FRENCH LITERATURE: FROM REALISM TO MAGICAL REALISM

The purpose of the article is to explore the evolution of French literature between the late 19th century and early 21st century. Although French literature has long been dominated by rationalistic ways of thinking, based on the thoughts of Rene Descartes and John Locke, authors have used different means to express their perceptions of society. The novel Madame Bovary (1856), including its depiction of conjugal relationships, can be considered to have pioneered realism in French literature. During the Second World War, existentialism and absurdism appeared as new ways of examining not only the relationship among humans, but also between humans and God. In the late 20th century, magical realism emerged as a new literary stream that explicitly recognized the irrationality of human thinking. This article finds that the rationality of realism was necessary for magical realism to be accepted; in this rationality, although works of magical realism were irrational, they had to be recognized as fine examples of French literature that embodied such revolutionary ideas as liberté (liberty), égalité (equality), and fraternité (fraternity). To study this phenomenon, we examine the history of french literature by applying archeological method in order to understand the world views of the authors and how they change over time.


INTRODUCTION
In the beginning, French literature was instilled with a spirit of rationalism, as evi-dent in the literary works of the 19 th century.
For instance, in his debut novel Madame Bovary (1856), Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) relied heavily on literary realism, seeking to present reality objectively, without exaggeration or understatement (A. K Hadimaja, 1972: 71). At the same time, the novel's plot was developed through a causal chain, with every event and incident instigated by a previous one. In this, Flaubert drew on the philosophy of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and John Locke (1632Locke ( -1704; the former, famous for his proposition cogito ergo sum (je pense donc je suis, or I think, therefore I am), accepted only that which was free of doubt (Hatfield, 1993(Hatfield, , 2008(Hatfield, , 2013, while the latter rejected the notion that intuition creates being (Uzgalis, 1988(Uzgalis, , 2017. Such paradigms influenced French literature significantly, and Madame Bovary (1856) remains a prime example of a work influenced by Cartesian notions of truth (Watt, 1982: 15). However, over time realism, as well as the Cartesian rationality that underpinned it, began to wane. A widespread sense of disappointment, which became particularly prominent after the horrors of World War I and World War II, resulted in French philosophers challenging the Cartesian philosophy.
In the 1980s, decades after the emergence of these philosophies (as well as related ones such as surrealism [1920s-1950s]

European Thought
In the 1600s, positivism was emerging in three aspects of European society: theology i.e. all that related to divinity; metaphysics i.e. all that related to the origin and purposes of life; and humanity i.e. all that related to the tangible and rational elements of human life rather than the spiritual. In this third field, which ultimately became dominant, faith in God or another higher power was inconsequential (A. K Hadimaja, 1972: 92  In France, meanwhile, more emphasis was given to conceptual thought and rational logic, which provided fertile ground for the advance DOI 10. 22146/poetika.58651 ISSN 2338-5383 (print) ;2503-4642 (online) of realism in the French arts. Foucault (1969), employing the archeology of knowledge, found that three epistemes¾ the term 'episteme' (épistémè) to refer to a strategic dispositive through which knowledge is filtered to condition the "possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in a theory or silently invested in a practice". It makes it possible to ascertain whether something is scientific, whether something can be qualified, and therefore whether something can be deemed true or false. It is an epistemological norm that shapes the production of knowledge in a particular epoch. Foucault also uses the term 'discourse' (énoncé discoursive) to refer to a constitutive element that gives shape and material form to particular ideas. Although he borrows from linguistics, his analysis is not linguistic (Foucault, 1969: 250) ¾had shaped French culture and history between the fifteenth and midtwentieth centuries: the renaissance (fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries), classic (mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries), and modern (mid-nineteenth to late twentieth centuries).
In the twentieth century, the French episteme transformed increasingly rapidly as Europeans sought to better understand the rapidly changing times. As such, realism gave way to existentialism, and this gave way to magical realism. Nonetheless, these approaches to literature-particularly realism-faced significant obstacles and ideologi-cal/political resistance. Particularly prominent was criticism from orthodox Christians, whose concepts and practices remained dominated by religious doctrines and dogms (Becker, 1982: 8).
One literary critic, Carmelo Bonet , described this period as one in which intellectualism spread quickly and widely. Even as no individuals identified themselves as its motors, positivism reached and spread through the grassroots. Realism promoted a deductive mindset, one that became embedded in social life (Becker, 1982: 25).

