Graduate Studies
MPhil in European Literature & Culture | Course content | Modules | Fr Early Modern - Vision and Illusion in French medieval texts
MPhil in European Literature & Culture
French | FR Early Modern
HEROES AND HUMANS: LENT TERM MODULE FOR EARLY MODERN FRENCH STUDIES
(Convenor: Dr J Mander)
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Sessions will take place on Thursdays, 2-4pm in the Alison Richards Building, Room S2
1 The heroic and the theatre: Dr Nick Hammond (ngh20) and Dr John Leigh (jdl1001)
Notions of heroism are closely linked to genre. In the first part of this session, we will explore two plays, one a comedy, the other a tragedy, by Pierre Corneille, which rehearse contrary ideas of the hero. In L'Illusion comique, the braggart Matamore's heroic words bely his cowardly actions. In Horace, heroism might seem uncomplicated to the eponymous character's eyes, but the words of the other male and female protagonists show how blood ties, marriage, age and nationhood severely undermine any simplistic conception of heroism which might appear to prevail. Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin's comedy Les Visionnaires will also be considered in the light of the role played by the figure of the braggart Artabaze. The second part of this session will consider the use of tragedy and comedy in the Eighteenth Century, focussing on the theatre of Voltaire and Beaumarchais.
Reading:
Corneille, Horace; Illusion comique
Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Les Visionnaires
Racine, Bérénice
Voltaire, Zaïïre
Beaumarchais, Le barbier de Seville, Le Mariage de Figaro, La mère coupable
Marc Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs: Rhétorique et dramaturgie cornélienne (Geneva, 1990)
2 National Heroes: Professor Philip Ford (pjf2)
The sixteenth century saw the first concerted attempt to 'market' the ruling French dynasty through both traditional means (painting, statuary, coins, literature, royal entries) and more technologically advanced means which exploited the new possibilities of reaching a mass audience through the printing press. One key feature of the way in which the Valois kings were presented was the use of classical mythology. The gods and heroes of ancient Greece offered an imposing model for the French nation, while the allegorical interpretations of myth, which were increasingly entering the public domain, lent a certain authority to royal power. This session will focus on one particular heroic figure, Jason, and explore the way in which the story of Jason and the Argonauts was exploited by poets and artists to promote a unified vision of the monarchy and nationhood.
Reading
The Entry of Henri II into Paris 16 June 1549, with and Introduction and Notes by I. D. McFarlane (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1982)
Philip Ford, Ronsard's Hymnes: A Literary and Iconographical Study (Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997), chap. 6, 'Le Second Livre des Hymnes'
Estienne Jodelle, Le Recueil des inscriptions 1558: A Literary and Iconographical Exegesis, ed. Victor E. Graham and W. McAllister Johnson (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1972)
Pierre de Ronsard, Le Second Livre des Hymnes (any edition)
Frances Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975)
3 Passions, honour and duelling: Dr John Leigh (jdl1001) and Dr Emma Gilby (eg207)
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, duelling remained a persistent and intractable problem, unchecked by the successive measures promulgated by Louis XIV. In this period, it was widely agreed that certain texts which depicted duels bore some responsibility for dramatising and condoning them and that they might, equally, be charged with a duty to ridicule or condemn this practice as barbaric, irresponsible and unheroic. Indeed, many Enlightenment writers sought, in their different ways, to show or to reveal the often avowed absurdity and horror of the practice. However, a number of prominent texts, notably Corneille's Le Cid and, at least potentially, Laclos' Liaisons dangereuses, provided a counter-weight, showing the duel to be a badge of honour, and a means of resolution, which, lifting the duellist out of a world of human contingencies, placed him in a noble arena of heroic endeavour.
Reading:
Corneille, Le Cid
Laclos, Liaisons dangereuses, letters CLXIII to letter CLXXV (ie the end).
