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The purpose of this seminar is to discuss specific modes of literary criticism and theoretical discourse and their application to a number of selected texts. Topics and works to be examined will vary each year. The organizing topic in the Fall 1996, "The Text: Author, Reader, Society," focuses on: The act of reading involves a triad in which author, reader, and society are participants. This notion has been examined and questioned in many ways in recent theoretical writings. Is there an author in or of a text? Is it true that it is only "in the reader that the text comes to life"? How does the reader react to the eroticism in Sade's and Balzac's works? How do social and cultural elements present themselves in the contexts and contents of tex ts and their readings? Is it possible to learn how better to interpret aspects of Zola's works by reading Aron's The Art of Eating in France: Manners and Menus in the 19th Century? How can Duby's The Chivalrous Society help us examine La Chanson de Roland? How can Eugen Weber's France: Fin de Siecle help us penetrate the decadence portrayed by Huysmans? These are questions that will be studied in readings of medieval texts, medieval and classical plays, 17th-century letters, and 18th- and 19th-ce ntury short fictions and novels.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: NONE Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: FREN223 OR FREN224
Last Updated on MAR-24-2000
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459