Monographic lecture - The book of Genesis in French literature - "Rewriting" the Bible, or reinterpreting it ? (17th-20th Centuries) 3304-3WM-KR-OG

What ideas has contemporary French literature encoded into the motifs which reference the key passages in the book of Genesis ? Genesis sets forth the key concepts of our civilisation, so naturally any reinterpretation must necessarily introduce ethical and aesthetic transformations. And conversely the ideological-cultural context of the last four centuries has determined the way that the fundamental episodes of the Scriptures are conceived.
We begin with a recapitulation of the structure of the Bible, of the manner in which Genesis was written and of the culture that gave rise to it, followed by a reminder of some of the commentaries on it by Saint Augustine. The Reformation and the rise of Biblical and historical criticism engendered a questioning of the message of Genesis, a trend that is found in various baroque parodies and fantasies : Cyrano de Bergerac's États et Empires de la lune (The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Sun and Moon) ; Gabriel de Foigny's La Terre australe connue (The Southern Land, Known) ; Évariste Parny's Paradis perdu (Paradise Lost). In the Enlightenment, poetry was often combined with scientific discourse ; for example : Marivaux's La Dispute (The Dispute) ; Diderot's Le Rêve de d'Alembert (D'Alembert's Dream) ; J.-J. Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, 1755 (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) ; Buffon's Les Époques de la nature (The Epochs of Nature) ; certain articles in Diderot & d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (Encyclopedia) and Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical dictionary). Romanticism with its legends and the Parnassian school with its visions idealise the message of Genesis without reducing its dramatic impact : Victor Hugo's Légende de siècles, 1859 (The Legend of the Ages) ; Leconte de Lisle's Caïn (Cain) ; L. Dierx's Prière d'Adam (Adam's Prayer) and Vision d'Ève (Eve's Vision) ; Charles Péguy's Ève (Eve) ; Michel Tournier's "La Famille d'Adam" ("Adam's Family") in Le Coq de bruyère (The Grouse). The reworking of the theme of imagination and sin : É. Zola's La Faute de l'abbé Mouret (Abbé Mouret's Transgression) ; Loys Masson's Les Noces de la vanille (translated as The Overseer) ; Annick de Sousenelle's Le Baiser de Dieu ou l'alliance retrouvée (The Kiss of God or The Forgotten Covenant) ; A. Rimbaud's Après le Déluge, 1873 (After the Flood) ; P. Claudel's Les trois premiers jours de la Genèse, 1913 (The First Three Days of Genesis) ; J Supervielle's La Création des animaux (The Creation of the Animals), L'arche de Noé (Noah's Ark), La Création du monde (The Creation) and the poems "Encore frisonnant" ("Still shivering") and "Dieu pense à l'homme" ("God thinks of Man"). Finally the new aporias presented by modenrism and postmodernism : André Gide's Le Traité de Narcisse, 1890 (The Treatise of Narcissus), Le Clézio's Le Chercheur d'or, 1985 (The Prospector) and Jean Grosjean's Adam et Ève, 1997 (Adam and Eve).
Recapitulation of the themes studied and of their evolution through various currents of thought and aesthetic movements.

Type of course

general courses

Mode

Classroom

Learning outcomes

Educational Outcome:
At the end of this monographic lecture the student should have broad-ranging knowledge about the relationship between Biblical exegesis and its intertextual context in French literature of the 17th to the 20th century ; about the place and importance of the social sciences, in particular philology, in the general spectrum of the sciences, and about their specific methodology and focus ; the student should have a detailed and profound knowledge of the terminology of the social sciences and of philology in particular ; they should have deep knowledge of the cultural, linguistic and literary methods relating to the multiple reinterpretations of the hypotext of Genesis ; they should have a deep knowledge of recent directions in literary research, and be able to develop and explain their knowledge of the history of French and Francophone literature.

Assessment criteria

Credit: lecture attendance, oral presentation confirming preparation of homework assignments and a 30-minute final control test (graded).

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY
« Les exégètes aux prises avec la Genèse » dans La Genèse dans la littérature. Exégèses et réécritures, dir. M. Bercot et C. Mayaux, Dijon, 2005, p. 11-20 et « Genèse 1,1 – 2,4 : texte poétique », p. 21-27 ; Rimbaud, Illuminations (« Après le déluge » dans « Rimbaud et la Genèse »,p. 133-144);
Jean Delumeau, Une histoire du paradis, Fayard, 1992; Le Péché et la peur. La culpabilité en Occident XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle, Fayard, 1983.
P. Gibert, Biblia - księga nad księgami, 2002, trad. 1. Choinska, 2002, p. 132-135.
André LaCocque, Myśleć biblijnie, „Znak”, 2003.
Jean-Michel Racault, « La Bible travestie. Libertinage et parodie antichrétienne dans les littératures de l’Ailleurs à l’Age classique », Nulle part et ses environs. Voyage aux confins de l’utopie littéraire classique (1657-1802), Presses de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003, p. 73-91.
Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque. […], Lessius, 2000.
Ph.Sellier, La Bible expliquée à ceux qui ne l’ont pas encore lue, Seuil, 2007.
Henri Tincq, « Traduire la Bible. Une quête éternelle », dossier dans Le Monde Magazine n° 2, 5.02. 2005, p. 17-25 (copie).
Bóg, Biblia, Mesjasz. Z księdzem profesorem Waldemarem Chrostowskim rozmawiają: Grzegorz Górny i Rafał Tichy, Fronda, Warszawa, 2007, p. 173-193, 206-228.
A. Świderkówna, Rozmowy o Biblii, t. 1, PWN, 1994, VIIe édition 2001, p. 27-84.

Additional information

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