French Literature: Seventeenth Century through the Belle Époque

A survey of the great works of French Literature.  Students will begin with the great plays of Molière, specifically Le Malade Imaginaire and Tartuffe, and then move through the major works of the eighteenth century, including Voltaire’s Candide, Rousseau’s Julie, or La Nouvelle Héloïse, and Diderot’s La Religieuse. From the nineteenth century, students will study the works of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Stendhal, and Gustave Flaubert.  The course will conclude with a segment devoted to the literature of the Belle Époque: Jarry, Rostand, Balzac, and Zola.