From Realism to Absurdism to Magical Realism
One important figure in early French realism was Henry Marie Baile, better known as Stendhal (1783Stendhal ( -1842. In his works, including were guided by an essentialist mindset, driven by little more than sexual desire (Becker, 1982: 143-144). In this context, sexual desire was becoming an important part in the creation of humanity. French philosophers started to think that the psychological aspects of Such an approach was also prominently used by Flaubert (Kelly, 1991: 197 (Tang, 2017). In Italy, the fall of the Papal States led to the cessation of theological education at universities. As a result of such revolutionary ideas, the sacrality and the power of the Church over the common people was eroded. Philosophy and science became increasingly free of the influence of religion (Becker, 1982: 20). However, the rise of rationality created also other marginalizations. The churches had lost power and it was starting the clash between church and science, especially in Europe and in America tions, all my lapses; that which constitutes, finally, my originality as a thinker, if I may claim such, is that I affirm, resolutely and irrevocably, in all and everywhere, Progress, and that I deny, no less resolutely, the Absolute." (Becker, 1982: 22).
Before Madame Bovary (1856), several works with realist leanings had been published by writers such as Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) and his student Emile Zola   (Rehandini, 2015). However, both writers had their own shortcomings.
Balzac, despite having realist tendencies, presented heritage and environment as the prime shapers of human character (Udasmoro, 2015). His own voice was patently evident in his works, and thus it may be concluded that he was unable to capture the Meanwhile, although Zola professed himself to be a student of Balzac, he also drew from the works of Taine. Known as a naturalist, Zola believed that the human mind is shaped by physiological factors (Lagarde & Michard, 1966: 400). In other words, humans are influenced by their physical experiences.
"My characters are not the human be-ings with the pure thoughts of those abstract beings from the eighteenth century. They are the subjects of present-day knowledge, organic peoples living, and interacting with their environment. All of their feelings will interact with their soulds. In all of their activities, their souls will be preceded by their sense of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. The concept of the soul as a separate entity is mistaken. It is a psychological mechanism, not a life." (Lagarde & Michard, 1966: 483).
Realists sought to distinguish themselves from romantics, who explored life through a subjective perspective. This is best exemplified by Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1856) "They work towards one goal: to undermine Christianity. But it is not just Jesus and the Bible they challenge; they attack all Christian beliefs, all fundamental truths. God, the soul, the afterlife, the entire social and moral order. They try to dismantle the social and moral system, not only the French faith but the entire foundation of its society" (Becker, 1982: 19).  (Udasmoro, 2012;Udasmoro & Shahab, 2013). Sartre (1943Sartre ( , 1946 argued that essence must precede existence, with the human selffunctioning both to etre-en-soi (being-in-itself) and etre-pour-soi (being-for-itself). Humans are their own deeds; as such, they must be accountable for all of their actions. Although humans are born free, this freedom comes with responsibility; human beings must make choices and be responsible for said choices. Consequently, philosophy must not be founded in Poetika : Jurnal Ilmu Sastra Vol. 8 No. 2, December 2020DOI 10.22146/poetika.58651 ISSN 23382503-4642 (online) transcendality (be it created by God or another force), but in human subjectivity. In this, Sartre expanded upon Descartian thought even as he rejected its transcendental components.
(But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world).
Through their philosophies of absurdism and existentialism, Camus and Sartre wrought significant change in French thought (Udasmoro, 2012 (The Sand Child, 1985) and La nuit sacrée (The Sacred Night, 1985). Ben Jelloun argued that realism was inherently illogical, as it is impossible to capture reality in any medium: "I sometimes say that I don't do realism because realism is impossible. Those who say that it's possible to photograph or write reality are fooling themselves. Because reality is crazy, it's nuts. To go and capture it, neither photography nor cinema nor drawing-and especially not TV-no one can do that." (Spear & Litherland, 1993: 43) Ben Jelloun emphasized the image and the imaginary, rejecting the realist notion of certainty. Ben Jelloun's novels have been classified as magical realism, a literary approach that first emerged in Germany in 1925 but only gained widespread recognition after Gabriel Garcí a Vol.  (Pramudita, 2013). Although his receipt of this prize was questioned, the rational law of France stated that he must be accepted. The next question is why French literature, being deeply rooted in Descartian positivism and rationalism, has given way to irrationalism. The answer is that rationalism has, since its inception, always incorporated a degree of irrationalism. Rationalism drew from humanism, from totalitarianism (Young, 2005: 38), which must inexorably include opposition. In the case of Ben Jelloun, this resulted in the explicit acceptance of magical realism as part of French literature, decades after its introduction. (1856)