le_chef_

[delicate axle]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[nova drift]

Literary tenses are still used by authors indeed. Although some choose to stick to tenses closer to spoken French instead, for ease of access. So it depends.
You can also spot literary tenses in songs, speeches, documentaries, and so on.

Also note that passé antérieur and passé composé are not used in the same context, as passé antérieur indicates an action prior to a past event

[wintry mist]

songs too? so if the chosen form of activity can have written documents, then literary tenses can be applied?

[nova drift]

the difference lies in casual speech vs narration

Tenses like passé simple or passé antérieur are completely detached from the present. Passé simple narrates events in a past context whereas passé composé describes events that happened prior to now.

So traditionally, if you were to tell a story set in the past, you'd have to use passé simple, as it has no relation with the present. Meanwhile, if you were to describe something that happened in your life, you'd use passé composé.

[wintry mist]

does a degree of fictionality or reality matter? given your example, documentary, it prob doesn't and the only thing matters is time being compared to present time; but

[nova drift]

it doesn't really, indeed 🤔

[wintry mist]

d'ac, merci! 😌

[brazen thicket]

Books narrated in first or second person are often written without passé simple - it's more likely to come up if the person is giving an account of their own experiences (which can be used stylistically to indicate a character is telling their own story), while in third person it's almost exclusively passé simple

Can also come up in some expressions, like « ce fut un plaisir »

The narrator in a documentary would be likely to use passé simple, while people being interviewed would almost certainly use passé composé