Love Stories From France

Many of the world’s greatest love stories come from France, the culture that codified the notion of romantic love that still holds the Western world “in thrall.” But whereas the works of La Fayette, of Rousseau, of Stendhal, and of Proust are well-known and widely read, more modest (in their dimensions) contributions on the subject remain somewhat “under the radar.” This course will be devoted to the examination of a number of these lesser known works that also interrogate the nature of that compelling version of human attachment and similarly provoke, through their narrative strategies, awareness that the romantic passion plot often lends itself to being read as allegory of fiction. Thus, Balzac’s small and remarkable story, La grande Brèteche, Mérimée’s Le vase étrusque, and Radiguet’s Le Diable au corps merit scrutiny, as do the more eccentric tales of the decadent writer Barbey D’Aurévilly (Le plus bel amour de Don Juan) and the novel written by the “primitive” artist Marguerite Audoux (Marie Claire). Conference work might include francophone writers whose works both extend and deviate from the tradition, such as the Moroccan Tahar Ben Jelloun and the Canadian Anne Hébert.