Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202

Description: MAJOR LITERARY WORKS AND ARTIFACTS OF POST-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE: THE ROMANTIC LEGACY ***** DISTRIBUTION COURSE GROUP 1 ***** Fall Semester: Study of 19th- and 20th-century fiction through the special lens of the Romantic imagination. Readings from Chateaubriand, Desbordes-Valmore, Claire de Duras, Musset, Hugo, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Proust, Prevert, and the new novelists. Emphasis on discussion and close textual analysis, all in French. ***** PREREQUISITE: FREN 202 or placement exam or AP credit or permission of instructor. ***** Spring Semester: This course provides an introduction to French literature (drama, poetry, the novel) and cinema- from romanticism to existentialism and postmodernity. Questions and themes addressed in the course: the rise of the kind of world in which we find ourselves today, and an attempt to understand it: thus, the decline of the aristocracy, the rise of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, imperialism, globalization, the emergence of the cults of romantic love and sexual fulfilment as attempts to deal with the "death of God" etc.; religious, artistic and sexual ecstasy; how do we distinguish (can we distinguish?) "great literature" and "art" from mere entertainment? Are literature and art (as many claim today) just "cultural constructions"? or is there such a thing as beauty or greatness trans-culturally, trans- historically? ***** PREREQUISITE: FREN 202 or placement exam or AP credit or permission of the instructor.