French Literature: Spreading the Word

Take a journey through 1,000 years of storytelling in France with Sandra Haurant.

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France has given the world more Nobel Prize in Literature laureates than any other nation, and the country is home to a rich literary heritage. Stories have been told from time immemorial in the many regional languages of France, but one of the oldest surviving literary manuscripts written in old French, the root of the language spoken today, is the Chanson de Roland. This epic poem, thought to have been written in the 11th century, recounts the heroic deeds of a Frankish military leader at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrénées.

In the 12th century, the quest for courtly love and knightly honour prevailed, with tales of the legendary court of King Arthur being told by the likes of Chrétien de Troyes, who has been credited with creating the character of Lancelot.

The printing press, which arrived in France at the end of the 15th century, was to change the way literature was consumed and distributed. In the 16th century, Renaissance writer and scholar François Rabelais’s