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

First-Person Outsiders in Modern French Literature

Module description

This module explores five works dating from the early 19^th century to the late 20^th century. All are written in the first person and from the perspective of an outsider figure, and all dramatise the relationship between self and other. The module examines the reasons why an author might choose to speak from an outsider’s perspective, and what effects might be produced by this strategy. Lectures will offer an introduction to the significance given to the outsider figure in French literary history, and will discuss relevant historical, cultural, critical and theoretical frameworks for each of the primary texts. Seminars will engage in close readings and discussion of the primary texts and selected critical and/or theoretical texts.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to introduce students to key works by five important French-language authors from the nineteenth century to the present day. It will consider the depiction of the outsider, in these texts, both as a critical observer with whom readers are tacitly invited to identify and as a disruptive element within the social group, whom readers might be tempted to censure. In the case of each primary text, students will explore the significance of the outsider figure in his or her historical and cultural context: the foreigner in Revolutionary France (Duras) or in modern Tokyo (Nothomb), the artist or social outcast in 19th-century France (Balzac, Baudelaire), the pied noir in mid-20^th-century Algeria (Camus). Students will deepen their understanding of narrative theory and theories of otherness (post-colonial, existential, gender, psychoanalytic) and will engage with ideas about literary reception and canon formation.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of selected primary texts and of the narrative strategies deployed within them.
• 2. Demonstrate an understanding of appropriate historical, cultural, critical and theoretical contexts.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. After initial input from the course tutor, apply and evaluate critical approaches to the material under analysis independently.
• 4. Analyse and critically compare/ contrast texts in the TL, showing awareness of their relation to the social, historical and cultural context in which they were written, and present the results orally and in writing.
• 5. Argue at length and in detail about an aspect of the topic, supporting the argument with evidence from the selected texts and with opinions from secondary literature.
• 6. Access and use critically printed and, where appropriate, electronic learning resources identified as useful by the course tutor; find independently and evaluate critically other relevant resources.

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Independently undertake defined learning activities, asking for guidance where necessary.
• 8. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of a large body of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written argument of some complexity.
• 9. Using course material provided and independent bibliographic research skills, research, plan and write an essay on a chosen aspect of the subject, to a specified length and deadline.
• 10. Demonstrate general competence in word-processing and in use of the Internet.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Lectures will give an introduction to the significance given to the outsider in French literary history, and will discuss relevant historical, cultural, critical and theoretical contexts for the primary texts.
• Seminars will engage in close readings and critical discussion of the primary texts and selected secondary texts.

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

Basic reading:

• Baudelaire, Charles, Le Spleen de Paris: Petits Poèmes en Prose (Paris: Hatier, 2013)
• Camus, Albert, L’Étranger (Paris: Gallimard, 1972)
• Chateaubriand, François-René de (Paris: Hatier, 2012)
• De Duras, Claire, Ourika (Paris: Gallimard, 2010)
• Nothomb, Amélie, Stupeur et tremblements (Paris: Magnard, 2009)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE:  https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=5020

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Ansel, Yves, Albert Camus, totem et tabou: Politique de la postérité (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2012)
• Benjamin, Walter, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (Verso, 1983)
• Ernaux, Annie, ‘Vers un je transpersonnel’, in Autofictions & Cie, ed. Serge Doubrovsky, Jacques Lecarme et Philippe Lejeune (Université de Paris X, 2000)
• Grell, Isabelle, Autofiction (Paris, Belin, 2014).
• Genette, Gérard, Nouveau discours du récit (Seuil, 1983)
• Glowinski, Michal, ‘Sur le roman à la première personne’, Poétique, no 72 (1987), p. 497-506.
• Kristeva, Julia, Étrangers à nous-mêmes (Folio essais, 1991)
• Rabaté, Dominique, Vers une littérature de l’épuisement (José Corti, 1991)
• Scott, Maria, Baudelaire’s ‘Le Spleen de Paris’: Shifting Perspectives (Ashgate, 2005)
• Sarraute, Nathalie, ‘L’Ère du soupçon’, in L’Ère du soupçon: Essais sur le roman (Gallimard, 1987)

Key words search

First-person narrator, first-person narrative, outsider figures, Claire de Duras, Charles Baudelaire, Albert Camus, Amélie Nothomb