116-470 French Erotic Literature, 1560-1954

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Objectives:

Students who complete this subject should:

Content:

This subject examines French erotic literature from an historical, critical and theoretical perspective. The corpus to be studied includes: playfully bawdy poetry from the late Renaissance (Les blasons du corps feminin), libertine narrative works from the classical period of the Ancien Regime (1650-1790), with a focus on connections between eroticism, free-thinking ('la philosophie') and anti-clericalism, the advent of Romantic eroticism (Musset's Gamiani), the continuation/resurrection of the Sadean tradition in the twentieth century by Georges Bataille (Histoire de l'oeil), concluding with one of the best-known works of French pornography, Pauline Rage's L'Histoire d'O. The final part of the course is devoted to an examination of the varying social significance of French erotic literature over time, general questions of pornography and representation, feminist critiques of pornography, and French critiques of political correctness.

Assessment:

Prescribed Texts:

Students are expected to purchase all texts, with the exception of 'Les Blasons du corps féminin', and 'Vénus dans le cloître ou la religieuse en chemise', copies of which will be provided.

• , Les Blason du corps feminin
• , Venus dans le cloitre ou la religieuse en chemise
• , Thérèse philosophe, Paris, Actes Sud, 1992.
• Mirabeau, Ma Conversion ou le libertin de qualité, suivi de Hic et Hec, Paris, UGE, 1995 (Collection 10/18).
• Marquis de Sade, La Philosophie dans le boudoir, Paris, UGE, 1972 (Collection 10/18).
• Alfred de Musset, Gamiani, ou deux nuits d'excès, ed. et pref. Jean-J. Pauvert, Paris, Ramsay, 1992.
• Georges Bataille, Madame Edwarda; Le Mort; L'Histoire de l'oeil, Paris, UGE, 1973 (Collection 10/18).
• Pauline Réage, Histoire d'O, Paris, LGF, 1982 (Livres de poche).
• Michel Foucault, La Volonté de savoir (Histoire de la sexualité I), Paris, Gallimard, 1994.