Unit name | French Fiction: from Realism to the 21st Century |
---|---|
Unit code | FREN20048 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Stephens |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites | |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of French |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit examines the development of French fiction from the nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with the rise of the novel as the dominant literary genre in nineteenth-century Europe, the unit examines the importance of narrative fiction to the modern French cultural consciousness by considering its status as both critical device and commercial object. Students will explore how and why writers in France have used the novel as a means of engaging with the artistic and ideological changes of the modern period. Particular focus will be given to the novel’s wide-ranging capacity for commentary within various contexts (socio-historical, political, psychological, and philosophical) and across a range of genres, notably Realism, Modernism, littérature engagée, and postmodernism. This focus is sharpened through a series of thematic lenses, including gender, ethics, authorship, and consumerism, so as to stress the French novel’s interest in experiment and innovation. In these respects, the unit aims to:
Students will, at the end of the unit, be able to:
1x 1-hr commentary seminar per week (workshopping approaches to close reading of select passages for linguistic and stylistic analysis) and 1x1-hr thematic seminar per week (discussing key themes and wider contexts of understanding). Both will be taught in English, although each week students will be asked to deliver 10-minute group presentations (unassessed) in French followed by a Q&A in French. Introductory lectures in French to each of the five set texts will be podcasted via Blackboard in advance.
One 2000-word essay (50%), testing ILOs 1-5,
one 2-hour examination (50%) testing ILOs 1-5,
The set novels for study may vary from year to year, depending on staff research interests, but the following list is illustrative of the range that will be on offer.
Primary Reading:
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1857)
François Mauriac, Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927)
Simone de Beauvoir, Le Sang des autres (1945)
Sébastien Japrisot, L’Été meurtrier (1977)
Michel Houellebecq, Plateforme (2002)
Secondary / Introductory Reading :
Best, Victoria, An Introduction to Twentieth-Century French Literature. London: Duckworth, 2002.
Farrant, Tim, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century French Literature. London: Duckworth, 2007.
Motte. Warren F., Fiction Now: The French Novel in the Twenty-First Century. Champaign, IL: Dalkey, 2008.
Pasco, Allan H., Inner Workings of the Novel: Studying a Genre. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie, Pourquoi la fiction? Paris : Seuil, 1999
Unwin, Timothy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the French Novel: from 1800 to the present.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.