FRN3510

20th century French poetry: writing practices, reading, strategies

P Anderson

8 points - 3 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton

Objectives On successful completion of this course students should have acquired (i) a familiarity with a range of 20th-century writing practices in French which are called 'poetic', including a practical understanding of their formal features (eg versification), (ii) an awareness of the evolution of these practices in their social, political and cultural contexts, (iii) a critical understanding of the issues involved in shifting definitions of the poetic and an evaluation of the specificity and usefulness of the term 'poetic'. They should have developed and be able to deploy strategies which make sense of texts according to an understanding of their poetics.

Synopsis This subject will consider a range of writing practices in French from verse forms to the récit poétique through representative texts and authors of the 20th century. It will examine formal features of these practices and other definitions of their poéticité. It will ask what (if any) particularly poetic sense they make and how they make sense, looking at the theoretical work of poets and literary theorists and testing it against writing practices.

Assessment One essay in English (2000 words): 25% - One essay in French (2000 words): 30% - Seminar presentation (1500 words): 25% - Notebook on formal features of poetry (500 words): 10% - seminar participation: 10%

Prescribed texts

Photocopied anthology of texts produced within the department

Recommended texts

Bishop M The language of poetry: Crisis and solution Rodopi
Caws M A and Riffaterre H The prose poem in France Columbia U P
Dessons G Introduction à l'analyse du poème Bordas
Leuwers D Introduction à la poésie moderne et contemporaine Bordas
Thomas J-J La langue, la poésie française contemporaine PU Lille

Vaillant A La poésie: initiation aux méthodes d'analyse des textes poétiques Nathan

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