Belgian Francophone Literature [ LROM1523 ]

There are no prerequisites for this course.

- The course studies the works of the most recognized authors and goes on to look at the complex conditions of the emergence and blossoming of a French-speaking literature in Belgium.

- Analysis of exceptional works and of the aesthetic currents to which they belong leads, more generally, to exploring their connections with the country's political, linguistic, and institutional history, to identifying affinities with the literature of neighbouring countries, and, in the case of the most recent of them, to situate them within the framework of the French-speaking world.

The skills to be acquired are aesthetic, historical, and political in nature.

They involve:

- recognizing the existence,

- knowing the complex history,

- understanding the worth and the particular characteristics,

- and analysing the main works of Belgium's French-speaking literature.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

A written examination will evaluate knowledge of history and of literary history, as well as an aesthetic analysis of works.

The course consists of lectures and a list of required reading.

Built following an inductive methodology, the course will focus on the great works of Belgian French-speaking literature, locates them in their context and brings out the singular answer they have given to the discourses peculiar to the time. The accent will be stressed on the problematic matters. These are explained in the syllabus, which gathers the contextual and historical data dealt within the lectures, and systematically presents them in a patrimonial prospective (whereas the lectures will mainly focus on textual questioning and analysis). The syllabus gives additional information rather than repeating the lectures.

Contents: Complexity of an emerging literature. De Coster and the Legend of Ulenspiegel. Lemonnier and the naturalism. 1880's generation (Rodenbach, Maeterlinck, Elskamp, Eekhoud, Verhaeren). Effervescence of the inter-war period (new dramaturgies, surrealisms, Baillon, and so on) After World War II (exile figures, "Belgique sauvage"). Turning-point of the Seventies (return to the History, ways of intimacy).

/

/