From Choice to Resistance – A View of 20th Century French Literary History (1950s – The New Fable)

Author: Liu Mingjiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: France is a nation that values individual freedom, and French literature adheres to the highest principle of pursuing the freedom of creative individuality. As a result, most new schools of thought and artistic styles in the world often originate from there. The field of French literature has always been a free and diverse landscape of various styles, especially in the 20th century, which was more conducive to individual development. Therefore, in 20th-century French literature, extraordinary and independent geniuses are abundant. For literary history, while there is always a need to categorize and generalize, many writers in 21st-century French literature are difficult to classify. The tenth part of this book includes some writers who are hard to fit into fixed categories. The reason they are difficult to classify lies in the uniqueness and bold expression of their creative individuality. Ironically, this very boldness has become their common trait. Especially, they all boldly elevate their self-individuality, self-spirit, and self-state into literature, a distinctive feature. From Louis Aragon, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and Colette to Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras, and Fran?oise Sagan, which of their works does not feature an extremely prominent, capitalized "I"? This allows us, tentatively, to refer to them collectively as "self-expressive geniuses."