Why go
The Song of Roland, Montaigne's Essays, Molière's comedies and Diderot's Encyclopédie show different uses of writing: legend, self-examination, stage satire and the sharing of knowledge. Recognising those shifts adds context to the books, theatres and historic settings you encounter in France.
The full story
In the Middle Ages, writers across the lands that became France did not share one language or spelling system. The Song of Roland drew on heroic legend; Chrétien de Troyes wrote Arthurian stories, while William IX of Aquitaine wrote in Occitan. Renaissance writing moved in a different direction. François Rabelais used comic excess in Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Michel de Montaigne made his Essays a way to examine his own thoughts. Seventeenth-century audiences heard the social tensions of their day in Molière's comedies, while Racine and Corneille wrote tragedies. Madame de La Fayette's The Princess of Cleves explored private motives within court life. In the eighteenth century, Denis Diderot helped assemble the Encyclopédie to make knowledge available beyond specialists. These works are most useful as contrasting entry points: a medieval legend, a personal essay, a stage performance and an Enlightenment project each reveal a different France.