7AAFM031 What is a (French) Classic?
This course is taught entirely online through interactive e-learning.
Credit value: 20 credits
Module tutor: Dr Craig Moyes
Assessment: two written presentations of approx. 750-1,000 words (15% of final mark), participation in fortnightly e-discussion (5% of final mark) and one 4,000 word essay (80% of final mark).
Teaching pattern: By interactive e-learning
Module description
In 1850, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve asked, “Qu’est-ce qu’un classique?” Over the course of his short essay, he gives several answers: the classic is that which has become a model of literary value for later writers; that which is at once a self-contained whole and yet part of a greater literary tradition; that which, though originating in a specific time and place, remains contemporary to every age; etc. Thus were the works of Græco-Roman antiquity “classics” for the Early Moderns and thus are Racine, La Fontaine and Mme de Lafayette, like the century that produced them, now “classics” for us. But classicism did not miraculously spring fully-formed from the crucible of Louis XIV’s reign. It is as much product of nineteenth-century literary history as it is of seventeenth-century genius. This module will investigate the twin notions of the "classic" and “classicism” in French literature by looking at the emergence of the famous “classical aesthetic” in the seventeenth century in conjunction with the development of a certain literary history (or histories) in the nineteenth which either privilege that aesthetic as a universal value or alternatively react strongly against it. It will combine the study of primary texts and historical criticism with recent scholarship, and will conclude with a general reflection on the historical nature of literary value.
Aims and objectives
This module has three main learning objectives:
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to develop students' theoretical understanding of literary value and within that framework to investigate the notion of the classic as a viable aesthetic category.
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to see how this notion is indissociable from a historical understanding of literature and to see how, in France, the classic and classicism observe a unique conceptual trajectory between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries.
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to introduce students to two foundational moments in the cristallization of these notions: the quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns at the end of the sevententh century and the Romantic rejection of classicism at the beginning of the nineteenth.
Summary bibliography
Below a selection of texts to be studied. Detailed readings for the module will be given every fortnight. Students are advised to read the two marked with a single asterisk (both brief and clear introductions to French classicism and to the idea of the classic respectively) before beginning the module. Titles marked with two asterisks will be referred to later in the course within the context of specific lectures: students are therefore advised either to obtain them from a library or to purchase them. All other texts will be supplied electronically.
Background:
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E.B.O Borgerhoff, The Freedom of French Classicism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950).
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*Aron Kibédi-Varga, Le classicisme (Paris: Seuil, 1998)
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*Frank Kermode, The Classic (London: Faber & Faber, 1973).
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** Henri Peyre, Qu'est-ce que le classicisme ? (Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1964).
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**Christopher Prendergast, The Classic: Sainte-Beuve and the Nineteenth-Century Culture Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
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**Alain Viala (ed.), Qu’est-ce qu’un classique ? Special Issue of Littératures classiques (1993).
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Roger Zuber and Micheline Cuénin, Le Classicisme (Histoire de la littérature française, ed. Claude Pichois). Deuxième édition (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1998).
Primary Texts
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Perrault, "Le Siècle de Louis le Grand" (1687), in **La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (Paris: Gallimard Folio, 2001).
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——, "Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes" (1688-1692), ibid.
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Fontenelle, Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes (1688), ibid.
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Gottsched, "Notes à la traduction de la Digression de Fontenelle" (1727), ibid.
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Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1738)
**Stendhal, Racine et Shakespeare (1823-25)
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Sainte-Beuve, "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique ?" (1850)
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Nicolas Boileau, 'L'Art poétique' (1674)
Evaluation
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The module takes place over eleven weeks, which are organized into five pairs of topics (two weeks each) plus a general conclusion (one week). Each pair of topics will be directed towards a fortnightly e-presentation by one or more students. The module tutor will be online every week at designated times. Although not a requirement of the course, students may then engage in a 'live' exchange if they are able.
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Remarks concerning e-discussions. These are essentially seminars in an electronic format; it is important therefore to engage seriously with the question. Remember too that discussions are graded. It is not necessary to be brilliant or "right" (if that is possible), but contributions which are unfocused or, worse, entirely off-topic will be marked down.
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Students are evaluated on the basis of the following: 2 e-presentations, c. 750-1,000 words (15%—best mark to count); participation in fortnightly e-discussion (5%); and a final essay (c. 4,000 words = 80%).