French lit study

[yvonne]

For those whose students are beyond the standard French textbooks like Bien Dit, Bon Voyage, etc., and who are looking for a more literature-based approach, I thought I'd mention a couple resources I just discovered thanks to a French friend. She teaches English at a French lycée (although she's French) and she has high school aged children of her own.

 

1) Bescherelle: Chronologie de la littérature française du Moyen Age à nos jours is a fantastic overview of French lit. For each period (Middle Ages, 16th century, 17th c, ...21st c), it has a short 2-4 page section of info about the period, the key historical/cultural/etc events influencing the authors of the time. Then there's a series of two page spreads about specific authors and a representative work. For example, in the 17th century section, there's a two page spread on "La Fontaine réinvente la fable," and "Pascal livre ses Pensées," and "Phèdre consacre le génie de Racine," etc.  There's also a timeline for each period showing several key, representative works of that period. 

 

2) Mes Maxi Fiches pour le Bac: Français   Similar to the Bescherelle above, but much simpler/pared down. Two pages to describe each literary movement ("Le romantisme","Réalisme et naturalisme," etc.) followed by one page for each of three to five different authors in that movement, including their main work/s.  (The second part of the book has tips for studying lit, esp. for the Bac.)
 

 

3) There's a Hachette series, BiblioLycée and BiblioCollège, that French students use to study literature at the lycée/collège, a little like CliffNotes, but with the actual text. They include the text of the classic along with notes, analysis, and qeustions for study/analysis/writing. The ones I picked up are all unabridged versions of the classics, but I'm not sure if all BiblioLycée editions are unabridged.

 

For example, the BiblioLycée Phèdre includes

- the text

- a short bio of Racine

- a 7 page "contexte" section very similar to what SWB suggests doing for a context page giving the historical context of the work and the various influences on the author, a

- a "chronologie"/time line of Racine's works and the historical and cultural events of the time,

- a preface to the work

- footnotes explaining vocabulary and/or expressions or cultural/historical references

- short sections after each act or two with one or more "lecture analytique", basically lit analysis

- lit analysis questions to think about

- "Travaux d'écriture" - with a writing prompt ("Dissertation")

 

An example of a writing prompt: "'Les passions n'y sont présentées aux yeux que pour montrer tout le désordre dont elles sont cause', écrit Racine dans la préface d Phèdre.  Commentez cette affirmation en vous appuyant sur les textes du corpus, sur l'ensemble de la pièce de Phèdre et sur des pièces de théatre lues et vues."

 

Even if we only use it for the footnotes and some of the analysis questions to practice speaking, it will be worth it. (The books are only around 4 euros, but they are nice books and the content seems excellent.)  

 

Happy reading!
yvonne

 

 

[Loesje22000]

Thank you!

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing your finds! French lit has been one of those things I've wondered how to handle!