An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century French Literature (review)

Tim Farrant’s very readable volume is a hugely important and long-overdue addition to the series and should be highly recommended to undergraduates and graduates who need to grasp the shape and feel of the nineteenth century or who want informed and incisive suggestions for further reading. Farrant covers a lot of ground in the study, referring to all the major writers and movements and, perhaps more importantly, many minor ones. Indeed, the range of material dealt with here goes a long way towards destabilizing the nineteenth-century canon and inviting new readings of hitherto forgotten nineteenth-century texts. The privileged place afforded to discussions of relatively neglected women writers such as Marceline Desbordes-Valmore is a particularly welcome feature of this book. There is much insightful and informative material here: the sections on Napoleon and his legacy and the changing nature of Drama in particular are authoritative and engaging. This is a very modern study which places twentieth-first century concerns such as race and gender alongside more traditional nineteenth-century topoi such as the Paris-provinces split and notions of modernity. It also offers some insightful comparisons with important twentieth-century writers such as Beckett, thus helping to contextualise the nineteenth century in relation to texts perhaps more immediately familiar to today’s undergraduates. Farrant’s innovative approach will certainly ensure that this study is both appealing and accessible to students. However, apparently simplistic comments such as ‘Courbet and Champfleury thus appropriate what had hitherto been a term of abuse, making the term réalisme their vehicle, much as in our own day gay people have validated the word “queer”’(p. 24) and ‘it is as if they [Jarry’s plays] had been written by Hugo on speed’ (p. 166) run the risk of alienating some readers as might the mention of Dynasty, EastEnders and Desperate Housewives. This kind of survey necessarily focuses on breadth rather than depth and the reader is at times also left frustrated by the lack of detail: while some authors and works are dealt with at length, others are merely alluded to or skimmed over. This frustration can be compounded by the footnote-free format that thwarts the scholarly desire to delve deeper. Farrant is aware of the drawbacks of the series and somewhat compensates for them in his ability to offer sensitive and insightful close readings of a number of texts that crystallize the most important nineteenth-century concerns. His readings of the poems of Lamartine, the plays of Hugo and Maeterlink and more surprising choices such Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Mirbeau’s Le Journal d’une femme de chambre are a pleasing addition to this valuable volume.