From knights errant to libertines, from the Round Table to the salon, explore French literature and culture in Medieval Times, the Renaissance, and the Ancient Régime. As the rise of the nation-state and court culture shape arts and letters, social and scientific transformations from François I to Louis XVI redefine gender relations, cross-cultural encounters, and what it means to be a subject. Taught in French.
Athena Title
From Chivalry to Enlightenment
Prerequisite
FREN 3030 or FREN 3030H or FREN 3030E
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will develop a critical understanding and appreciation of French language, literature, art, cinema, and/or history with a focus on the Middle Ages through the 18th century.
Students will demonstrate an ability to perform critical analysis of complex media (such as poetry, prose, performing arts, art, architecture or film) through assignments and classroom activities that require critical engagement with controversial ideas and socio-political structures of the period.
Students will build and share knowledge collaboratively through activities and assignments that foster not only critical debate on literary, political, social, and/or ethical issues, but also respect and awareness of culture differences.
Students will develop communication skills in French through assignments and activities that require listening, speaking, reading, and writing at the ACTFL Advanced to Superior levels.
Students will demonstrate an ability to support one’s ideas and arguments in writing and orally.
Topical Outline
A. Feudal France: social organization; architecture; orality and literacy; Crusade ethic; courtly texts, contexts, and culture; lyric poetry; Arthurian romance and Celtic legend; Marie de France; Chretien de Troyes; poetry of Charles d'Orleans, Christine de Pizan, and Francois Villon
B. Renaissance France: emergence of print culture; consolidation of monarchy; humanism; colonialism; prose works by Rabelais, Montaigne, and Marguerite de Navarre; sonnets of Ronsard and Du Bellay
C. Seventeenth-century France: the Baroque; culture and literature of absolute monarchy; neo-classicism and Boileau, Racine, and Corneille; comic theatre and Moliere; La Princesse de Cleves and the emergence of the modern novel; moralists La Rochefoucauld, La Fontaine, and Pascal; epistolary texts of Mme de Sevigne
D. Pre-Enlightenment to Enlightenment: works by Lesage, Marivaux, Montesquieu, de Maistre, and Chateaubriand
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
