General and Comparative Literature : Methods and Practices

Teacher(s)

Sábado Novau Marta;

Language

French

Prerequisites

This course completes the introduction to European literature begun in course LFIAL 1130, which is a prerequisite.

Main themes

Based on a specific theme, which may change from year to year, this course introduces students to the comparative study of literature. The study of literary works will be put into perspective by a cross-disciplinary approach to literature: the aim will be to link literature with other arts and disciplines. In addition, this course also emphasises literary analysis and the interpretation of texts through the comparative study (essay, commentary) of works. By comparing texts with one another, this course introduces students to a reading that invites a more off-centre view.

Learning outcomes

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

By the end of this unit, students will be able to :   In practical terms, this course focuses on the comparative method in the study of literary works. Through this systematic introduction to the discipline, the student acquires the tools for reading it, and in particular learns to draft written works based on comparative argumentation (comparative commentary, comparative essay).  In terms of content, students will be able to understand how the world's literatures feed off each other to form a dynamic, unified and diverse network. Each student's specific literary training will be enriched by the establishment of a broad framework, involving several languages, countries, arts and disciplines.  Other AAs:  1.5 ; 2.6 ; 3.5 ; 4.3 ; 5.6

Content

This course offers an introduction to modernist literature by taking the process of the interior monologue in its different forms and variations as our main focus. The writers studied, through this narrative technique, renew the novelistic aesthetics and break with the representation of the reality in traditional novels. This literary renewal must be understood within the particular historical, cultural and intellectual moment of the early twentieth century in Europe. Artistic vanguards, Freud’s discovery of the unconscious as well as phenomenology in philosophy, place experience, and more broadly the subject, are all at the heart of these investigations. The literature of this time seeks a form able to authentically reflect the interiority of the subject and its intimate way of thinking, feeling and perceiving the world. This course, in addition to the in-depth literary study of the four works in the corpus, will make it possible to understand literary phenomena in relation to the artistic movements and currents of thought contemporary to them.

Teaching methods

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

Bibliography

Lectures obligatoires

• Knut Hamsun, La faim, Le livre de Poche, Paris, 1989 [1890].
• Édouard Dujardin, Les lauriers sont coupés, Paris, GF Flammarion, 2019 [1887].
• Arthur Schnitzler, Mademoiselle Else, Stock, Paris, 2002 [1924].
• Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, Folio Gallimard, Paris, 1994 [1925].

Ainsi que les différents extraits d'oeuvres que l'enseignante mettra à dispostion des étudiants sur moodle.
Les étudiants sont encouragés à lire les oeuvres en langue originale, ils peuvent prendre l'initiative de se procurer le livre dans la langue étrangère directement.

Teaching materials

• Les quatre oeuvres du corpus et les notes de cours. Ponctuellement des textes théoriques seront mis à disposition des étudiant·e·s pour compléter la compréhension des œuvres.

Faculty or entity

> FIAL