First Written Response
Spring 2011
General Procedures
500 min.-750 max. typewritten words, double-spaced, i.e., 2-3 pages
You do not have to do any research; you may use your own thoughts (preferred), but if you do research,
be sure to cite sources properly. Use MLA style. Use the MLA Handbook itself or the guidelines
available on the USF library website (After logging into Blackboard, click on the library tag, Tampa
Main Campus Library, Research Tools, Citing Sources, MLA). You do not have to create a Works Cited
page or give page numbers if you use only the textbook.
Referring to works
Titles of works: poem titles in quotes except where example dictates otherwise, chapter titles and essay
titles in quotes, book and play titles in italics. Use correct MLA style in quoting poems and plays.
Help
Please feel free to consult with the USF Writing Center on the first floor of the library.
Question to write on
WHAT CHANGED (OR DIDN’T) IN FRENCH LITERATURE IN GOING FROM THE MIDDLE
AGES TO THE RENAISSANCE? Your discussion will be limited by the examples we have studied.
The major emphasis of your paper should be literary, not historical.
To help focus your paper, choose 1 or more of the following subtopics:
attitudes toward love
attitudes toward war
attitudes toward religion
use of nature: for example: set piece in medieval, except Charles d’Orleans; source of
good in Rabelais, Montaigne, etc.
ideals: Platonic vs. the here and now
the body
literary techniques
YOU HAVE TO INCLUDE AT LEAST ONE EXAMPLE FROM EACH OF THE FOLLOWING:
(-10 points for each one missing)
1. The Lay of the Nightingale
2. Aucassin and Nicolette
3. one of the medieval poets studied
4. Rabelais
5. Ronsard
6. Montaigne
If you have other suggestions for topics, be sure to get your professor’s approval beforehand.
Turning Paper In
Turn in a hard copy of the paper directly to the professor at the beginning of class time on the due date.
Submit an electronic copy of the paper to SafeAssignment on Blackboard before class on the same date.
Attach a copy of the Written Work Checklist to the hard copy. The grade will be reduced for late papers
per the guidelines in the syllabus.
Second Written Response
Spring 2010
General Procedures
500 min.-750 max. typewritten words, double-spaced, i.e., 2-3 pages
You do not have to do any research; you may use your own thoughts (preferred), but if you do
research, be sure to cite sources properly. Use MLA style. Use the MLA Handbook itself or the
guidelines available on the USF library website (After logging onto Blackboard, click on the
library tag, Tampa Main Campus Library, Research Tools, Citing Sources, MLA). You do not
have to create a Works Cited page or give page numbers if you use only the textbook.
Referring to works
Titles of works: poem titles in quotes except where example dictates otherwise, chapter titles
and essay titles in quotes, book and play titles in italics. Use correct MLA style in quoting
poems and plays.
Help
Please feel free to consult with the USF Writing Center on the first floor of the library.
TOPIC:
Your discussion will be limited by the examples we have studied. The major emphasis of your
paper should be literary, not historical. You may use historical context but only in order to
support literary phenomena. Choose one of the topics below.
a. What changed (or didn’t) in French poetry in going from the sixteenth to the nineteenth
century?
Compare Ronsard’s and/or Du Bellay’s poetry to that of any one or all of the Romantic poets we
studied.
Or:
b. What changed (or didn’t) in French theatre in going from the seventeenth to the
nineteenth century?
Compare Racine’s play Andromache to Hugo’s Hernani.
Discuss at least 4 significant elements. Possible areas to consider are: differences in subject
matter, if any; differences in potential audience and resultant changes; differences in attitudes
toward hierarchy and authority, religion and authority, literary rules; different social or life
philosophies; differences in aesthetic ideas, for example, is beauty absolute or relative?;
differences in sources of inspiration; differences in technique: versification, characterization,
plot development, staging, the unities (The 3 unities count as 1 element, not 3.), imagery, etc.
Please number the four elements you choose in your paper.
Be sure to support your statements with examples from the works.
Turning Paper In
Submit your paper to Safe Assignment by the beginning of class on the due date, April 1, 2010.
Hand in a hard copy of the paper directly to the professor by the beginning of class on the due
date. Attach a copy of the Written Work Checklist to the hard copy. The grade will be reduced
for late papers per the guidelines in the syllabus.
