Francophone Literatures: An Introductory SurveyOUP Oxford, 1996 M09 5 - 312 pages The canon of French literature has been the subject of much debate and now increasingly francophone literatures are demanding more attention in student French literature courses. The first study in English of francophone literatures, this book introduces the diverse bodies of texts in French from the numerous French-speaking areas around the world, with separate sections covering Africa, French Canada, the Creole Islands, and Europe, and will provide students at both undergraduate and 'A' level with a comprehensive introductory survey of the subject. Francophone literatures emerge from rich bi- and multi-lingual cultures in part as colonial legacies. They also challenge the monopoly of the French literary tradition. This introductory survey celebrates the linguistic difference of such texts and the creative possibilities offered by deviance from an established tradition, demanding new critical approaches. The texts studied here cast a new light upon French literature in terms of their diverse perspectives upon writing, history, politics, and culture, their violent rewritings, subversive versions and parodies sometimes forming an elaborate pastiche of celebrated French texts. Guides to further reading, a select bibliography, and an extensive index combine to make the book an extremely readable introductory overview of a hitherto little explored area. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Antilles and French Guiana | 103 |
Haiti | 130 |
Mauritius | 148 |
The Maghreb | 163 |
Morocco | 185 |
Tunisia | 203 |
Lebanon | 209 |
SubSaharan Africa | 224 |
Madagascar | 267 |
Conclusion | 277 |
Index | 283 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African literature Aimé Césaire Algerian André Anthologie Arabic Belgian c'est Cahier celebrates Césaire's collection colonial complex concerned contemporary Creole créolité critical cultural d'une debate Déjeux described dominate écrivains essay European example exile explore France francophone literatures French-Canadian French-speaking genre Glissant Haitian ibid identity important influential island j'ai Jacques Jean Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo Joual Joubert jour journal Kateb Yacine Khatibi landscape language langue française large number later Léopold Sédar Senghor linguistic literary littéraire Littératures francophones Maghreb major Malagasy Maryse Condé Mauritian modern Mohammed Dib monde Montreal mort narrative nègre Negritude nineteenth century noir North African novel novelists nuit œuvre oral Paris particular plays Poèmes poems poésie Poètes poetic poetry poets political Prix Goncourt published Quebec Quebec literature relationship René René Depestre René Maran Revue roman Senghor significant social Soleil suggests Tahar Ben Jelloun terre texts theatre tion tout tradition Tunisian West Indian women written
Popular passages
Page 19 - one's own" only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language (it is not, after all, out of a dictionary that...
Page 18 - As a living, socio-ideological concrete thing, as heteroglot opinion, language, for the individual consciousness, lies on the borderline between oneself and the other. The word in language is half someone else's. It becomes "one's own...
Page 59 - ... inapplicable to the state and circumstances of the said province, the inhabitants whereof amounted, at the conquest, to above sixty-five thousand persons professing the religion of the church of Rome, and enjoying an established form of constitution and system of laws, by which their persons and property had been protected, governed, and ordered, for a long series of years, from the first establishment of the said province of Canada...
Page 230 - ... elle plonge dans la chair rouge du sol elle plonge dans la chair ardente du ciel elle troue l'accablement opaque de sa droite patience.
Page 136 - D'apprivoiser, avec des mots de France, Ce cœur qui m'est venu du Sénégal?
Page 232 - Je vous remercie mon Dieu, de m'avoir créé Noir, d'avoir fait de moi la somme de toutes les douleurs mis sur ma tête le Monde. J'ai la livrée du Centaure Et je porte le Monde depuis le premier matin. Le blanc est une couleur de circonstance Le noir, la couleur de tous les jours Et je porte le Monde depuis le premier soir.
Page 113 - À ce moment-là, chaos ne veut pas dire désordre, néant, introduction au néant, chaos veut dire affrontement, harmonie, conciliation, opposition, rupture, jointure entre toutes ces dimensions, toutes ces conceptions du temps, du mythe, de l'être comme étant, des cultures qui se joignent, et c'est la poétique même de ce chaos-monde qui, à mon avis, contient les réserves d'avenir des humanités d'aujourd'hui.
Page 60 - I entertain no doubts as to the national character which must be given to Lower Canada; it must be that of the British Empire; that of the majority of the population of British America; that of the great race which must, in the lapse of no long period of time, be predominant over the whole North American Continent...
Page 19 - ... exists in other people's mouths, in other people's contexts, serving other people's intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one's own.
Page 121 - Qui nous parlent de choses qui ne sont point d'ici? Et puis elle est vraiment trop triste leur école, Triste comme Ces messieurs de la ville, Ces messieurs comme il faut Qui ne savent plus danser le soir au clair de lune Qui ne savent plus marcher sur la chair de leurs pieds Qui ne savent plus conter les contes aux veillées. Seigneur, je ne veux plus aller à leur école.