Introduction à la Poésie Française

Automne 1997

1. The field of literary studies concerns itself with verbal texts read as structures of meaning. While language is a practical tool for thought and communication of many sorts, the particular focus of literary studies is on linguistic creations as meaningful in themselves, and not purely as documents that record meaning outside themselves.
   
   
2. The central activity of literary study is textual interpretation, the analysis of how meaning is constructed by writers and readers. That activity is guided by diverse and often competing theories and methodologies. It is supported by various collateral areas of investigation, including the study of the process by which texts are created and received, and their relationships to each other and to other fields of experience and analysis. The field of literary studies brings its perspectives and methods to bear on imaginative and non-imagion imaginative works alike.
   
   
3. Courses satisfying the literary studies requirement are centrally concerned with the textual analylsis of primary works, give some consideration to competing interpretive frameworks, and give significant attention to one or more of the areas of investigation listed above.

• textual interpretations of French primary texts;
• analysis of meaning
• consideration of competing theories and methodologies
• an introduction to upper level courses: Medieval Literature, 16th & 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, and Francophones Studies and Literatures.