French Masterpieces Midterm Review
Spring 2011
Questions to ponder:
(Be able to answer in complete sentences and give examples from the works to support your
statements.)
I. Be able to answer in a couple of sentences:
1. What does the nightingale represent in The Lay of the Nightingale?
2. Why do we sympathize with the knightly lover rather than the husband in The Lay of the Nightingale?
3. What does the use of a reliquary rather than some other container at the end of The Lay of the Nightingale
tell us?
4. Name three fairy tale elements that appear in Aucassin and Nicolette.
5. What did Abelard want Heloise and him to be known for?
6. Give an example of a medieval poem in which the author is not “sincere.” In what way is the author not
sincere?
7. Why does François Villon have a personal interest in “The Epitaph in the Form of a Ballad” (“The Ballad
of the Hanged Men”)? Who is he asking to be forgiven and why?
8. What is Rabelais’ view of religious practices in his day and age? Give two examples.
9. Name three comic techniques that Rabelais uses and give an example of each.
10. What is the only rule for the new abbey of Thélème?
11. Name and give an example of three different sources of images in Ronsard’s love poems.
12. What is carpe diem? Give one example from Ronsard’s works.
13. Give an example where Montaigne uses a verbal authority and an example where he uses himself as a
concrete example in order to make a point. Why does he do both?
14. According to Montaigne, what do we have to do in order to really learn something?
15. What does Montaigne say about death? What does Pascal critique in Montaigne’s representation?
16. What does Montaigne think the discovery of the New World can teach Europeans?
17. Is La Rochefoucauld a pessimist or a realist? Explain your answer using at least one of his maxims as an
example.
18. What does Pascal mean when he says that humankind is situated between two infinities? Why does he
tell us this?
19. What does Pascal say we always get confused when we try to talk about things, even scientifically?
20. After doubting everything, what is the only thing left that Descartes could not doubt and on which he
based all his subsequent philosophy? Why did the Church not like this?
21. What do we know today that makes Descartes’ reliance on reason ironic? How do we know it?
22. Racine excelled in following the rules in 17th century drama. What one approach allowed him to achieve
unity of action, place, and time?
23. In Racine’s plays, the audience already knows the plot and the outcome. The characters to a large extent
also know where they’re headed. Why would anyone go see such a play?
24. Give an example of one time in Andromache when someone uses duty as an excuse to hide the real
reason for their action or decision.
25. Does anyone “win” in Andromache? If so, who? What 17th century values does this person follow that
allow him or her to overcome obstacles?
26. What is the role of the confidants in Racine’s Andromache? What do they represent?
27. Give an example of one time when Alceste goes too far in The Misanthrope and gets trapped in a
contradiction.
28. Give examples of two humorous techniques Molière uses in The Misanthrope.
29. Is Molière criticizing society or the people who can’t seem to live in it? Is The Misanthrope a comedy or
a tragedy? Why? Give an example of another work we’ve read this semester than can be read in more than
one way.
30. How can too much virtue be a crime? Give an example from either Andromache or The Misanthrope.
31. Why does Voltaire make his main character in “The Good Brahmin” a Hindu instead of a Christian?
32. What is the contradiction that puzzles and distresses Voltaire’s Brahmin? Why is this an especially
important dilemma for the Age of Enlightenment?
33. Some of the same story elements that appeared in Aucassin and Nicolette and in some medieval poems,
such as those of Rudel, reappear in Rousseau’s The New Heloise but in a more “realistic” form. Give two
examples.
34. Why does Rousseau call his novel The New Heloise? What similarities or differences exist between the
characters and the original Heloise and Abelard, the situation in which they find themselves, and their
continuing relationship with each other?
35. No novel in the eighteenth century had more readers than The New Heloise. Why?
36. Give two examples of 18th century philosophical reasoning in Rousseau’s highly emotional The New
Heloise.
37. How is the use of emotion in The New Heloise a double-edged sword?
38. Which is more compelling—the far-away lady or the nearby lady? Why? Give an example of each from
any of our works.
39. Who is Rameau’s nephew and why is he such a shocking character? Why does Diderot like to run into
him once a year? Why only once a year?
40. According to Rameau’s nephew and Diderot, why should we not wish the world to be perfect?
41. Diderot frequently brings up the relationship between moral ideals and the pragmatics of everyday life.
Give two examples.
