‘INTRODUCTION – Obscene word’ writes Gustave Flaubert (1821–80) in his deliciously witty Dictionary of Received Ideas. The present volume thus stands condemned in advance; and I should confess that its main form of shamelessness is its commitment to readability. My aim is to provide a critical introduction to French literature that is scholarly yet highly accessible to students and the general reader.

Readability is not simply a matter of nicely turned phrases but also a question of approach and method. First, this book is, precisely, an introduction, not a history. It makes no attempt (how could it?) to provide comprehensive coverage. Rather than adopting a panoramic approach, I focus on a relatively limited number of writers. And to do so I have chosen the form of the essay – inherently more readable than the kinds of writing that normally make up a ‘history’ or a ‘survey’. Each essay-chapter may be read as free-standing, but the sequence of essays may also be read together for the indication they give of the development of French literature as a whole – its themes and forms, its traditions and transformations. Second, my commitment to readability implies a particular view of the function of criticism. I agree with Harold Bloom that literary criticism ‘ought to consist of acts of appreciation’ the essays in this volume are intended as such. While I wish to inform and illuminate, and explain the ways in which the writers in question are significant, I want to do so in a manner that offers pleasure as well as understanding, that induces in the reader a desire to read (or reread) the texts in question and more generally to pursue his or her own exploration of the riches of French literature. Writers are presented succinctly in the context of their times, but in order to communicate more effectively the pleasures of the texts chosen for analysis, close attention has been paid to exemplary passages.