page_title: France
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: France / Culture / Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (illustration of the Appleton edition).
context_page_description: France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various overseas islands and territories located in other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as L’Hexagone because of the shape of its territory. France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its main ideals expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
  Metropolitan France is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. France's overseas departments and collectivities also share land borders with Brazil and Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles. France is linked to the United Kingdom by the Channel Tunnel, which passes underneath the English Channel.
  France is the largest country in the European Union and the second largest in Europe. It has been one of the world's foremost powers for many centuries.
context_section_description: French literature began in the Middle Ages. French was divided into several dialects at the time. Some authors spelled words differently from one other.
  During the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Blaise Pascal and René Descartes were the main authors.
  In the 18th and 19th centuries, French literature and poetry reached its best. The 18th century saw writings of authors, essayists and moralists as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
  As for French children's literature in those times, Charles Perrault wrote stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Beauty and the Beast", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Puss in Boots".
  Many famous French novels were written in the 19th century by authors such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne. They wrote popular novels like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. Other 19th century fiction writers include Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal.
  Famous novels were written during the 20th century by Marcel Proust, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Houellebecq.
caption: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
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