Sites
on French Literature
compiled by C.
Perry at the University of Notre Dame
(checked January 2007, updated May 2008)
Please note that the division
into French and Francophone literatures is often artificial, but necessary for
these long web pages.
French
Literature and culture
Greatsong.net -- more than 2 million songs, lyrics of 500.000 French songs both old and contemporary, 50,000 translations (English/French) - Voyage
en Orient -- Orientalism in texts and pictures
at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
- L'humour
français dans tous ses états -- French
humor
- Les
Jours,
by Patrick Cintas -- a list of texts online
- La
Petite Bibliothèque ADPF -- the most useful (though
short) site on major French writers, with biographies and bibliographies
- Archivox
-- a site with free audio files of literary texts
- CuriosaDoc
-- a site with engravings and texts of the 19th century
- Histoires
littéraires -- a site with literary biographies and
bibliographies
- Hubert
de Phalèse, littérature et informatique --
literary studies, with many texts online (highly recommended)
- WebLettres
-- a site on teaching literature
- Bibliothèque
Clio on travel literature
- The Joseph
Sablé collection on 19th-century French literature
- alalettre
-- a full literary site, with many authors represented
- Dix-Neuf
-- a list of resources on 19th-century French culture and literature
- Rubriques à bac --
another site on the Bac français (some
free articles, but this is a paying site)
- List of French (and
other) authors, provided by the
Encyclopaedia Universalis
- Le
Portail des lettres offers a list of sites with full text
e-books
- Athéna
Textes Français -- a comprehensive literary site, with links
to full texts online
- Gallica
-- a site at the Bibliothèque Nationale with over 80,000 full
texts online (not all literary)
- Livresse.com
-- a site devoted to books in French (mostly contemporary)
- Un
siècle d'écrivains -- France 3 TV series on
20th-century French authors (site is now incomplete)
- LittératureS
et CompagnieS -- a French literary site, listing other sites
and many authors
- ClicNet: Littérature francophone virtuelle
-- Swarthmore's literary site, with a search engine and a dictionary (hear
the words, too)
- Search no further, Tennessee
Bob's Famous French Links Supersite has it all
- The most comprehensive site
on French
poetry, offering more than 6000 poems!
- A comprehensive site
on French poetry, offered by Le
Club des poètes
- Another site on French
poetry
- Poètes.com -- nineteenth-century poets (from the Romantics to the Symbolists)
- Le
printemps des poètes -- contemporary
poetry, with audio files and images as well as text
- La
Poésie que j'aime -- a personal site on poets
and poetry
- Literary works at La
Bibliothèque électronique de Lisieux
- French texts at UVA's
Electronic
Text Center
(not all available for consultation from outside UVA)
- ABU,
Association des Bibliophiles Universels, offers many full texts
- The
Oxford Text Archive -- over 2,500 texts in 25 languages
- Les
Saucissons chauds -- an award-winning site on French culture
and literature
- French
literary journals online at CUNY
- Lettres.net
-- an educational site for the study of French literature
- A useful lexicon
of French literary terms
- La
Clé -- a tool for literary analysis, offered by the Université du
Québec, Montréal
- FABULA
-- a sophisticated site on the theory of literary fiction, with multiple
links
- Exigence
Littérature -- a site on literary criticism
- Le
Magazine littéraire, with a search engine for archived materials
(click on "Index"),
offering links as well
- Théâtrales
-- a comprehensive site on French theater, at the Université du Québec, Montréal
- Spectacles
du Grand Siècle -- a site on French theater from the 16th
to the 18th century
- Magister,
travaux dirigés de français -- the French literature program
for the Bac
- Eighteenth-Century
Resources, from Rutgers University
- Nineteenth-Century
Resources, from the University of Bristol
- Grands
Auteurs romantiques du XIXe siècle -- a personal site,
with biographies and analyses
- Early
Modern French Women Writers, at the University of Minnesota
- La
Création au féminin -- a list of women writers, with an attempt
to define women's creativity
- A
Celebration of Women Writers: France -- University of Pennsylvania
- La
Création au féminin -- works by women writers,
at the University of Montréal
- The International Dada
Archive
- Centre
de recherche sur le Surréalisme
- Over 10,000 literary
quotations compiled by an avid reader
T
O P [+]
back to links page
French
Authors
(a minimal
list, in chronological order, clearly privileging the modern period!)
click
on the links: (medieval
will be here some day!) -- 16th century -- 17th
-- 18th -- 19th -- 20th
When you next travel to France, be sure to visit homes
of famous writers
1.
