FR 398 - Discourses of Love in the French Novel

What did it mean to fall in love in early modern France, in a hierarchical social structure dominated by absolute monarchy, the Church, and the dictates of family? How did authors depict love differently in novels from the classical, the Enlightenment and romantic periods ? Borrowing Roland Barthes’s approach in Fragments d’un discours amoureux we will take a close look at how discourses of love evolve in the French novel and at the aesthetic movements that shape them. Doing so will shed light on how love was viewed differently over the course of French history, but also how these discourses drew upon common tropes which seem independent of historical development. Authors may include de Lafayette, Prévost, de Saint-Pierre, Balzac and Flaubert, among others.

Prerequisites
Students should have completed one course above FR 222 or Permission of Instructor

Credits 1