Admission requirements
Students from abroad or not majoring in French , please consult the teacher for admission.
Description
Like in other countries, the Second World War has many different sides in France, and literature and cinema about it are also multisided. First of all there is the very short struggle against the German invasion in 1940: Simon’s L’acacia gives an impressive picture of it, bringing together the memory of the First and of the Second World War. Of the German Occupation itself, there is no better picture than the famous film by Marcel Ophuls, Le chagrin et la pitié (1969) where witnesses from all directions speak: Resistance, Collaboration and the nazis themselves. The film contributed to changing the national image of the war, which became less idealized in the seventies and this is visible also in literature (Duras and recently Salvayre). The new openness about Vichy also brought about an increased attention for the testimonies of deportation, several of which were published shortly after the Liberation. Wiesel’s and Rawicz’s texts belong to the strongest literary representations of the Shoah, and L’espèce humaine by the communist resistant Robert Antelme is also a classical text of camp literature.
Course objectives
- thorough knowledge of the studied texts and film – knowledge of the historical and cultural context and of relevant literary theories – be able to pursue a personal research and communicate it orally and written.
Timetable
Mode of instruction
Tutorial.
Assessment method
Oral presentation (30%) and paper (70%)
Blackboard
yes
Reading list
Robert Antelme, L’espèce humaine (Gallimard Tel)
Marguerite Duras, La douleur (Gallimard Folio)
- Piotr Rawicz, Le sang du ciel (Suicide Season, 2011)
- Lydie Savayre, La compagnie des spectres (Point Seuil)
- Claude Simon, L’acacia ( Minuit)
- Elie Wiesel, La nuit (Minuit Double).
Read Simon en Antelme.