Classicism/A-Classicism

3 units

Among the hallmarks of seventeenth-century, French classicism celebrated reason, order, balance, and a power often associated with the great achievements of Ancient Greece and Rome. Reason, however, coexisted with dreams and madness; order encountered threats both political and sexual; disharmony persisted despite longings for justice; and depictions of Antiquity flourished alongside those of the Orient, the exotic other world of the East. The course explores these a-classicisms, or countervailing forces, by studying the challenges that ground the struggles and seductions in dramas by Corneille, Molière, and Racine as well as in the novels of Madame de Lafayette. We read Graffigny's LETTRES D'UNE PERUVIENNE, Prévost's MANON LESCAUT, Laclos's LIAISONS DANGEREUSES to understand classicism retrospectively, through the a-classicism of the eighteenth Century's treatment of identity, alienation, desire, and societal tensions. Prereq: Fr 325 and Fr 326 or one of these courses and the equivalent WU transfer literature course from Toulouse or Paris. One-hour preceptorial for required for undergraduates.