Seminar : Literary History [ LROM2725 ]

Prerequisite: literary history and previous knowledge of different ways to analyse literary texts.

The seminar will deepen localized issues. Depending on subjects and issues, texts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century French literature will be selected.

It is thus presented as an introduction to personal research and preparation for the thesis in its various phases (analysis, problem setting, writing) from the point of view of literary history.

Written essay to be prepared individually or in small groups (depending on enrollment), led by the teacher. This work will lead to an oral presentation during a session of the seminar.

Texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will be studies with Agnès Guiderdoni, texts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with Damien Zanone ; the seminar will question the process of legitimation of literary forms that first appeared as private practices without purpose or avowed aesthetic. I twill be a way to question the borders of literature.

This year, the seminar will focus on the following subject: "Literature after the Belles-Lettres" It will deal with literary forms that appeared at the end of Classicism and exhibits a new conception of Literature (which supplants the phrase « Belles Lettres at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). Among other forms, there are essays, memoirs, letters, autobiography, diary.

Texts to be studied in 2010-2011 :

1. Mémoires et autres écrits de Marguerite de Valois, la Reine Margot, éd. Yves Cazaux, Paris, Mercure de France, « Le Temps retrouvé », 1986.
2. Mémoires de la Grande Mademoiselle, éd. Bernard Quillet, Paris, Mercure de France, « Le Temps retrouvé », 2005.
3. Mémoires de Justine Guillery. 1789-1846, éd. présentée par Marie-Paule de Weerdt-Pilorge, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007.
4. Mémoires de Madame Roland, éd. Paul de Roux, Paris, Mercure de France, « Le Temps retrouvé », 1966 et 1986, 2004 (paperback).

 Recommended readings for a theoretical and historical basis : Fiction et Diction by Gérard Genette (Seuil, 1991)  ; Qu’est-ce qu’un genre littéraire ? by Jean-Marie Schaeffer (Seuil, 1989) ; La Diplomatie de l’esprit. De Montaigne à La Fontaineby Marc Fumaroli (Gallimard, 2002) (chapters on memoirs) ; Histoire, Littérature, Témoignage. Ecrire les malheurs du temps by Chr. Jouhaud, D. Ribard and N. Schapira (Gallimard folio, 2009).