Writing Difference in Medieval and Early Modern France

Undergraduate / Graduate

From the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, France sees the development of several genres and literary movements that are foundational to the French literary tradition: the epic, the fable, the narrative genre, the essay, poetry, tragedy, comedy, and the fable are the various genres of premodern France that we will study. What was France at the time? Most of these texts are not originally written in a version of French you would recognize easily. How to build a nation, and how to live together, were also key questions for medieval and early modern writers. Some of the concepts developed in those texts undeniably led to a version of France that made Versailles but also the Code Noir - which defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire - possible. In addition to race, gender, and religion, we will discuss the themes that were important to premodern French authors and cultures, not least of them medievalism, Renaissance, and classicism. What makes these texts classics, and what do they still have to say for our time?