Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Literature
Whether attending a reading at mythical bookshop Shakespeare & Company in
the Latin Quarter, browsing bookshelves in a hip wine bar in Le Marais or por-
ing over the latest
bande dessinée
in bookshop FNAC, Parisians have a deep
appreciation for the written word, and literature remains essential to their
sense of identity. Couple this with the mass of modern literature inspired by
the 'City of Lights' and Paris will never leave you short of a good read.
Medieval
Paris does not figure largely in early medieval French literature, although the misadventures
of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse took place in the capital, as did their mutual correspondence,
which ended only with their deaths.
François Villon, the finest poet of the Middle Ages, received the equivalent of a Master of
Arts degree from the Sorbonne before he turned 20. Involved in a series of brawls, robberies
and illicit escapades, 'Master Villon' (as he became known) was sentenced to be hanged in
1462, supposedly for stabbing a lawyer. However, the sentence was commuted to banishment
from Paris for 10 years, and he disappeared forever. Villon left behind a body of poems
charged with a highly personal lyricism, among them
Ballade des Pendus
(Ballad of the
Hanged Men), in which he writes his own epitaph, and
Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis,
translated by the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti as the 'Ballad of Dead
Ladies'.
Renaissance
The great landmarks of French Renaissance literature are the works of François Rabelais, Pi-
erre de Ronsard (and other poets of the Renaissance group of poets known as La Pléiade) and
Michel de Montaigne. The exuberant narratives of erstwhile monk Rabelais blend coarse hu-
mour with erudition in a vast oeuvre that seems to include every kind of person, occupation
and jargon to be found in the France of the early 16th century. Rabelais' publisher, Étienne
Dolet, was convicted of heresy and blasphemy in 1546, hanged and burned on place Maubert,
5e.
