Sarah Kay, Terence Cave & Malcolm Bowie, eds. A Short History of French Literature

At once kaleidoscopic and telescopic, the book presents three periods of French literature, the Middle Ages, the Early Modern and the Modern, in both overview and close-up. A triptych by three authors, each an eminent academic, and indeed emblematic specialist in their field, it condenses a remarkable amount of scholarship, close reading and critical practice. If three distinct voices emerge, they also converse, since there are echoes and overlaps between sections.This is a carefully crafted,...