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CS92PROD
Desire, Deception, Disenchantment: Five French Novels in Translation and on Screen
FIST 227
Spring 2018 not offered

This course aims to study five French novels from the 17th to the 20th centuries in translation, alongside and against their respective cinematic adaptations. We will begin with Lafayette's The Princess of Cleves (1678), one of the Western world's first psychological novels, and then move on to Choderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons (1782). We will then read Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856), Albert Camus' The Stranger (1942), and Marguerite Duras's The Lover (1984). Films will include: Jean Delannoy's 1961 adaptation of Lafayette's novel, Christophe Honoré's The Beautiful Person (2008), a modern-day adaptation of the story, and Rémy Sauder's 2011 documentary on how the novel is being used in a French school in Marseille; three adaptations of Laclos's novel: Roger Vadim's cutting-edge Les Liaisons dangereuses 1960, Milo¿ Forman's 1989 Valmont, and Stephen Frears's 1998 acclaimed Dangerous Liaisons; three adaptations of Madame Bovary: Vincent Minnelli's film (1949), Claude Chabrol's adaptation from 1991 starring Isabelle Huppert, and Sophie Barthes's version (2014); Luchino Visconti's adaptation of Camus' The Stranger (Lo straniero, 1967); and Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Lover (1992). These novels and their adaptations will allow us to think about notions of canon formation; genre and narrative; the uses of history in fiction; censorship, controversy, and crime; gender, class, race, and (post)colonialism; translation; and how these texts have been and continue to be read, used, adapted, and transformed from their time of publication up to the present day.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RLAN
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (FRST-MN)(FRST)

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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