Contemporary French literature

This article is mainly about French literature from the year 2000 to the present day.

Overview

The economic, political and social crises of contemporary France -terrorism, violence, immigration, unemployment, racism, etc.—and (for some) the notion that France has lost its sense of identity and international prestige—through the rise of American hegemony, the growth of Europe and of global capitalism (French: mondialisation)—have created what some critics (like Nancy Huston) have seen as a new form of detached nihilism, reminiscent of the 50s and 60s (Beckett, Cioran). The best known of these authors is Michel Houellebecq, whose Atomised (French: Les particules élémentaires) was a major international phenomenon. These tendencies have also come under attack. In one of her essays, Nancy Huston criticises Houellebecq for his nihilism; she also makes an acerbic censure of his novels in her work The teachers of despair (French: Professeurs de désespoir).

Although the contemporary social and political context can be felt in recent works, overall, French literature written in past decades has been disengaged from explicit political discussion (unlike the authors of the 1930s-1940s or the generation of 1968) and has focused on the intimate and the anecdotal. It has tended to no longer see itself as a means of criticism or world transformation, with some notable exceptions (such as Michel Houellebecq or Maurice Dantec).

French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature. As of 2006, French writers have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country. France itself ranks first in the list of Nobel Prizes in literature by country.

French literature has been for French people an object of national pride for centuries, and it has been one of the most influential components of the literature of Europe.

The French language is a romance dialect derived from Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic and Frankish. Beginning in the 11th century, literature written in medieval French was one of the oldest vernacular (non-Latin) literatures in western Europe and it became a key source of literary themes in the Middle Ages across the continent.

French

French may refer to:

See also

French kiss

In English informal speech, French kiss, also known as a deep kiss, refers to an amorous kiss in which the participants' tongues extend to touch the other participant's lips or tongue. The implication is of a slow, passionate kiss which is considered intimate, romantic, erotic or sexual. Slang synonyms include "swapping spit" and "tonsil hockey".

A "kiss with the tongue" stimulates the partner's lips, tongue and mouth, which are sensitive to the touch. The practice is usually considered a source of pleasure. The oral zone is one of the principal erogenous zones of the body.

Anthropologists are divided into two schools on the origins of kissing, one believing that it is instinctual and intuitive and the other that it evolved from what is known as kiss feeding, a process used by mothers to feed their infants by passing chewed food to their babies' mouths.

Etymology

A French kiss is so-called because at the beginning of the 20th century, the French had a reputation for more adventurous and passionate sex practices. In France, it is referred to as un baiser amoureux ("a lover's kiss") or un baiser avec la langue ("a kiss with the tongue"), even if in past times it was also known as baiser florentin ("Florentine kiss"). The Petit Robert 2014 French dictionary, released on May 30, 2013, added the French verb "se galocher" — slang for kissing with tongues — making it the first time a single word described the practice (except in Quebec, where the verb "frencher" means French kissing, Australia, where the term "pash" is used and the German verb "knutschen").

Antoine Compagnon

Antoine Compagnon (born 1950 in Brussels, Belgium) is a Professor of French Literature at Collège de France, Paris (2006–), and the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, New York (1985–).

Education

Compagnon studied at École polytechnique (1970) and École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (1975), and holds a Doctorate of Paris Diderot University (1985).

Career

Compagnon was a Fellow of the Fondation Thiers (1975-1978), taught at École polytechnique (1978-1985), Institut français du Royaume-Uni, London (1980-1981), University of Rouen (1981-1985), was a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (1986, 1990), Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1988), Professor at University of Maine (France), Le Mans (1989-1990), Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford (1994), Professor at Paris-Sorbonne University (1994-2006).

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1997) and Academia Europaea (2006), and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (2009). He received an Honorary Degree of King's College London (2010), HEC Paris (2012), and University of Liège (2013), and the Claude Lévi-Strauss Prize of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (2011).