Essays on France Page 2

Impressionism In France Towards the later half of the nineteenth century, many artists were pursuing new avenues in their artistic representations. They were perturbed at the rigid and constricting regulations of the Salon, and some artists decided to form and independent exhibition. Cluade Monet and his friends founded the Société anonyme de artistes, etc. ….

In his The Miller”s Tale Chaucer presents a side of the courtly love tradition never seen before. His characters are average middle class workers rather than elite nobility. There is an interesting comparison between the Miller”s characters and those in two of Marie de France”s lais that share very close plot lines. Instead of being…

La Mesnardière, as late as 1640, still advocated the old system that had come down from the Middle Ages. As he said, since the stage generally represents a whole city, often a small country, and sometimes a house, it must show as many scenes as there are different places. It must not present a garden…

The simultaneous stage setting of the Middle Ages, with its freedom in regard to the number and situation of scenes, which was in vogue in Paris in the early years of the seventeenth century, was in direct opposition to the rule of the unity of place. The Middle Ages and classicism were at swords’ points….

In France, romanticism is ?rst of all a revolt against a ?rmly entrenched classicism. In this respect, French romanticism is markedly di?erent from romanticism in England, Germany, or Spain, where classicism had been less in accord with the national temper and had not risen to the glorious heights of the century of Corneille, Racine, and…