| Unit name | Before the Novel: experiments in prose narrative |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FREN20019 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Tomlinson |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
N/A |
| Co-requisites |
N/A |
| School/department | Department of French |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
The novel is today the dominant form for prose fiction and carries with it a set of conventions so well established that we often take them for granted. But in the history of literary prose, the novel is a newcomer. In this unit, we will study examples of prose fiction from the medieval and Renaissance periods and will consider how they meet, mix, or defy generic expectations, play with the arts of narrative, authorial authority, and hermeneutics, and tease the reader in making claims for verisimilitude while wilfully blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction. In the first half of the course, led by Dr Ailes, we will consider the conventions and characteristics of the chivalric novel, as apparent in La Mort le roi Artu, before examining Jehan de Saintré, a semi-didactic narrative text that defies generic categorisation and which is sometimes described as ‘the first novel’. In the second half of the course, led by Dr Tomlinson, we will turn our attention to François Rabelais. Rabelais’s fantastical works blend medieval traditions with conventions and practices borrowed from the classical writing that was central to the intellectual movement of which he was a part – humanism. Provocative and outrageous, his experiments in prose tell us much about sixteenth-century culture and yet at once raise broader cross-period issues about the nature and intent of prose fiction.
Students would develop an understanding of different conventions of prose writing and chronological change. They would become aware of the complex relationship between truth, protestations of truth, and fiction, and ways in which different authors asserted the ‘reality’ of what they were writing. They would be aware of the range of formal possibilities within prose narrative.
The unit will be taught through one lecture per week and one seminar (in two groups if necessary). The recently developed on-line tutorials in Old French will be made available through Blackboard for any students who wish to try to read the oldest texts in the original. All the students will be expected to make use of the on-line tutorials in Middle French.
2,000 word essay (33%) 2 hour exam (67%)
Both forms of assessment will test subject knowledge of the field. Students will be required to develop detailed and extended analytical arguments based on independent research using a range of source materials. They will show an awareness of methodologies appropriate to the subject matter.
Antoine de la Sale, Jehan de Saintré, edition Bilingue (Lettres gothiques, livre de poche, 1995)
Gargantua (Poche, Folio plus classique, 2004), edited by Emmanuel Naya
