FRENCH 217 Books of the Self

This course focuses on texts that seek to reveal the reality of the self in the space of a book, including readings of confessional and autobiographical works by the twentieth-century writers Camus, Annie Ernaux, Roland Barthes, and Maryse Condé, and by their literary ancestors Augustine, Abélard, Montaigne, and Rousseau.  Themes examined include: the compulsion to confess; secret sharing vs. public self-disclosure; love, desire, and language; the search for authenticity; dominant discourse and minority voices; the role of the reader as accomplice, witness, judge, confessor. Prerequisite: At least one unit of 206, 207, 208, or 209, an SAT II score of 690-800, an AP score of 5, or an equivalent departmental placement score,.

What compels people to confess?  And why are readers—not to mention television audiences—so interested in public self-revelation?  Abuse, alcohol, madness, incest: the most popular daytime TV shows and websites are filled with secret sharers.  So, increasingly, are the hot writing workshops and the best-seller lists. Rousseau (and Jerry Springer after him) had it right: we are authenticated as individuals by what we say about ourselves.  You have nothing to confess?  Then you aren’t really a person.

This course will take a look at some of the confessional masterpieces of the French tradition, analyzing the tension between the impulse to reveal the self and the need to keep it hidden.  Confession and autobiography are inherently dialogic—they require an other to hear, to judge, to understand, to forgive. The highly ambiguous plural roles of the reader as recipient, actualizer, mediator and enabler of the book of the self will be a major focus of our discussions.

Another focal point will be the relationship of confessional writing to reference: How do I know if the narrator is lying?  Or embroidering on the truth, or shading it?  Can the “I” of an autobiographical work be distinguished in some systematic way from the “I” of a work of pure fiction?  A third focus will be the role of conversion—that crucial moment of rebirth and renewal when one discovers a vocation, assumes an identity, comes out of the closet, hears the Word, and so forth—as a structuring principle of the story.  Finally, we will look at the ways in which confessional writers confront and resolve the need for narrative closure in the context of biological continuity.  How can my story have an end—or even a plot—if my life is still in process? 

Problems of writing are central to the book of the self and will also be a principal focus of the course.  Participants will keep a journal in which they will be asked to write about their own perspectives on issues that have preoccupied the writers they are reading. 

Written work:  A journal in four installments; two analytical papers.  No final exam.

Readings: 
St. Augustine, Confessions
Pierre Abélard, Historia calamitatum
Montaigne, Essais (excerpts)
Rousseau, Confessions (excerpts)
Camus, L’Etranger
Annie Ernaux, Une Femme, Passion Simple
Maryse Condé, Moi, Tituba sorcière, noire de Salem
Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes.