RLFR 109(F) Introduction to French Literature: The Literature of Desire and Repression

A study of representative French texts from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries in which the issues of desire and repression help the reader to understand authorial intention and its relation to the process of writing. Among the topics to be discussed: the transposition of male and female voice, the rhetoric of desire and sexuality, Platonism and the sublimation of desire, the salon as a venue of power, provincial and city life as settings for the elaboration of gender themes and conflicts, language and its relation to money and desire, and levels of aggression and passivity. Texts to be read and discussed: Phèdre (Racine), Manon Lescaut (Prévost), Eugénie Grandet (Balzac), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), L'Amant (Duras), La Lectrice (Jean). Conducted in French. Requirements: class participation, a midterm exam, and several short papers.
Prerequisite: French 104 or 105 or by placement text, or permission of instructor.

Hour: NORTON