42. What is Rameau’s nephew like when he “plays” music? Why is this important?
43. Laclos really admired Rousseau’s The New Heloise. Compare and contrast Dangerous Liaisons with The
New Heloise in structure, goal, and characters.
44. Why does Madame de Volanges advise Madame de Tourvel to leave Madame de Rosemonde’s even
though she has done nothing wrong?
45. Why does Mme de Merteuil tell Valmont a story without an ending in the last of the letters in our
selection from Dangerous Liaisons?
46. According to Laclos, reading is “a second education which supplements the insufficiency of the first,”
useful because personal experience is often expensive and always late. What do Madame de Merteuil and
Rameau’s nephew see as the value of reading good books? What does this mean for one of the two stated
purposes of literature, i.e., to be a moral lesson as well as pleasing aesthetically? Keep in mind that Laclos
claimed to be writing the book as a moral lesson but has one of his own characters “misusing” books.
47. Rameau’s nephew talks about sublimity in evil; the “me” in the dialogue reacts negatively, not only to
the story, but also to the seductive manner in which Rameau recounts it. Discuss this in connection with
Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons. Would the “me” in Diderot’s work have reacted the same way to this book?
Why or why not?
48. Name three problems, addressed in our readings, facing the 18th century philosophes in trying to use
education to improve society. In other words, how does education not always work? Identify the work and
the author for each example.
49. Since there was very little quality poetry and very little quality theatre in the 18th century, name one place
where we see poetic lyricism and one place where we see theatrical innovations in prose.
50. Give two reasons, one more social and one more psychological, why Figaro’s monologue in
Beaumarchais’ Figaro’s Marriage is indicative of a real revolution in French society and thought.
II. Be able to answer in a short paragraph:
1. Where is the social criticism in Aucassin and Nicolette? For example, why won’t Aucassin’s father let
Aucassin and Nicolette get married? What is war like in Torelore? Who goes to find whom when the two
end up in separate countries? How is each of these events a social critique?
2. What does Charles d’Orléans do with the standard openings for love poems in the Middle Ages? What
does Christine de Pizan do with standard medieval themes and images? What does Villon do with the
standard description of the medieval ideal woman? What do Rousseau and Laclos do with medieval themes?
Why is this important?
3. What is love for Geoffrey de Rudel in his “Geoffrey Rudel to His Far-Off Lady”? for Deschamps in his
“Advice to a Friend on Marriage”? for Rabelais in his decription of the new Abbey at Theleme? for
Ronsard in his “See Mignonne, hath not the rose”? for Racine in Andromache? for Alceste in The
Misanthrope? for Rousseau in The New Heloise? for Laclos in Dangerous Liaisons?
4. What makes us good—nature or nurture? according to Rabelais? to Montaigne? to Diderot?
5. We have read the works of several writers whose primary profession was not literature. Where do we see
the medical doctor in Rabelais? Where do we see the magistrate and mayor in Montaigne? Where do we see
the scientist in Pascal? Where do we see the mathematician in Descartes? Where do we see the military
strategist in Laclos?
6. Pascal says that the heart has its reasons that reason does not know. Reason and emotion are two major
players in French literature. What is their interplay in Racine’s Andromache and in Laclos’ Dangerous
Liaisons? Does reason or emotion win?
7. The intent of some of our authors seems to be to provide their readers with a reality check. What
techniques do Villon’s “Ballade of the Ladies of Bygone Times,” Rabelais’ tale about Friar John of the
Funnels, Voltaire’s “The Good Brahmin,” and Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew use to entice readers into reexamining previously held concepts about how the world works?
8. Racine and Molière are writing for the same 17th century aristocratic audience. Their subject matters in
Andromache and The Misanthrope share many similarities. In each play there is a major character
passionately in love with one person but also free to marry another. In each there is a conflict between erotic
love and either duty or honor. In each there are characters who represent correct behavior (according to the
17th century) and characters who represent incorrect behavior and its effects. But one play is a comedy and
the other a tragedy. What makes the difference? Discuss the setting and time of the play, the issues causing
moral conflict, and the resolution, if any, of the conflicts.
9. There are similarities in the divergences (Isn’t that a fun concept?) between Pascal and Montaigne,
between Racine and Molière, and between the Diderot character and the nephew character in Rameau’s
Nephew. In each case, one is advocating a heroic stance and the other looking at the practicalities of
everyday life. Which is doing which? Name one example of divergence between each pair. Do you think
one is right and one is wrong? Why or why not?
