Abstract
The objective of the article is to analyse the didactic use of original literary texts in contemporary French textbooks of French as a foreign language. The author explores the issue whether didactic work with these texts (in the form of pre-reading, reading and post-reading tasks) does not lead to a reduction or flattening of their artistic value.
Concerning the pedagogical goals of foreign language teaching, which are not primarily focused on the aesthetic perception of the text, but rather on the activation of students' language inventory, we can assume that simplification naturally occurs. Work with the text is often led from global comprehension opening a pre-selected discussion topic, through targeted work with language inventory (e.g., expanding vocabulary) to the pupils' own language production, to whom the text serves as a source of inspiration.
Surprisingly, the analysis of selected textbooks showed that this didactic approach is not prevalent. In more than half of the cases, literary texts are processed with regard to the specifics of the artistic texts and thus serve not only to reflect on chosen topics, but also to make students more aware of artistic expression as such and of their own artistic creation.