Entre Classicisme et Modernité : La Nouvelle Revue Française dans le champ littéraire de la Belle Epoque

Abstract

The literary review La Nouvelle Revue Française enjoys an enormous prestige in France. In Entre Classicisme et Modernité, Maaike Koffeman explores the origins of this legend of French literary life by means of a historical, literary and sociological analysis of the first years of the review s existence (1908-1914). She shows that the NRF owes its remarkable success not only to its high literary standards, but also to the strategies employed by its editors in order to conquer a dominant position in the French literary world. The review s programme based on a modern classicism allows it to publish the best authors of its time and to contribute to the regeneration of the French novel. This study places the artistic efforts of the review in an international context, showing that British novelists were a main source of inspiration for the concept of the roman d aventure, which played an important role in the development of early literary modernism. Maaike Koffeman thereby offers a more complete and more objective evaluation of the achievements of a review that is said to have changed the course of French literature.