10. Rameau’s Nephew introduces a new relationship between verbal explanations and actions and between
rationality and irrationality in French literature. Give an example of each.
11. In the eighteenth century, can we say that we are losing a central moral or metaphysical direction? In
Voltaire’s work “The Good Brahmin” we are presented with a dilemma with no given solution, in
Rousseau’s The New Heloise and in Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons we are presented with letters with no
guiding narrator to direct us through them, in Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew we are given a dialogue raising
several serious issues but no conclusion is given (There’s even a suggestion that truth might not be absolute
at least as far as morality is concerned.), in Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro, we are presented with a
main character who is lost. Give two reasons for these procedures, one practical and one philosophical.
What is the end result? Remember what happened at the end of the eighteeenth century in France.
French Masterpieces Final
Spring 2011
I. Please respond to 6 of the following in one or two sentences. Answer in complete sentences and
give examples from the works to support your statements. Show that you have read the work(s).
(Strive for accuracy, clarity, and quality in the content. Pay attention to sentence structure, vocabulary, and spelling.) (48
points, 8 points per question)
1. What is the role of truth in Musset’s poem “Sadness”? Is this similar to or different from the
conclusion of Voltaire’s “The Good Brahmin”?
2. When they are properly functioning, what is the role of our senses according to Maupassant in “The
Horla”?
3. At the beginning of “A Simple Heart” Flaubert describes Félicité as “a woman made of wood, and
going by clockwork.” In contrast, give two examples of how he underscores her humanity later in the
story.
4. The Symbolists try to appeal to things beyond simply reason and romantic passion. Give an
example and explain its “appeal.”
5. Logic and emotion, or one could say the rational and the irrational, have always been very important
in French literature. What does Breton see as their relationship in his discussion of surrealism?
6. What is the role of habit according to Proust? What does it do for us and why is this important?
7. Compare the view towards other people in Sartre’s No Exit with that in Camus’ “The Myth of
Sisyphus.” What about the characters portrayed makes the difference?
8. How does Robbe-Grillet try to avoid the problem Pascal remarked upon, the almost unavoidable
anthropomorphizing or personification of objects through language?
III. Language (12 points)
II. Please respond to 2 of the following in a short essay. Answer in complete sentences and give
examples from the works to support your statements. Show that you have read the work(s).
(Strive for accuracy, clarity, and quality in the content. Pay attention to sentence structure, vocabulary, and spelling.) (40
points, 20 points per question)
1. Why do writers sometimes use uncomfortable images, such as Baudelaire’s carcass and Flaubert’s
parrot from heaven? How are the ideal and the real mixed in each of these? Why? On the other hand,
why do some writers use beautiful images in tragic circumstances?
2. Writers
like to play off each other’s works. Sometimes knowing past literature helps in
understanding more recent literature. For example, what, specifically in each case, does being familiar
with Ronsard’s poem about the rose add to the reader’s understanding of Hugo’s “Since I have placed
my lip” and Baudelaire’s “A Carcass”? How do their conclusions differ?
Or:
What old traditional images are used and transformed in Flaubert’s “A Simple Heart”? in RobbeGrillet’s Jealousy?
3. Wars are always traumatic events. Recent French literature seems to have been most profoundly
affected by three wars in particular: the French Revolution, WWI, and WWII. Did Romanticism,
Dadaism, and Existentialism have anything in common, since they were all immediate reactions to
these wars? How are they different?
IV. Bonus (5 points) Answer only one of the two questions below.
Views of reading have changed over the years. The anonymous author of Aucassin and Nicolete sees
healing as an effect of his/her tale. Heloise says that letters have souls. Rabelais hopes that his book
will bring laughter, the essence of humanity, according to his statement “To My Readers.” Montaigne
states in his “To the Reader” that he wants his book to keep the knowledge of him more alive and
complete for his friends and relatives. The nephew in Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew and Mme de
Merteuil in Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons misuse books.
