Seminar : literary analysis [ LROM2735 ]

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The aim of this seminar is to help the students acquire a scholarly method to write an essay in text analysis. The students will be able to analyze a book written by one particular author, relying on various scholarly methods on the topic of some specified literary question

At the end of the seminar, the student will be able to analyze individually a literary text, choosing adequate scholarly methods and relying on the literary knowledge he has acquired.

Team work (oral presentation) and individual assignment (written).

The seminars include sessions of group work, preparation in sub-groups, oral presentations  and collective discussions. The dynamics of the course move towards greater student autonomy and culminate in an individual written assignment.
There are additional materials on iCampus.

 

The seminar prepares the students for the writing of a thesis in literary analysis. It provides the tools to analyze a text and to organise a scholarly and coherent interpretation (how to identify the interpretative clues, how to problematise, how to use bibliographical tools, how to plan the work and to present the result). The internal analysis is set against the historical and sociological context of the text. Several types of analysis are considered (thematic, semiological, narratological, mythocritical, etc.). The students will practice the analysis of the main parameters of narrative writing: space and temporality, building of the plot, focalisation and point of view, as well as studying a structuring motif. The seminar will focus on a narrative text (19th-20th c.) ; the methodological skills can be transferred to other texts.

A bibliography is drawn up annually to reflect the current year's issue. It is available on iCampus.

Students are required to take this (biannual) course during their period of training.

Support: The corpus for study comes from contemporary French literature (19^th century to the present day). The information is on iCampus.