FRENCH LITERATURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1037, 30 July 1930, Page 7

FRENCH LITERATURE

INFLUENCE OF SALONS ARTIFICIALITY PRODUCED The tremendous effect of the salons of Paris on the literature of France was described by Miss D. L. Miller, lecturer in French, in an address last evening in the Arts Building of the LTniversify College. Miss Miller referred particularly to the part played by Frenchwomen in beginning these salons. The time of Louis XIV. was the French classical period in drama, and its especial school of thought was due to a great extent to a woman’s influence. The Marquis© Catherine was a woman who played a significant part in developing the polite literature of the time. She designed her famous Salon Bleu herself, decorated according to her own ideas, in refreshing taste after the coarse tones characterising interior decoration during the reign of Henry IV. Catherine withdrew from Henry IV.'s Court, and to her salon came ail manner of literary people, who were able to meet on an intellectual basis. The salon was copied by others, and gradually the groups became increasingly fastidious in speech and sentiments. Much of this thought was absurd and artificial, and, though it was generally reflected in French literature and drama, one writer rebelled against it. That was Moliere, whose writings, “Les Precleuses Ridicules,” and “The Learned Ladies,” were directed against the women whose salons so influenced French literature, mode of speech, and manners. Until the revolution, the salon was actually an institution in France.