Introduction: The Politics of French Literary History

The politics underlying scholarly interpretations of literature as well as the public reception of literary texts has always been a central, if at times repressed, issue in the production of literary history. This is nothing new, but it demands constant attention and review if it is to remain present in the minds and works of those who produce that history. This volume of essays revisits a selection of literary sites, famous, infamous and less known, in an attempt to define—and in some cases reassign—the political contexts surrounding the production of French literary history in the twentieth century.