Sixteenth Century
- Take a long, winding,
and oh so pleasant stroll in the company of Montaigne,
arguably the first modern writer
2.
Seventeenth Century
T
O P
of centuries
list [+]
back to links page
3.
Eighteenth Century
T O P of centuries
list [+]
back to links page
4.
Nineteenth Century
- Works by the Romantic
poet Alphonse
de Lamartine
- Exhaustive page on novelist
George Sand (born
Aurore Dudevant), with multiple links
- Alfred
de Musset, Romantic poet, novelist, and playwright
- Stendhal
(Henri Beyle), high-speed novelist, author of La Chartreuse de Parme
- The Victor
Hugo website (in English)
- Eugène
Fromentin, painter and writer
- Gérard
de Nerval, poet and author of the visionary narrative Aurélia
- Théophile
Gautier, poet and critic
- A site on the first modernist
poet, Charles Baudelaire
- The poet Théodore
de Banville
- Alexandre Dumas, author of Le Comte
de Monte-Cristo, at
the Bibliothèque Nationale
de France (special 2002 exhibit)
- The Université de
Rouen's site on novelist Gustave
Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary
- Site on Prosper
Mérimée, author of Carmen, released in December 2003
among a series of French cultural "Celebrations"
- A site devoted to the
Decadent poet Jules Laforgue
- Maupassant,
famous for his short stories (complete stories online at this site!)
- Pierre
Loti, world traveler
- Err on the poetic side
with Arthur Rimbaud
- Decadent, gothic novelist
Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
- The musical poet Paul
Verlaine
- The Symbolist poet Stéphane
Mallarmé
- Émile
Zola on AIZEN, Association Internationale Zola et le Naturalisme
- A site leading to
the complete text of A
rebours, by J.K. Huysmans
- Lautréamont
-- a site devoted to the creator of the wild Chants de Maldoror
T O P of centuries
list [+]
back to links page
5.
Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries
(see the page on Francophone writers for
names like Vivien and Barney)
- Discover the "classical
modernist" poet, essayist, and critic Paul
Valéry at the Académie Française
- Alain-Fournier,
writer of the unforgettable novel Le Grand Meaulnes
- Novelist and essayist
André Gide
- Comprehensive site on
novelist Marcel
Proust and his monumental A la recherche du temps perdu
- Sabine
Sicaud, a precocious poet who died at fifteen
-
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, the best known woman novelist from the first
half of the twentieth century
- Poet
and novelist Anna
de Noailles (also see above)
- Saint-Exupéry,
pilot and author of Le Petit Prince
- Jean
Cocteau, "enfant prodige," poet, and film director
- Discover the Catholic
writer Georges
Bernanos
- The "Pope" of Surrealism,
André
Breton
- Georges
Bataille, thinker of the extreme
- Maurice
Blanchot site
- The poet Paul
Éluard
- a
site on Éluard, created in 2003
- Novelist Henri
Bosco, who spent 34 years in Morocco
- Controversial French
writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline
- Jean
Genet, rebel and vagrant
- Albert
Camus, essayist, novelist and playwright
- Philosopher, essayist,
and novelist Jean-Paul
Sartre
- Nathalie
Sarraute
- "New Novelist"
Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Marguerite
Duras, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter
- Up-to-date site on Julien
Gracq
- Feminist writer
Monique Wittig, conference in Paris, June 2001, organized by Columbia
University
- Poet and essayist Michel Deguy
- J.M.G.
Le Clézio, prolific French/Francophone writer, author of the acclaimed
novel Désert
- Michel
Tournier, novelist and essayist
- Jean-Michel
Maulpoix, poet and essayist
- Jean
Rouaud, winner of the 1990 Prix Goncourt
- An excellent site on
novelist Anne Garréta, recipient
of the 2002 Prix Médicis
- All you ever wanted to
know about Michel
Houellebecq, including his recent inflammatory comments
- UniFrance.org
-- official site for the promotion of French cinema (information on directors,
actors, producers)
- AlloCine
-- now playing, popular films (with reviews)
- Cinéfil
-- another listing of popular films (includes Belgium and Switzerland)
- Forum
des images (formerly La Vidéothèque de Paris) -- films,
festivals, multimedia, etc.
- Première
-- monthly summary of the magazine's contents
