François René de Chateaubriand is considered one of the pioneers of French Romanticism. His novel René, which bears his first name, is in fact a fictional work despite the similarities with Chateaubriand’s life. This book is also the sequel to his novel ”Atala”.
Exiled to the Natchez tribe, René tells the characters Chactas and Father Souël about his unhappy life and past. He then recounts some of his travels and the relationship René has with his sister Amélie. He expresses the malaise of the century through the malaise of the character who was comforted by his sister who also ended up feeling bad and retired to a convent. René also reflects on the Catholic religion that has profoundly influenced European mores. He is constantly searching for an unattainable ideal that he feels within himself.
Throughout his work he describes landscapes in a nostalgic and romantic way, whether it is his homeland Brittany or the monuments of Greco-Roman antiquity, the landscapes of Great Britain or the immensity of the Canadian territory and the beauty of its meadows.
