Questions of General and Comparative Literature

Teacher(s)

Sábado Novau Marta;

Language

French

Main themes

This course aims to introduce students to the questions and methods of research in general and comparative literature. To do so, the course proposes to study and cross-reference works from different linguistic and cultural areas, both in a synchronic and diachronic approach. The comparative approach concerns the choice of the corpus and the type of questioning that general and comparative literature addresses to literary objects. The works are approached on the basis of a common theme which allows for both theoretical and literary reflection. This course may also occasionally call upon texts from other disciplines to enrich the understanding of the works.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

At the end of this course, the student will be able to understand the heuristic and theoretical force of literary works. He/she will be able to question literary texts in a critical and reflexive way, formulate a research problem and compose a corpus of study in a reasoned way. He/she will learn to create links between texts of different kinds and to practise a comparative reading of literary works, characterised by a shift in perspective.

Content

What is interpretation? Is there a “good” or “bad” way to interpret literary texts? How has literature reflected upon interpretation and why? This course aims to answer these and other questions starting with four literary works that hold (sometimes implicitly) the theme of interpretation at the heart of their stories. In examining the way fiction thinks about interpretation (its construction and its limits), this course will enrich the study of literary works with a theoretical and hermeneutical reflection on the production of meaning beginning with these texts, thus clarifying our own interpretive gestures.

Teaching methods

This course will combine lectures and literary interpretation where students will be asked to discuss the texts.

Bibliography

Trois oeuvres de lecture obligatoire:

• Miguel de Cervantès, Don Quichotte. Nouvelles exemplaires, trad. Jean-Raymond Fanlo, Le livre de Poche, Paris, 2008. ; Don Quijote de la Mancha I y II, Cátedra, Madrid, 2005 [1605, 1615]. (Chapitres : I, 1-7, 33-35 ; II, 1-3, 22-24).
• Franz Kafka, Le Procès, trad. par Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt, Pocket, Paris, 1995 ; Der Proceß, Fischer Verlag, Francfort, 2008 [1925].
• Thomas Pynchon, Vente à la criée du lot 49, trad. par Michel Dory, Points, Seuil, 2000 ; The Crying of Lot 49, Penguin, London, 1996 [1966].

Une bibliographie critique et théorique sera mise à disposition par l'enseignante. D'autres textes littéraires seront lus en cours.

Teaching materials

• Les trois oeuvres du corpus; les notes de cours et les diaporamas. La brochure du cours avec des textes critiques et théoriques.

Faculty or entity

FIAL