Brochure - English translations of course offerings

of Satan: he becomes not only the supreme incarnation of dissonant Beauty, united
in evil, but also a paradoxical hero, humanized and magnified by adversity, “the
fallen angel who remembers heaven” [“ange tombé qui se souvient des cieux”], to
whom Hugo promises redemption from a staggering fall into the abyss. The literary
depiction of narratives of fall and temptation turn out to have immense influence.
We will discover, at the crossroads of prose and poetry, all the while being a
sociology of modern hell, a metaphysical reflection on evil and its wrenching of the
human condition, and an aesthetic, appropriately sublime, of the abyss.
Studied Works:
• Vigny. Eloa. (photocopy)
• Gautier. La Morte amoureuse, Le Chevalier double, Deux acteurs pour un
role.
• Barbey d’Aurevilly. Les Diaboliques. Paris: Livre de Poche [6048].
• Hugo. La Fin de Satan. Paris: Poésie/Gallimard.
F2046 – The Myth of Orpheus in the 20 th Century
M.-­‐H. Boblet-­‐Viart
The myth of Orpheus, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses tell us (1 A.D.), offers a complex
figure of the poet: he possesses the power to impose his order on the chaotic powers
of the world, a force symbolized by his descent into the Underworld where he finds
Eurydice, but he also falls under a violent attack that rips him apart (literally). In
1858, Offenbach’s operetta proposes a clownish rewriting of the myth that caused a
scandal, while numerous poets continued to find an image of the triumphant or
damned poet in Orpheus – a tradition we find in Jean Cocteau’s Orphée which, in
1927, questioned the tragic value of the myth. In addition to these three works, we
will read, provided in a course pack, L’Orphée-­‐roi (1921) by Segalen, a short opera
leaflet composed for Debussy, and texts by Nerval, Hugo, Valéry, and Blanchot. We
will question the notions of rewriting and parody, the relations between literature
and music, and the modern figure of the poet.
Studied Works:
• Ovid. Les Métamorphoses. Paris: Folio classique [2404].
• Crémieux, Offenbach, Halévy. Orphée aux enfers. 1858. Actes sud, 1993.
• Cocteau. Orphée. 1927. Stock, 2005.
F2052 – The Influence of the Bible on French Literature
D. Compère
The Bible is an important work in European culture. This course will study the
influence of this religious text on French writers throughout the centuries,
concentrating particularly on certain figures or episodes: Eve, Cain, Joseph, Moses,
Paradise lost, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, etc.
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