UCL - Principles and Foundations of Fiction

[ROM2760]

[22.5h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 1st semester.

Teacher(s):

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

Mastering the relations between fact and fiction through the theoretical contributions of rhetoricians and practitioners of literature.
Understanding the specific influx of fiction in the grasping of reality and in the transmission of personal and collective experiences.

Main themes

Texts of rhetoricians and authors of the 19th and 20th century, essentially French, covering the question of literature and fiction in their connection to reality.

Content and teaching methods

Throughout this curriculum we shall study in a theoretical but in great depth, the relation between fact and fiction, as well as the manner in which the latter elaborates from a reality felt to be somewhat chaotic and/or
disturbing.
The constituent elements of the curriculum are, on the one hand drawn from works by rhetoricians, (critics or rhetoricians of literature, as well as philosophers) and on the other hand, theoretical texts of certain writers from the 19thand 20th centuries ( Sartre, Camus).
We intend to view specifically those considerations concerning the modalities , the possibilities and the stakes of fiction in regard to some
borderline experiences, such as concentration camps.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Pre-requ. (ideally in terms of competence)
Excellent mastery of the French language
Evaluation:
The student will have to furnish a written essay covering a work of fiction , published within the last twelve months, analyzed in function of concepts covered during the curriculum , following a grid delivered at the inception of the year.
Support.
Fiction: The impossible necessity Vincent Engel.
Editors : Asmodée Edern, Ohain, 2006