18th-century French literature

French thinking also evolved greatly, thanks to major discoveries in science by Newton, Watt, Volta, Leibniz, Buffon, Lavoisier, and Monge, among others, and their rapid diffusion throughout Europe through newspapers, journals, scientific societies, and theaters.

Faith in science and progress was the driving force behind the first French Encyclopedia of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

The church hierarchy was in continual battle with the Lumieres, having many of their works banned, and causing French courts to sentence a Protestant, Jean Calas, to death in 1762 for blasphemy, an act which was strongly condemned by Voltaire.

The explorations of the New World and the first encounters with American Indians also brought a new theme into French and European Literature; exoticism, and the idea of the Noble Savage, which inspired such works as Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.

Toward the end of the century, a more sober style appeared, aimed at illustrating scenery, work, and moral values exemplified by Greuze, Hubert Robert and Claude Joseph Vernet.

The leading figures in French music were François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, but they were overshadowed by other European composers of the century, notably Vivaldi, Mozart Haendel, Bach, and Haydn.

)[1] Voltaire fought against the abuses of power by the government, such as censorship and letters of cachet, which allowed imprisonment without trial, against the collusion of the church and monarchy, and for an "enlightened despotism" where kings would be advised by philosophers.

The important works of the philosophes belonged to a variety of different genres, such as the tale illustrating a particular philosophical point;(Zadig (1747) or Candide (1759), both by Voltaire in 1759); or satire on French life disguised as letters from an exotic country (Lettres persanes by Montesquieu in 1721); or essays (The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu in 1748, An Essay on Tolerance by Voltaire in 1763; The Social Contract by Rousseau in 1762; The Supplement to a voyage of Bougainville by Diderot, or The History of the Two Indias by the Abbé Guillaume-Thomas Raynal).

It also saw a period of great theatrical spectacles; crowds went to the theater to see famous actors and to laugh at the characters introduced by the Italian commedia dell'arte, such as Harlequin, Columbine and Pantalone.

His major works include Les Fausses Confidences (1737), le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (1730), and l'Île des esclaves (1725).

But the greatest author of French comedies in the 18th century was Beaumarchais (1732–1799), who displayed a mastery of dialogue and intrigue combined with social and political satire through the character of Figaro, a valet who challenges the power of his master, who is featured in two major works; le Barbier de Séville (1775) and le Mariage de Figaro (1784).

In the 18th century the genre of the novel enjoyed a great increase in readership, and was marked by the effort to convey feelings realistically, through such literary devices as first-person narration, exchanges of letters, and dialogues, all trying to show, in the spirit of the lumieres, a society which was evolving.

The romans éclatés, roughly translated "Novels broken apart", such as Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Eng: Jacques the Fatalist and His Master) (1773) and le Neveu de Rameau (Eng: The Nephew of Rameau) (1762) by Diderot are almost impossible to classify, but resemble the modernist novels that would come a century or more later.

Literary stories of people's lives were popular throughout the 18th century, with such popular books as la Vie de mon père (Eng: The Life of My Father) (1779) and Monsieur Nicolas (1794) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif, but the success of the century was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who founded the genre of the modern autobiography with les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (The dreams of a solitary walker) in 1776, and Les Confessions in 1782, which became the models for all novels of self-discovery.

Only a few French poets of the 18th century have an enduring reputation; they include Jacques Delille (1738–1813), for les Jardins (The Gardens), in 1782; and Évariste de Parny (1753–1814) for Élégies in 1784, who both contributed to the birth of romanticism and to the poetry of nature and nostalgia.