15hrs
Recorded lectures
8hrs
Interactive discussion sessions
12-20hrs
Self study and assignments
COURSE OVERVIEW
Our 2025 online course offers a combination of recorded lectures, self study, quizzes, writing assignments, and live online discussion sessions.
The course traces the evolution of literature in France, set against its historical and political background. Students will gain insight into a variety of influential authors’ works and lives, while learning how to analyse and discuss literary extracts like an Oxford scholar.
MEET THE TEACHER
Adam is a PhD student and Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, specialising in the French novelist Marcel Proust.
Adam holds both a BA in Philosophy and French (First-Class Honours) and a Master’s Degree in French (Distinction) from the University of Oxford. He has many years of teaching experience, and he particularly enjoys helping students to develop a more critical approach to French literature.
Curriculum
2025 SYLLABUS
WEEK ONE
WEEK TWO
The sixteenth century was a tumultuous period in French history. Endless civil war raged between Protestants and Catholics, ravaging the countryside and causing widespread famine. Almost simultaneously, French armies were engaged in a variety of foreign campaigns, sometimes with such strange bedfellows as Ottoman pirates, against different elements of the encircling Hapsburg Empire. In the midst of these turbulences, two writers emerged whose avant-gardism, and sheer bawdiness, can still surprise and shock today. In this lesson, we will explore Rabelais, a comic writer of confused satire, and Montaigne, the inventor of the essay form – both of whom, in messy times, revelled in even messier literary styles.
After the turbulence of the sixteenth century, the French court wished to show, both to itself, to neighbours, and the country at large, that it was orderly again. As clean classical lines became the rage in visual arts, court writers likewise tried to adapt their style to a desire for both control and elegance.
WEEK THREE
WEEK FOUR
In the eighteenth century, various writers began to push at the boundaries of Classicism, and, with it, the legitimacy of the monarchic system. We will examine this with Voltaire’s unruly, satirical poem Le mondain (1736) and Discours sur l’inégalité (1754), Rousseau’s heartfelt critique of society.
The turbulence created by the French Revolution (1789) created room for many new currents of writing and thought. The most important of these was Romanticism, which allowed not only for a new notion of “man”, but also, I will argue, of woman. Romantic writers, now freer to rail against tendencies in society, produce some of France’s most powerful works of literature, as you will hopefully attest to in Victor Hugo and George Sand’s work.
Ready to dive into French literature?
Join our FREE taster session on the 12th of March 2025 to help you decide whether this course is right for you!
