervielle, Raymond Queneau and Kateb Yacine, among many
others.
