Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in Oïl languages (particularly Old French and early Middle French) during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century.
The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 unleashed what the scholar Charles Homer Haskins termed the "Renaissance of the 12th century" and, for over the next hundred years, writers, "jongleurs", "clercs" and poets produced an enormous quantity of remarkable creative works in all genres. Although the dynastic struggles of the Hundred Years' War and the international Black Death epidemic of the fourteenth century in many ways curtailed this creative production, the fifteenth century laid the groundwork for the French Renaissance.
For historical background go to History of France, France in the Middle Ages or Middle Ages
For other national literary traditions, go to Medieval literature
Read more about Medieval French Literature: Language, Early Texts, The Chanson De Geste, The Roman, Lyric Poetry, Theater, Other Forms
Famous quotes containing the words medieval, french and/or literature:
“The Christos-image
is most difficult to disentangle
from its art-craft junk-shop
paint-and-plaster medieval jumble
of pain-worship and death-symbol.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“In most other modern societies working mothers are not put under these special and exaggerated pressures. For example, French and English mothers often prefer to breast-feed their babies, but they do not feel that their womanhood is at stake if they fail to do so. Nor does anyone else.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)
“I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.”
—Marguerite Duras (b. 1914)