French Literature: From the Pléiade to Baudelaire
The French Pléiade
The Pléiade was a group of seven sixteenth-century French poets gathered around Pierre de Ronsard. One of the characteristics of this group is that there were poets such as Scève Maurice (Louise Labe Pernette Du Guillet). Since 1547, a number of young fans of the Greco “America went to the famous humanist Dorat courses in the College of Coqueret in Paris. Among them were Ronsard and Du Bellay BAIF studying the great classical masters under the new prism of humanism. At the request of Francisco I, they also worked for the standardization and enrichment of the French language, adding learned words that serve to enrich it. They are also considered members of the group at some point des Autels Guillaume Pelletier du Mans Jacques and Jean de la Peruse. They defend both the imitation of the Greco-Roman authors and the cultural value of French, advocating the Alexandrian and the sonnet as major poetic forms.
Molière and the French Farce
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, called Molière (January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673), was a French actor and playwright and one of the greatest playwrights of occidental literature. Considered the father of the Comédie Française, he is still the most played author. Merciless with the pedantry of the pseudo-scientists, the lie of ignorant physicians, the pretentiousness of the rich bourgeoisie, Molière exalts youth, which wants to liberate the absurd restrictions.
There are in bloom, in embryo, types, topics, stock situations, which then Molière names elegant dress, both Lopes and Shakespeare. There’s the treasure is always new and always old of a humanity full of vices and virtues, of heroism and weakness, and there are ready to rebuild the altar of the farce that is only slightly wavy mirror of life, with lights, shadows, outlines specific prayer now changing, but the kernel of truth involved in their own being.
Baudelaire and Symbolism
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a poet, art critic, and translator. He was named a poète maudit (cursed poet) because of his bohemian life of excesses, and the vision of evil that permeates his work. Barbey d’Aurevilly, a French journalist, said of him that he was a Dante of a decadent age. He was the poet with the greatest impact on French Symbolism. The most important influences on him were Théophile Gautier, Joseph de Maistre (who said he had been taught to think), and in particular, Edgar Allan Poe, whom he translated extensively.
Symbolism was in its early literary reaction against Naturalism and Realism, anti-idealistic movements that extolled the lived reality and located above the ideal. These movements triggered a backlash in the Parisian youth, leading them to exalt the imagination and spirituality of dreams. The first writer to react was the poet Charles Baudelaire, today considered the father of modern poetry and starting point of movements such as Modernism, Parnasianism, Decadence, and Symbolism. His works, among which are The Flowers of Evil, The Little Poems in Prose, and Artificial Paradises, were so refreshing that even some of them were banned for being considered dark and immoral, openly portraying sexuality, drug use, and Satanism. The first movement descendant of this ideology would be Parnasianism.