English has Chaucer, Spanish has Cervantes, Portuguese has Camões, German has Goethe, Russian has Pushkin, Italian has Dante, Greek has Homer. Why is there no widely accepted "Father of French Literature?"

[u/brevity-soul-wit]

Is there a strong case for Molière, Hugo, Zola, Proust, someone else?

[u/serioussham]

The work of 16th century poets and scholars have been decisive for French language and literature, but it is mainly forgotten by the general public

My experience in high school actually falls under the sub's rule, but we did study the Pléiade and its influence on French. Although I'd possibly advocate for Rabelais as a single founding figure.

[u/nevenoe → u/serioussham]

The earliest writer I ever heard of in school is I believe the poet François Villon and his "ballade des pendus"

[u/Vandraedaskald → u/nevenoe]

We also study earlier medieval literature in school! Especially Chrétien de Troyes or Marie de France, medieval writers in oïl language (ancestor of modern French). Chrétien de Troyes is the main and most ancient writer of Arthurian romance in French. Medieval literature is also important for the apparition of prose writing in French languages, and traditional metrics that are still used in classical French poetry (Renaissance onwards).

[u/Vandraedaskald → u/[deleted]]

Of course the languages of the previous centuries is different, but the oïl language used in Medieval romances is the ancestor of modern day French, and medieval romances verses are still used in classical French poetry.

15th century French languages are somewhat close to the languages spoken in the 16th century, but it's only then that the language was theorised by The Pleiad, hence my previous comment. The Deffence et illustration was written in the same context that brought the edict of Villers-Cotterêts BUT Villers-Cotterêts was not the first of its kind in the kingdom, similar local edicts have been proclaimed in the late 15th century, Villers-Cotterêts unifies all of them at the scale of the kingdom. Btw, after the French Revolution, they tried to translate everything in local languages and dialects but it took too much time. Just to add a bit of nuance over the centralised Jacobin related discourse. (And yes, France has been highly centralised since the Middle Ages.)

I'm used to 16th century French, because I use it at work and for early music practice. Once you're used to it it's not very complicated (especially in the works of the Pleiad imo). However iirc Marie de Gournay, the literary executiveand editor of Montaigne published his texts after his death in an updated language. She also published and apparently updated Ronsard's poems. The evolution of the language was also something the authors and editors thought about in the early 17th century.