How to Write a French Literary Commentary (Commentaire Composé)
The commentaire composé is the central written exercise of the French Baccalauréat, and a close cousin of the commentary tasks in IB French A, IGCSE and AP French. It asks you to explain a literary text — to show how it works and why it matters — not to recite what you know about its author. Most marks are lost for two reasons: paraphrasing the text, or forcing it into a ready-made plan. Here is the method I teach my students, step by step.
1. Read the instructions, then read the text three times
The exam gives you a literary extract and asks you to comment on it in an organised way. Your task is to interpret and explain the passage through the literary devices it uses — never to summarise it.
Read the text three times. First for overall meaning. Second with a pencil, marking everything that surprises you. Third to identify genre, register, voice (who speaks, to whom?) and the place of the passage in the work or in literary history.
- Genre and form: novel, drama, poetry, argumentative prose — expectations differ for each.
- Register: lyrical, comic, tragic, ironic, pathetic.
- Voice and narration: tenses, pronouns, modality, direct or reported speech.
2. Analyse devices, not just content
Paraphrase means saying the same thing in other words. Commentary shows how the text produces its effect: through vocabulary, figures of speech, syntax, sound patterns, tenses and moods, and the shape of paragraphs or stanzas.
For every device you spot, ask two questions: what effect does it create, and what is it doing in this text? A list of figures with no interpretation earns nothing. The link between device and effect is what literary analysis actually is.
- Metaphor, simile, personification: which worlds do they bring together?
- Lexical fields, lists, climax: which dominant notes do they sketch?
- Rhythm and syntax: short or expansive sentences, triadic rhythm, anaphora — what breath does the text have?
- Sound patterns, alliteration, assonance: what music, what sensory effect?
3. Build a genuine literary question (problématique)
The question driving a commentary is not the same as an essay question: it is about the text itself. It answers something like 'how does this passage achieve its particular effect?' or 'what is at stake here, and how does the writing construct it?'
A good question fits into one sentence and demands a plan — it cannot be answered yes or no. Build it on the tension or paradox you found in the text; that tension almost always organises the whole passage.
4. Plan in two or three movements
The plan follows the text, never the other way round. Each part groups the devices that serve one interpretation, and respects the order in which they appear, because examiners expect a reading that moves through the passage.
The most reliable structure has three movements: what the text establishes first (I), the tension or reversal it then performs (II), and the effect or the stake it finally produces (III). Two parts work perfectly well if each is rich.
- Introduce each part with a transition that justifies its logic.
- Each sub-part follows the same gesture: idea, short precise quotation, analysis of the device, interpretation.
- Never a part on the author's biography or on historical context: context is used inside the analysis, when it illuminates the text.
5. Write: introduction, paragraphs, conclusion
The introduction follows a fixed order: brief presentation of author and work, situation of the extract, statement of your literary question, announcement of the plan. Each piece of information once, with no encyclopaedic detour.
Every paragraph has the same architecture: guiding idea first, short and exact quotation, analysis of the device, interpretation of the effect. Quotations are never decorative — they prove what you claim and let you analyse word by word.
The conclusion is short: it restates the answer to your question and may widen towards another text by the same author, a literary movement, or an echo in the history of ideas.
6. How to practise
Commentary is learned by repetition. Start with one-hour drafts on short texts, going no further than the question and a detailed plan. Then write full timed papers of two to three hours on past exam texts.
Mark your own work with three questions: is there at least one analysed quotation per paragraph, is every device interpreted, does the plan follow the text? Those three account for most lost marks.
The commentaire composé rewards rigour more than erudition: a text read closely, a clear literary question, a plan that follows the passage, and quotations that are always analysed. After a handful of timed papers, it becomes the most dependable exercise on the syllabus — and often the highest scoring.