Questions tagged [french-language]
Questions about works of literature which were originally written in the French language, regardless whether they were written or published in France or elsewhere.
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What are the "eighteen methods of arranging Minerva's tresses"?
In Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Jean Passepartout, Phileas Fogg's new servant, is introduced. We're given a description, which includes a descrption of his hair:
As for Jean, also known ...
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How is 11:22 four minutes slow if it's actually 11:29?
In the first chapter of Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg meets Jean Passepartout, his new servant, and they introduce themselves. As part of this, Fogg asks Jean what time it is:
“...
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What's the meaning of this sentence from "L'enfant noir" by Camera Laye?
I'm reading Camara Laye's novel L'enfant noir, translated in English as The African Child or The Dark Child. At the end of chapter 5, one can read:
Mais le monde bouge, le monde change, et le mien ...
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Which saying or proverb is Stendhal referring to in this passage from "Le rouge et le noir"?
The following passage from chapter XVI of Book I of the novel Le rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black) by Stendhal refers to "un dicton de province", that is, at some kind of saying or ...
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Where in "À la recherche du temps perdu" does the main character indicate that he would be named after the author?
Over the years, people have asked me whether the main character of Remembrance of Things Past has a name. It is some forty years since I read it. I thought I read somewhere in the three volumes that ...
- 71
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A quotation by Jean Bernard
Jean Bernard [1907-2006] was a famous French medical doctor, also a University Professor and a researcher. He was a member of the Académie Française and wrote several books, both on scientific topics ...
- 217
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What is the source of this cheesy quote?
Many years ago, I came across this quote regarding Switzerland:
Quelle pays sanguinaire, même le fromage est plein de trous.
What a bloody country, even the cheese is full of holes.
I seem to ...
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When or where did Gustave Flaubert say that Alexander Pushkin's work was "dull"?
Tommaso Landolfi wrote that Flaubert, speaking about Pushkin, told to Ivan Turgenev: "Il est plat, votre poète." What are the sources?
(plat, per Dictionnaire Le Robert, figuratively refers ...
- 193
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What is going on with Edmée's marriage settlement?
In Colette's Chéri, I do not understand what is going on with the marriage settlement. The eponymous hero reports to his lover, Léa, that his fianceé's mother, Marie-Laure, had wanted Chéri and her ...
- 30.1k
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Why is the eponymous Chéri exoticized in colonialist terms?
TW: Quotations from the original and the translation include racially insensitive terms.
In Colette's Chéri, shortly after the ageing courtesan Léa has taken the eponymous teenager as a lover, she is ...
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Did Voltaire say, "I’m not a believer, but I prefer my barber to be a Christian"?
I've been haunted by a quote from my teenage years that goes something like,
"I’m not a believer, but I prefer my barber to be a Christian, even more when he’s using his razor on my neck."
...
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Why did Alexandre Dumas use Greek names for the three musketeers?
In the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by French novelist Alexandre Dumas there are three musketeers who are named Aramis, Athos, and Porthos.
But they are French. Why did Alexandre Dumas choose Greek ...
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Why did Dantès have to be imprisoned?
The text of The Count of Monte Cristo states multiple times that Villefort must imprison the innocent Dantès in order to fulfill his ambition. This ambition is realized in his gaining an audience with ...
- 203
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Seeming contradiction in 'Absurdity and Suicide' (The Myth of Sisyphus)
From the section "An Absurd Reasoning: Absurdity and Suicide" of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus:
I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. How to ...
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Reference to Novalis in Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique"
Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique" / "Practical Poetry" contains the following lines:
En pratiquant le bouche à bouche de mot à mot
de « feu » le mort à « feu » vif
d' « ...
