FRENCH LITERATURE NOTES
Student notes on four famous works of French literature:
Voltaire's "Candide". -- Balzac's "Le Père Goriot"- "La Princesse de Cleves" by Mme de Lafayette
Le Notaire du Havre by Georges Duhamel
Detailed summaries with analysis - Character studies - Essay topics - Biographies of the authors
Click on the following link for topics on "Le Père Goriot"
Balzac's "Le Père Goriot"
Click on the following link for the topics for La Princesse de Cleves
Mme de Lafayette
Click on the following link for the topics on Candide
Voltaire's Candide
Click on the following link for the topics for "Le Notaire du Havre"
These are the French literature notes that I have put together over more than thirty years. I hope that they will be useful to students of French literature by doing some of the basic spadework of literary appreciation for them and offering students a greater proportion of their time for the more creative work of defining their own reactions to the books and following the avenues that interest them personally in the study of these French masterpieces.
My technique was to write a summary as I read the books. This summary became the sitemap when I discussed the different themes. The book page references refer to editions that are now, no doubt, out of print. The reader will have to make a mathematical correlation to relate to a different edition.