Secondary Reading:
Micheline Cuénin, Le duel sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, **); Léon-E. Halkin, 'Avatars de l'honneur' in Initiation à la critique historique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1963), pp. 177- 95; G.A. Kelly, "Duelling in Eighteenth-Century France: Archaeology, Rationale, Implications', Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 2 no 3 (1980), 236-54; John Pappas, 'La campagne des philosophes contre l'honneur', SVEC 205 (1982), 31
4 Making and breaking reputations - gossip: Dr Nick Hammond (ngh20)
Gossip represents the space where the reputation of the hero is most at risk, for the very nature of gossip means that those whose stock is highest are most likely to be satirised or slandered. In this session, we will consider some theories of gossip and apply them to various writings, including the scandalous 'Historiettes' by Tallemant des Réaux, the correspondence of Louis XIV's sister-in-law the Princesse Palatine, Saint-Simon's 'Mémoires' and various street-songs, many of which are only available in manuscript form.
Reading:
Primary Reading: Tallemant des Réaux, *Historiettes*, ed. A. Adam (Paris:
Pléiade, 1961), 2 volumes. Text also available online at
http://www.inlibroveritas.net/lire/oeuvre4381.html
Extracts from the following will be given in the session: Dangeau, Journal, Princesse Palatine, Correspondance, Saint-Simon, Mémoires, Seventeenth-century street songs
Secondary Reading: Joan DeJean, The Reinvention of Obscenity: sex, lies,
and tabloids in early modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2002) ; Arlette Farge, Dire et Mal Dire: l'opinion publique au XVIIIe siècle
(Paris: Seuil, 1992);
Lewis C. Seifert, Manning the Margins: masculinity
and writing in seventeenth-century France (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2009);
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Gossip (New York: Knopf,
1985); Nick Hammond, Gossip, sexuality and scandal in France (1610-1715)* (Oxford:
Peter Lang, 2011)
5. The demolition of the hero? Professor Michael Moriarty and Dr Alexander Roose (ar595)
Paul Bénichou's pioneering Morales du grand siecle attempted to trace within the seventeenth century the struggle between rival ethical codes, a heroic optimism (Corneille) giving place to a tragic pessimism (Racine, the Jansenists), itself dislodged by a humane acceptance of the claims of pleasure, combined with scepticism as to humanity's moral and social possibilities (Molière). The narrative is supported by powerful and insightful analyses of many primary texts: but how far can its method and conclusions be accepted today? The focus of the session will be on the interpretation of Jansenism as a demolition of the Cornelian hero.
Reading:
Pierre Corneille, Le Cid, Horace, Polyeucte, Nicomède, Othon
La Rochefoucauld, Maximes
Pierre Nicole, Essais de morale [selected], ed. Laurent Thirouin (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999): read especially the essays 'De la connaissance de soi-même' and 'Des diverses manières dont on tente Dieu'.
Pascal, Pensées (preferably in the Sellier/Ferreyrolles edition (Livre de poche))
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV
Paul Bénichou, Morales du grand siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1948)
Jean Lafond, La Rochefoucauld: augustinisme et littérature, 3rd edn (Paris: Klincksieck, 1986)
Marc Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs: Rhétorique et dramaturgie cornéliennes (Geneva: Droz, 1990)
Leszek Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal's Religion and on the Spirit of Jansenism (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1995)
Michael Moriarty, The Age of Suspicion: Early Modern French Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 18-49
——Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
——Disguised Vices: Theories of Virtue in Early Modern French Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
6 Pirates, picaros and patriots: the heroic within a global economy. Dr Jenny Mander (jsm15)
This session will consider the concept of the heroic in relation to global travel and colonial exploration, focussing in particular on eighteenth-century writings. At the centre of our discussion will be the abbé Raynal's Histoire philosophique des Deux Indes, published 1770, followed by substantially revised editions in 1774 and 1780. Alongside the representation of earlier travellers such as Magellan and contemporaneous explorators such as Bougainville and Cook, we shall consider the role given to the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in Book 10, and how the representation of these 'nomadic savages' is shaped, not least through the anonymous interventions of Diderot, with reference to both the models of the heroic romance and the more anti-heroic patterns of the picaresque. In this context intertextual references and comparisons will be drawn with Lesage's Aventures de Beauchêne, Prévost's Histoire de la jeunesse du commandeur de Malte and Voltaire's Candide. The seminar will also explore Diderot's 'theory' of the heroic or great man in terms of energy and link this to his articulation of revolutionary action.
Reading
Extracts from Raynal, Histoire philosophique des Deux Indes (these will be provided).
Prévost, Histoire de la jeunesse du commandeur de Malte
Voltaire, Candide
Lesage, Les Aventures de Beauchêne.
