Department of French

Paper Fr 4

Rethinking the Human: French Literature, Thought, and Culture, 1500-1700

This paper will be offered at Part IB from 2012/2013.

Part IB students may submit a portfolio of essays for this paper - see the Faculty Guidelines for further details.

This paper will cover the central literary, cultural, philosophical, and religious developments of the two centuries involved - the Renaissance; the Reformation (Protestant and Catholic), the consolidation of absolute monarchy, the revival of ancient and the emergence of new philosophies - with particular attention to the impact of these processes on inherited conceptions of human nature. The relationships between body and soul, between men and women, between human knowledge and faith in God, are radically reinterpreted during this period, and this activity of reinterpretation will be the main focus of the paper.

Prescribed texts

Rabelais: Pantagruel and Tiers livre
Labé: Œuvres complètes
Ronsard: selections from Discours des misères de ce temps and Les Hymnes
Montaigne, Essais, Book 2
Pascal, Pensées
Molière, Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Racine: Bérénice, Britannicus, Andromaque
Lafayette: La Princesse de Clèves

Prescribed topic: Cultural Transformations

Teaching methods

Specimen lecture list
Note: this is for illustrative purposes only; the finalised lecture list will be on the website by the start of Michaelmas Term 2012.

Teaching will take the form of lectures and supervisions. Assessment will be by examination or by a portfolio of essays.

Learning outcomes

Detailed knowledge of major texts of French literary and/or intellectual history.
Ability to read material written in earlier forms of the French language.
Ability to identify key literary conventions of the period (poetic and theatrical forms), and integrate this knowledge into interpretation of texts.
Ability to place texts in historical and intellectual context.
Ability to identify key interpretive issues raised by texts.
Grasp of the key historical and intellectual developments of the period, and ability to interpret texts with reference to these.
Ability to tie textual interpretation to close linguistic observation.
Ability to compare and contrast texts accurately and pertinently.
Ability to recognize and evaluate different approaches to texts, intellectual movements, schools of thought.

Examination

Please see the specimen exam paper for an example of the current format of the paper.

Further information

Please contact Dr Liz Guild emg23@cam.ac.uk or Professor Michael Moriarty mm10005@cam.ac.uk to discuss the paper further.