Passion in the French Novel of the 19th & 20th centuries / La passion dans les romans des 19 et 20ième siècles



""Passion," Balzac said, "is all humanity." This course will explore different representations of the human passions in the French novel of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will first study in Stendhal's Le Rouge et le noir the conflict of love and ambition; then in La Curée by Emile Zola the portrait of speculators associated with that of the ""imperial party"" in the corrupt society of the Second Empire; in Un Amour de Swann by Marcel Proust the fine analysis of the evolution of passion and jealousy, and finally in a Un Roi sans divertissement by Jean Giono the quest for the absolute and its tragic outcome. These texts should be read in full.

Each student will make at least one oral presentation and a written work of a dozen pages related to the theme of the course.



Required texts:

1) Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir, Hachette, Le Livre de poche classiques, ISBN 978 225 300 6206

2) Émile Zola, La Curée, Gallimard, Folio classique, nº 3302, ISBN 978 207 041 1412

3) Marcel Proust, Un amour de Swann, Gallimard, Folio, nº 780, ISBN 207 036 7800

4) Jean Giono, Un roi sans divertissement, Gallimard, Folio, nº 220, ISBN 978 207 036 2202