TOPICS: THE FANTASTIC NATURE OF THINGS in Spring 2019 (CL2090)

THE FANTASTIC NATURE OF THINGS: MONSTERS, PRODIGIES, MAGIC, WITCHCRAFT, DEVILRY

De la fantastique nature des choses : sur les monstres, les prodiges, la magie, la sorcellerie, les diableries

This survey course intends to explore the fantastic nature of our conception of the world through short literary, philosophical and historical French works. How has the French psyche shaped the fantastic nature of things and how in turn might these things have shaped (French) History? Emphasis shall be placed on the various genres of the fantastique, their creation (or re-creation), their heydays, their dissolutions or their transformations into other realities or fantasies. Readings will include excerpts from Ambroise Paré’s Des monstres et prodiges (1573/85), Jean Bodin’s De la démonomanie des sorciers, Jean Beauvoys de Chauvincourt’s Discours de la lycanthropie (1599), Augustin Calmet’s Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires (1746/51), Montaigne’s « Des Boyteux » (Essais, 1588), fairy tales by Madame d’Aulnoy (Contes des fées, 1690-8) and Charles Perrault (Contes de ma mère l’Oye, 1697), Charles Nodier’s Le Vampire (1820), Théophile Gautier’s La Morte amoureuse (1836), Prosper Mérimée’s La Vénus d’Ille (1837), Guy de Maupassant’s Le Horla (1887), as well as a major work by Jean Cocteau. Class discussions are in French. Grading is based on oral expression, writing and comprehensive skills, as well as analytical skills. Readings are short (+/- 10 pages per session), and available in pdf (no texts are required for purchase).