This Further Subject will allow you to explore the main developments in French thought, manners, and social structures from the age of Enlightenment to the post-revolutionary period of Romanticism and Realism. The prescribed texts thus offer a variety of sources (treatises, memoirs, novels, commentaries), and it is hoped that these will be studied within their social contexts, whose moeurs and mentalités they reflect. These texts will leave sufficient scope for candidates and indeed encourage them to pursue any interests they may have in particular topics: e.g. the literary and artistic transition from classical or neo-classical forms to Romanticism and to the early manifestations of Realism (especially in the novel); the function of land and office as mechanisms for social advancement from the noble and privileged society of the old regime to the emergence of other notables under Napoleon, the Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy; how people survived the Revolution and adjusted to Napoleon’s dictatorship; the implications for the Church and for religious expression of the Revolution’s secularizing measures and of Napoleon’s Concordat with the Pope; the impact of urbanization and embourgeoisement on the older rural structures and mentality, and the interaction and conflict between them.

This paper may have a particular interest for candidates who have chosen General History periods X (1715-1799) or XI (1799-1856) and/or the Optional Subject on ‘Revolution and Empire in France 1789-1815’, but these options should not be regarded as a pre-requisite for this Further Subject. The prescribed texts (many of which are available in modern English translations) allow considerable flexibility, and each candidate should be able to create a preferred ‘core’ from them, in consultation with his or her tutor. The examination paper is divided into Sections A and B, and among their three required answers, candidates must complete at least ONE answer from each section. A good reading knowledge of French would be highly advantageous, not least for the purposes of additional secondary reading. Lectures and a documents class are usually organized in Hilary Term.