Ideas about reading change radically in the 19th and 20th centuries. Name two things that Hugo claims
books do for one in “Whose Fault Is It?” What is the relationship between the book Maupassant’s
narrator researches and what he wants to find out? What is Félicité’s contact with books in “A Simple
Heart”? What is the relationship between the lace in Mallarmé’s “Lace Passes into Nothingness” and
writing? What does he hope writing does? What does André Breton think automatic writing will
show? What happens to Proust’s narrator when he falls asleep reading and what is the irony? Why are
there no books in hell in Sartre’s No Exit? What is the African novel used as in Robbe-Grillet’s
Jealousy?
Or:
Both Daudet’s “The Last Lesson” and Voltaire’s “The Good Brahmin” deal with sensitive issues, one
political, the other religious. Compare the two stories in terms of their choice of characters and the
strategies used to get their points across. What does this tell us about the difference in the social and
political climate between the 18th and 19th centuries?
Abelard and Héloïse
1. Why is she writing him?
2. Why didn’t she want to marry him?
3. Why did she become a nun?
4. How does she feel now?
5. Is the monk’s life working out for
him?
6. Why did he insist she take her vows
before he took his?
7. What does he ask her to do now?
8. What does he want them to be
known for?
Rameau’s Nephew
1. To what does Diderot compare his thoughts at the beginning of the dialog?
2. Why does Diderot want to meet up with someone like the nephew once a year and only once a year?
3. Is it better to have geniuses or not?
4. What is the most important thing in any consideration of the problem of evil?
5. Are there any links between the physical and the moral sides of humankind?
6. What is the nephew pantomiming from the bottom of p. 12 to the top of p. 14?
7. What is the philosopher’s reaction to this pantomime?
8. How does the nephew express that we are all equal before death?
9. How should women be educated? According to the nephew? According to the philosopher?
10. Can one be moral in an immoral country?
11. What is a professional idiom?
12. Is nature good?
13. Are happiness and virtue linked?
14. Of what use are books?
15. Does absolute morality exist?
16. Can only good be beautiful and sublime?
17. How does a new god replace the national idol?
18. What is the nephew like when he pantomimes a musical performance?
19. What should lyric poetry be like?
20. What reasons does the nephew give for his having so little moral sense?
21. How is talent not like nobility?
22. What is the conclusion to the dialog?
Rameau’s Nephew
1. To what does Diderot compare his thoughts at the beginning of the dialog?
2. Why does Diderot want to meet up with someone like the nephew once a year and only once a year?
3. Is it better to have geniuses or not?
4. What is the most important thing in any consideration of the problem of evil?
5. Are there any links between the physical and the moral sides of humankind?
6. What is the nephew pantomiming from the bottom of p. 12 to the top of p. 14?
7. What is the philosopher’s reaction to this pantomime?
8. How does the nephew express that we are all equal before death?
9. How should women be educated? According to the nephew? According to the philosopher?
10. Can one be moral in an immoral country?
11. What is a professional idiom?
12. Is nature good?
13. Are happiness and virtue linked?
14. Of what use are books?
15. Does absolute morality exist?
16. Can only good be beautiful and sublime?
17. How does a new god replace the national idol?
18. What is the nephew like when he pantomimes a musical performance?
19. What should lyric poetry be like?
20. What reasons does the nephew give for his having so little moral sense?
21. How is talent not like nobility?
22. What is the conclusion to the dialog?
Overture
pp. 3-11
1. What happens to the narrator when he falls asleep while reading?
2. What links does the narrator find between the imaginary and physical?
3. When the narrator wakes up in the middle of the night from a deep sleep, what does he
not know at first?
4. The narrator proposes that the immobility of the objects around us is caused by what?
5. What remembers the kind of bed, the position of doors, etc., first?
6. How long does this disorientation last?
7. What makes any place habitable?
8. At Combray, what was the narrator given to distract him during his lonely childhood?
What does this object do to the familiarity of his room? How does he describe the
interactions between the images and the room?
pp. 46-51
1. According to the narrator, what is the difference between voluntary and involuntary
memory?
2. What is the Celtic belief that the narrator describes?
3. Describe the narrator’s initial experience upon tasting the “petite madeleine” dunked in
the tea.
4. What must the mind do in the face of the mystery of this experience? How does it go
about it? What are the steps it takes?
5. What does the narrator feel moving in the depths of his own being?
6. The sight of the “petites madeleines” did nothing for the narrator. How does he
describe the role of taste and smell?
7. To what does the narrator compare the unfolding of his memories?