Reference Materials are a great place to start your research process. Reference Material refers to encyclopedias, readers', and any site that provides comprehensive, introductory information on a given topic. Whether you are researching a country, culture, author, etc. Consider using reference material from our library to begin your research.
Dictionnaire des Litteratures de Langue Francaise by
This comprehensive guide provides articles covering criticism, genres, themes, periods, and authors. Author entries provide detailed bibliographies. It includes literature from France, Africa, Canada, and the Caribbean.
European Writers by
Part of a work (13 volumes plus index volume) that offers an introduction to more than 270 continental European writers, from 400AD to the present day, this volume is concerned with the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature by
The earliest known literary productions by women living in Europe were probably written by French writers. As early as the 12th century, women troubadours in the south of France were writing poems. French women continued writing through the ages, their number increasing as education became more available to women of all classes. And yet, of the great number of works by women writers who preceded the current feminist movement, very few have survived. A few writers such as Marie de France, George Sand, and Simone de Beauvoir became part of the canon. But critics, mostly male, had judged the works of only a few women writers worthy of recognition. As part of the feminist move to reclaim women writers and to rethink literary history, scholars in French literature began to take a new look at women writers who had been popular during their lifetimes but who had not been admitted into the canon. This reference book provides extensive information about French women writers and the world in which they lived. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for authors; literary genres, such as the novel, poetry, and the short story; literary movements, such as classicism, realism, and surrealism; life-cycle events particular to women, such as menstruation and menopause; events and institutions which affected women differently than men, such as revolutions, wars, and laws on marriage, divorce, and education. The volume spans French literature from the Middle Ages to the present and covers those writers who lived and worked mainly in France. The entries are written by expert contributors and each includes bibliographical information. The entries focus on each writer's awareness of how her gender shaped her outlook and opportunities, on how categorizations, structures, and terms used to describe literary works have been defined for women, and the ways in which women writers have responded to these definitions. The volume begins with a feminist history of French literature and concludes with a selected, general bibliography and a chronology of women writers.
French Women Writers by
This bio-bibliographical reference book will acquaint the reader with the lives and works of some of the most important women writers in the history of French literature. Fifty-one essays cover the lives and works of individual writers with an emphasis on their experiences as writers, a discussion of their major themes, and brief surveys of critical reactions. The names of many of the writers included will be familiar to students of literature for they have long been included in the French literary canon. Some, however, will be unknown even to the specialist. Each essay is followed by a bibliography of primary works, a list of titles translated into English, and a selection of critical studies. An additional essay describes the trobairitz, the women troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The volume ends with a chronology which features the dates of events and trends of special significance to French women. The chronology also serves to place their writings in the context of important literary movements and alongside the productions of their usually better-known male contemporaries. Like other Greenwood bio-bibliographical source books, French Women Writers is intended for use by general readers as well as students and scholars of French and world history and literature.
Guide to French Literature by
The accompanying volume to the Guide to French Literature: 1789 to the Present, this text traces the flow of ideas from writer to writer and the connection between literature and the other arts, and the interaction between writers and the political, social and economic circumstances of their age.
The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French by
The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French is far more than a simple revision of the original Oxford Companion to French Literature, published in 1959, and described by The Listener as the `standard work of reference for English-speaking enquirers into French literature'. As the changein title implies, this completely new work presents an authoritative guide not only to ten centuries of literature produced in the territory now called France, but also to the rich literary output of other French-speaking countries around the world.The scope of the Companion is deliberately open and inclusive, challenging and extending the traditional canon. Literature is understood in a broad sense, ranging from strip cartoon and pamphlet to tragedy and epic, and particular attention is devoted to francophone writing from outside France.Written by an international team of specialists, entries cover individual authors and works - over 3,000 of them - from the troubadours to Cesaire, and from La Princesse de Cleves to La Vie mode d'emploi. Each is discussed in detail within their historical, cultural, and intellectual context.Among the new features of the Companion are the substantial essay-entries, reflecting up-to-date scholarship and theoretical debates on topics such as:- literary movements and genres- historical subjects such as chivalry, or Occupation and Resistance in wartime France- movements of thought from Scholasticism to feminism- linguistic topics- the sciences- the arts and media, including opera, cinema, and pressAs a divertissement for readers, an entry on `Quotations' lists 100 well-known quotations from the canon of French literature.Adventurous and wide-ranging, The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French will be an indispensable and hugely enjoyable reference work for all scholars, students and general readers.
