The Comic Novel
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers with good French who wish to read a seventeenth-century French novel in the original
- Scholars and students of French literary history interested in the evolution of the novel as a form
- Readers interested in seventeenth-century French theater and the life of traveling actors
- Literature lovers who enjoy humorous narrative and parodic style
Not a good fit for
- General readers with limited French reading ability who need a Chinese translation
- Casual readers expecting a tight plot and a complete storyline
- Beginners entirely unfamiliar with the social and cultural background of seventeenth-century France
Reading tips
- First understand the general conventions of seventeenth-century French romance in order to appreciate the parody and irony of this book.
- There is no need to read it in one sitting; it can be read in sections by troupe characters and episodes, as the threads are rather loose.
- Pay attention to the narrator's interjections and commentary while reading; this is key to understanding the book's narrative style.
- Consult materials on seventeenth-century French theater history to help understand the period background of the performers' lives.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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About the author
Paul Scarron (1610–1660) was a French poet, novelist and playwright, known for his satirical and comic works and remembered as the first husband of Madame de Maintenon. His dates and nationality are confirmed in the available records, while other biographical details are limited in public sources; his themes and style are therefore the best guide to his work. His representative works, Le Roman Comique and Le prince corsaire, display his characteristic comic manner: exaggeration, jest and satire in portraying characters and social life, combining lighthearted farce with observation of contemporary manners. This comic and satirical writing gave him a distinctive place in seventeenth-century French literature and influenced later comic fiction and dramatic writing.
