116-279 Puzzles and Mazes: Experimental Writing in Twentieth-Century France

Note

Available as 116-379 at 3rd-year level.

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

116-115, 116-202 or equivalent.

Contact

Subject Description

Students will read a series of experimental literary texts in French, discovering the patterns and irregularities in their structure. Their understanding of how these texts are put together will be applied in a series of writing exercises employing constraints similar to those they discovered in their reading. They will also extend their understanding of the poetic function of language through the systematic study of wordplay and come to appreciate the literary potential of spoken French. On completing the course they should have an understanding of the historical relations between the approaches adopted by the authors of the prescribed texts and a sense of experimental possibilities as yet unexplored.

Assessment

One class paper in French on a specific text (1500 words) (30%); a series of short exercises in French (not exceeding 1500 words in total) (30%); and one comparative essay in French (2000 words) (40%).

Prescribed Texts

A reader will be supplied by the Department.

• Raymond Queneau, Le Chiendent. (Paris: Folio, 1990).
• Oulipo, Atlas de Littérature potentielle. (Paris: Folio, 1990).