• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Telling Stories: Narrative Strategies in 19th and 20th Century Fiction in French

Module description

Telling stories is an activity embedded in all societies; but how do stories work? This module gives you the opportunity to study the development of fictional narrative in French between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. We will consider the building blocks of narrative, including character, chronology, perspective and point of view. How are readers manipulated by the ways in which authors construct their narratives? By studying fictions drawn from different periods, you will actively build a sense of literary-historical development, whilst honing critical skills that will be profitable across all of your literary and cultural modules.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Studying this module should enable you to:

• Discuss cogently works representative of major trends in 19th- and 20th-century narrative fiction in French
• Reflect critically on the narrative strategies used by authors of fictional texts
• Develop an understanding of the complex, shifting relationship between fictional texts and their readers
• Develop skills of close reading and critical analysis

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate a good general understanding of the set texts, including reference to their literary-historical context
• 2. Demonstrate a good general understanding of the narrative strategies deployed in the set texts

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Analyse and account for salient features of the set texts, as read in the TL
• 4. Demonstrate an ability to compare and relate features of the set texts
• 5. Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English, mustering a range of textual evidence in its support, presented in appropriate academic form
• 6. Following guidance, locate, identify and utilise library and electronic resources on a given topic

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Undertake defined learning activities with a measure of autonomy, asking for guidance where necessary
• 8. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written or oral argument
• 9. Present information and arguments on a defined topic to a group of listeners
• 10. Present a cogent and sustained argument orally and/or in writing, in English, on a topic chosen from a range of options provided, following broad guidelines but selecting and adapting them as required
• 11. Using course material provided, research, plan and write an essay on a chosen aspect of the subject, to a specified length and deadline
• 12. Demonstrate general competence in word-processing and in use of the Internet

Syllabus plan

The lectures will begin with an introduction to French narrative history, treating key notions (romanticism, realism, symbolism, naturalism, modernism) and thus provide a context against which you can place the set texts. Lectures will also attend to theories of narrative and introduce the notion of narrative strategies (the manipulation of time, character, plot, perspective). They will then move on to the set texts in turn. Seminar sessions will focus on discussion of prepared passages from the set texts (encouraging comparative analysis where appropriate) and from critical works. Topics covered will normally include but will not be restricted to: naturalism and the departure from realism; ‘scientific’ approaches to character and temperament; literary symbolism and poetic prose; place as a function in narrative; narrative ambiguity; reader address; referentiality in fiction; humour and pathos.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Samuel Beckett, ‘L’expulsé’, ‘Le calmant’, ‘La fin’ [1945] in Nouvelles et textes pour rien (Paris: Minuit, 1958)
• Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-morte [1892] (Paris: Gallimard, 1998)
• Emile Zola, Thérèse Raquin [1867] (Paris: Gallimard, 2007)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4025
• Leslie Hill, ‘Beckett’ in Michael Bell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to European Novelists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• Brian Nelson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Zola (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) __________, ‘Zola’ in Bell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to European Novelists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• John Pilling, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Beckett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
• Timothy Unwin, ‘On the novel and the writing of literary history’, in T. Unwin, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the French Novel: From 1800 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

*All of the above are available electronically via the library.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• PDF files of articles/chapters will also be posted on ELE, such as
• Walter Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, in Illuminations, trans. by Harry Zohn (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970)
• Peter Brooks, ‘Introduction’ to Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (London and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)
• Dorrit Cohn, ‘Focus on Fiction’ in The Distinction of Fiction (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

Key words search

French, narrative, fiction