The primary aim of this book is to provide an introduction, principally for students but also for the general reader, to 17th-century French writing. Nicholas Hammond shows in eight vignettes what made this period a golden age of French drama, philosophy, and creativity. He argues that, rather than acting as a stranglehold, the rules of the time propelled artistic creativity to exceptional heights, releasing a sensitivity to language and wit which has not been rivalled since. The book deals in particular with the "Querelles des anciens et modernes", Pascal and the Jesuits, literary forms, gender, transvestism and homosexuality, showing how these contributed to the creative tension of the age.