Left bank

La Rive Gauche (French pronunciation: ​[la ʁiv ɡoʃ], The Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two: looking downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern bank (or Rive Droite) is to the right.

"Rive Gauche" or "Left Bank" generally refers to the Paris of an earlier era: the Paris of artists, writers and philosophers, including Colette, Margaret Anderson, Djuna Barnes, Natalie Barney, Sylvia Beach, Erik Satie, Kay Boyle, Bryher, Caresse Crosby, Nancy Cunard, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Janet Flanner, Jane Heap, Maria Jolas, Mina Loy, Henry Miller, Adrienne Monnier, Anais Nin, Jean Rhys, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Renee Vivien, Edith Wharton Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Baldwin and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. The phrase implies a sense of bohemianism, counterculture and creativity. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Boulevard Saint-Michel, the rue Bonaparte and the Rue de Rennes.

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