Browsing by Subject "French literature"
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Item Autobiographie et pluralisme identitaire chez trios femmes-ecrivains Francophones: Marguerite Duras, Nina Bouraoui et Ying Chen(Texas Tech University, 2004-05) Mavambu-Ndulu, AnnyNot availableItem Family-friendly : homo-affinity in the French sentimental novel, 1770-1850(2016-12) Spinelli, Nicholas Christopher; Wettlaufer, Alexandra; Moore, Lisa L. (Lisa Lynne); Picherit, Hervé; Wilkinson, Lynn; Bennett, ChadThis dissertation investigates the central significance of desire for the self defined as different-than-the-self––of an affect I articulate as homo-affinity––within the domains of Romanticism, Romantic love, and the French Sentimental novel. As expressed in my Introduction, this project is predicated on an analysis of the erotics of sameness, the literary trace of outlaw desire, and the exploration of a queer archive of feelings in the French Sentimental novel. Chapter One pertains to François-René de Chateaubriand’s Atala/René (1801), in which I outline the Romantic topos that serves as a forerunner to the ideal of homo-affinity in the French Sentimental novel. In keeping with Chateaubriand’s autobiographical mode of fiction, the enchanteur’s reliance on reflexive metaphors yields a chiasmatic mirror through which his protagonists might envision another version of themselves and that, as such, conditions the experience of an expansive desire that encompasses passions toward incest, homosexuality, and narcissism––if not a newfound libertinage. In Chapter Two, I examine archival documents that obtain to the manuscripts of Claire de Duras’s Olivier, ou le secret (1821-1824) in order to expose the author’s careful treatment of the closet, which revolves around her creation of a linguistic polari that could furtively portray the eponymous secret and its relevance among writers and intellectuals of Restoration France. Finally––in Chapter Three––I go on to posit that Stendhal, in Armance (1828), deliberately reinscribes and multiplies the erotically charged bonds that figure between knights in pre-Revolutionary novels and chivalric lore, so as to forge a trope for the expression of homosexuality––and even that of a homosexual subject––within his satire of Romanticism. Throughout these chapters, I illustrate how the interconnectivity of these topoi (such as the chiasmatic mirror, parlor polari, and Romantic chevalerie) constitutes a coherent expression of homo-affinity that spans the formation of the French Sentimental novel. In the end, I conclude that the prevalence of a (now queer) attraction toward sameness in Sentimentalism and Romanticism intertextually colored a handful of subsequent literary movements and, ultimately, determined the emergence of homo-affinitive (and equally non-heterosexual) narratives across the evolution of the French novel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Item Paul et Virginie : Christianizing Rousseau à la Fénelon(2010-12) Deden, Christine; Pagani, Karen; Lagarde, FrançoisThis thesis presents Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s novel Paul et Virginie (1788) as a synthesis of the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the theology of François de la Mothe-Fénelon. While the novel’s prominent themes of the goodness of nature and the corruption of society are clearly associated with Rousseau, Bernardin rejects Rousseau’s ideals of independence and self-sufficiency as the basis for his moral theory and preference of nature. Instead, his novel appears to Christianize Rousseau’s philosophy by stressing dependence on a personal, beneficient God who is revealed through nature, thereby associating the natural life with a God-centered life where happiness can be found through dependence on God and selfless service to others. In seeking to pinpoint Bernardin’s Christian influence, this paper goes on to acknowledge Bernardin’s hyperbolic praise for François Fénelon, which leads to an investigation concerning, first, which of Fénelon’s teachings can be found in Paul et Virginie, and second, how Bernardin manages to preserve such enthusiastic admiration for a Christian thinker while also denying several important tenets of Christian orthodoxy. This investigation reveals that Fénelon appealed to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre not only on the basis of what he emphasized, but also what he failed to emphasize. On the one hand, a number of Fénelonian ideas find expression in Paul et Virginie, ideas such as a conception of worship that privileges inner realities over external performances; a glorification of pure, disinterested love toward God; an ideal lifestyle of simplicity and harmony with nature; and an acknowledgement of the role of sentiment in gaining knowledge of the divine. On the other hand, this paper also proposes that Bernardin’s unhindered admiration for Fénelon was made possible by his ability to misinterpret two of Fénelon’s most well-known works, Télémaque (1699) and the Traité de l’existence de Dieu (p. 1718), whose silence on particular doctrines like original sin and the authority of the Scriptures allowed Bernardin to preserve his beliefs about natural goodness and the sufficiency of natural revelation.