French 416
French Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries

Dana A. Kress
Jackson Hall, 306E
e-mail: dkress@centenary.edu

Office Hours: MW 3:30-4:30
T R 11-11:30

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Required French texts:      Corneille, Le Cid
                                        Racine, Phèdre (first act online), Andromaque
                                        Molière, Tartuffe, L'Avare
                                        Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro
                                        Rousseau, Du Contrat Social (first six pages only)
                                        Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (seconde partie only, first 5 pages)

Required English texts:      Voltaire, Candide
                                        Madame de Lafayette, The Princess de Clèves
                                        Diderot, The Indiscreet Jewels
                                        Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons

I will give you photocopies of the other texts.

In this course we will focus on the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. These centuries, known as the classic age of French literature and the siècle des lumières, produced some of the richest prose and verse in western civilization. In many ways the writers of the period shaped the modern literature and culture of France. We will attempt to arrive at an understanding of the ideas that shaped the literature of the ancien régime so that we may more justly appreciate the writings produced in France's age of light.

N.B.

French minors will not be expected to show the same mastery of the material as French majors. In a similar way, those who are enrolled in this course as a senior seminar be be graded more rigorously than other students.

History and culture journals

These journals must be written in French and will be based on material taken from the following list. Serious students of French should have a firm grasp of the events and movements that shape the history, culture, and literature of the century. Material from these assignments will be used on the quizzes as well as the final exam. These journals will focus on the following subjects:

Théophile de Viau                                                     Mlle de Scudéry
La Préciosité                                                             Henri IV
Edict de Nantes                                                         François Ravaillac
La règle des trois unités                                              Louis XIII
Marie de Médicis                                                       Concini
Richelieu                                                                    La Rochelle 1628
Mazarin                                                                     Louis XIV
Anne d'Autriche                                                         La Fronde
Jansenisme                                                                 Colbert
Pascal                                                                        Les Jésuits
La Rochefoucauld                                                      Madame de La Fayette
Madame de Sévigné                                                   Madame de Maintenon
L'Académie Française                                                Querelle des anciens et des modernes
Fouquet                                                                     War of Devolution
L'Astrée

Quizzes

Expect numerous quizzes over the readings.

Papers

There will be a ten page paper for this course.

Final exam.

Expect a selection from the following questions on your final exam. As you prepare for this exam throughout the semester, think about how the authors we read in this course fit into these areas of scholarship. Many important writers can profitably be studied in connection with issues of particular interest to current scholarship. The principal ones seem to be the following:

1. French classical dramaturgy. Experimentation in subject matter, form and stress.
2. The Tragic. Various responses are found to the tragic sense of life, among dramatists and moralists, particularly Racine and Pascal.
3. La Préciosité. Is it a constant in French literature, or the product of a clearly defined social or literary milieu of the mid-17th century? What are Molière and La Fontaine's debts to it?
4. Descartes and cartesianism. Descartes's thought and its success after 1650. To what degree is 17th and 18th century criticism "cartesian"? What debt do Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire owe to cartesian thought?
5. The heroic. What is the place of the hero in the development of views about human nature during the 17th century? Compare Corneille and Racine.
6. Spirituality. How did attitudes toward spirituality change during these centuries? Contrast Pascal and Voltaire.

Grading: