Belgian literature

French-speaking Belgian literature

The “current” Belgium becomes French-speaking at the 16th century in the aristocratic circles and the spheres of being able.

The people not educated remain primarily dialectal Flemish and Limbourgeois in north, Wallon and Picard in the south, with some nuances. The court, Burgundian, then hasbourgeoise Spanish and especially Austrian, is French-speaking. This phenomenon of Francization will be even truer during the French period which finishes in 1815 (cfr. History of Belgium) But it is thus of all Europe.

Nevertheless attempts at valorization of the Flemish language and Dutchwoman were born in Belgium (cfr. work writes David Joris). Spanish repression and the Counter-Reformation tridentine however choked these inclinations in the egg (prohibition of the reading of Bible, etc). Moreover Flemish intelligentsia had fled under Charles Quint and Philippe II towards North primarily, beyond the borders of the Netherlands of the South. The elite remained with the country was thus French-speaking.

“Current” Belgium (at least with regard to its borders) date of 1830. It is a French-speaking state built in opposition to the mode Dutch orangist. Teaching is thus primarily French-speaking also in a concern Jacobin of francizing the higher social classes then average and by there the popular masses.

It is starting from the end of the 19th century that the Belgian literature takes truly its rise with great names like: Georges Rodenbach, Emile Verhaeren, Maurice Maeterlinck. At the 20th century of the authors like Géo Norge, Marie Gevers, Thomas Owen, Jean Ray, Arthur Masson, Michel de Ghelderode, Camille Lemonnier, Simenon, the surrealist Paul Nougé, Louis Scutenaire, Irene Hamoir, or more recently Suzanne Lilar, Francoise Mallet-Joris, Conrad Detrez and Amélie Nothomb shows that the Belgian literature is quite alive. Moreover, Belgium is if one can say the country of the cartoon and great names like Hergé, Jijé and Franquin brought much to the cultural radiation of the country.

Various phases

One notes the existence of various phases in the French-speaking Belgian literature .

During the first phase , which began with creation from Belgium in 1830 before attenuating at the end of the First World War, in 1918, the majority of the writers do not hesitate to protest, via their style, their language and their topics, them " belgitude " (but in a direction which is not that of the concept forged by Claude Javeau in 1976 in the New arts persons), but rather their feeling to belong to Belgium having its own characteristics, differentiating it from the other countries. Thus, they employ words and expressions coming from the French of Belgium or the popular dialects, and put in action Belgian characters in various places of Belgium.
During the second phase , which started at the beginning of the 20th century, the authors prefer to adopt an attitude more " française" , by respecting the recommendations of the Académie, and by telling stories generally being held in other countries that Belgium. This second phase is often called Lundisme in reference to the Groupe of Monday which made the theory of it. In this phase one considers in short that the Belgian literature of French language is only a French literature in Belgium .
a third phase is characterized by the reaction to the lundism . In 1980 the writer Jacques Sojcher made appear an special issue of the review of the ULB under the title Belgium despite everything in order to illustrate the concept of Belgitude. Michel Biron writes that this concept recovers less one claim of an identity nature that a literary faintness of order is explained at the same time by the very great proximity of Paris, which makes Belgium almost superfluous, and by the pregnancy of a speech which confers on the belgitude a sometimes ridiculous connotation sometimes heavily political.
a fourth phase constitutes a strong reaction to the belgitude, it is the Manifeste for the Walloon culture of which Michel Biron written: the Walloon proclamation and Belgium despite everything appear antithetic as well by the form as the contents. With the sixty-eight " je" collection of Sojcher is opposed the " nous" proclamation; with the " nowhere " writers of Brussels is opposed " a single territoire" , that of Wallonia; to the apolitical attitude of Belgium despite everything is opposed a clearly political claim…

One can say that these tendencies mark, in a direction or the other, each French-speaking Belgian writer or Belgian writer Walloon of today.

and even one agrees to consider that the Séquence of holy Eulalie, marked by these features, is the first literary text " français". It is also the case for example of Froissart and others older French texts.

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