Classical French Fiction and the Restoration Novel

This chapter considers the ways in which Restoration fiction in England adopted and adapted the classical styles of elegance and concision derived from the new experiments in French fiction of the later seventeenth century. Here, the ‘Restoration’ refers to more than a specific dynastic period. The kings of this period brought with them a fondness for and familiarity with the forms of French fiction and French drama acquired in their years of exile in that country. The term also marks a longer tradition of a relatively libertine fiction, concerned with amorous intrigue and profoundly informed by the practices of plotting and performance found in both the comedies and tragedies of the French, and later the English, stage. It was not only diasporic kings who facilitated the ‘cross-Channel invention of the novel’, but also the diaspora of French Huguenot, particularly female, writers to England.

Aesthetics · Art · Diaspora · Drama · Elegance · Literature · Period (music) · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Art and Culture Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History