Study snapshots of French literature and culture from the Revolution to the present. Find out how the age of revolutions, the World Wars, colonization and decolonization, and contemporary unrest forge new intellectual, economic, aesthetic, and political enterprises. Taught in French.
Athena Title
Revs Romanticism Reinvention
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 learn to analyze styles and genres that characterize particular periods in modern literature of French expression, with particular attention to the innovative and revolutionary qualities of modern artistic movements.
Students will learn to situate literary works in their cultural, historic, and linguistic context.
Students will develop the vocabulary, reading skills, literary terminology, and analytical techniques necessary to understand and discuss modern and contemporary literary works effectively.
Topical Outline
A. Enlightenment, Revolution, Pre-Romanticism: Voltaire, Diderot and the Encyclopedie, and Rousseau
B. Romanticism: Mme de Stael, Hugo, Sand, and Maupassant
C. Symbolism: Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarme
D. Realism and Naturalism: Stendhal, Flaubert, Balzac, and Zola
E. Artistic revolutions of the early 20th century: Proust, Gide, Claudel, and Valery
F. Dada and Surrealism: Duchamp, Apollinaire, and Breton
G. Existentialism: Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus
H. Theater of the Absurd: Beckett and Ionesco
I. New Novel: Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Simon, and Duras
J. Contemporary prose and media: Tournier, Modiano, Ndiaye, and Slimani
