River Landscapes in Nineteenth-Century French Literature

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) The course invites students to reconsider the significance of rivers in the human experience through their depiction in nineteenth-century French literature. By integrating fluvial landscapes (natural or urban) into their works, novelists, poets and playwrights openly tackle social, cultural, ethical, metaphysical and psychological issues, giving us a better understanding of the narrative, poetic, and dramatic construction of values, of notions such as "landscape" and "melancholia", and more generally, of human existence. The goal is to prompt students to reflect upon the intricate yet tense relationship between text and reality in the art of depiction. Requisite Courses: 6 credit hours of 2000 level French Studies literature courses or permission of the instructor [prerequisite(s)].