Principles and Foundations of Fiction [ LROM2760 ]

Excellent mastery of the French language.

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.

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.

Oral exam on the taught topic. The student will also have to write an essay on a work of fiction (predetermined list; other texts must first be discussed with the teacher), developing one conceptual aspect of fiction. The essay will be orally presented during the exam.

Throughout this curriculum we will thoroughly study 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 works by theorists (literature critics or theorists, as well as philosophers) and on the other hand, literary experiments from the 19^th to the 21^st Century. We will particularly focus on considerations concerning the modalities, possibilities and stakes of fiction, regarding borderline experiences within the literary phenomenon (Gustave Flaubert, Marguerite Duras, Antoine Volodine).

A collection of texts and a selected bibliography will be provided.

The students will have to read three (short) novels which will be thoroughly analysed during the lectures.