Saturday, June 25, 2011

Roman-fleuve

An extended sequence of novels that continually deals with a central character, community or a saga within a family:


Roman-fleuve

The roman-fleuve is a French term which literally means "river-novel".

In the term roman-fleuve (river-novel), the river metaphor implies a steady, broad dynamic lending itself to a perspective. Each volume makes up a complete novel by itself, but the entire cycle exhibits unifying characteristics (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel_sequence#Roman-fleuve for more info).

The metaphor of the roman-fleuve was coined by Romain Rolland to describe his 10 volume cycle Jean-Christophe.

Note 1: Romain Rolland, a French novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, has been considered as the top novelist of all time or one of the top novelists of all time by some individuals in main sources of unofficial rankings.

Note 2: When Romain Rolland is considered as the top novelist of all time or one of the top novelists of all time, it is mainly due to his two literary "must read" masterpieces: Jean-Christophe and L'Âme enchantée (The Enchanted Soul).


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