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V45.0968

NICOLE         
TOPICS: LITTÉRATURE ET VOYAGE (IN FRENCH)       
V45.0968-001
FALL 2008

The origin of epic Western literature is linked to the voyage narrative, as exemplified in Homer’s Odyssey.  In a world that has become too small, twentieth century travel literature is of a more psychological nature.  This course will first examine the tradition of the “great voyages” in Chateaubriand’s Mémoires d’Outre-tombe (Book I, vi to viii), which recounts his travel to America.  The course will then study twentieth-century travel literature, looking at how both poetry and prose texts insert themselves in the long tradition of travel literature through the innovation of thematic and formal characteristics.

The following texts will be studied:

Chateaubriand Mémoires d’outre-tombe, vol I, Le livre de Poche (edition Jean-Claude Berchet)

Cendrars: Du monde entire (Poésie/Gallimard)

André Gide: Voyage au Congo (Gallimard, coll “folio” n° 2731

Michaux, Henri: Un barbare en Asie-Ecuador (Poésie-Gallimard)

Butor, Michel: La Modification (Minuit)