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Graduate Programs in French

Supplementary M.A. Reading List

This supplementary list contains bibliographical information on texts from the basic M.A. Reading List. For the Middle Ages, use the parallel texts indicated here. Professor Johnson has furnished information on 19th. and 20th-century poetry; you should know in which recueil the poems on the list appeared and the date of publication of each recueil. At the end of the list, we recommend a literary history to help situate you in your readings. Please do not hesitate to contact the faculty, should you wish to discuss any of the texts on the reading list.

Text for the Middle Ages

Béroul and Thomas
  • La chanson de Roland (n.p: American Life Foundation, 1977) and ed.-trans. Ian Short in the parallel ed. (Paris: Librairies Générale Française-Livres de Poche/Lettres Gothiques, 1990) ISBN 2-253-05341-4
  • Tristan et Iseut, in the parallel text ed. Daniel Lacroix and Phillippe Walter Paris: Librairie Générale Française-Livre de Poche/Lettres Gothiques, 1989) ISBN 2-253-05085-7
Marie de France Les lais, parallel text ed. by Laurence Harf-Lancner and Karl Warnke (Paris: Librairie Générale Française-Livre de Poche/Lettres Gothiques, 1990) ISBN 2-253-05272-X
Chrétien de Troyes  Le chevalier au lion, ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion-CFMA 89, 1982); and trans. Charles Buridant and Jean Trotin, 2nd ed. (Paris: Champion/Textes et Traductions des Classiques Français du Moyen Age, 1991) ISBN 2-85203-204-X
Guillaume de Lorris
  • Le roman de la Rose, parallel ed. by Armand Strudel (Paris: Librairie Générale Française-Livre de Poche/Lettres Gothiques, 1992) ISBN 2-253-06079-8
  • La farce du maître Pathelin (Paris: Nouveaux Classiques Larousse)
Francois Villon 
  • Le lais, Le testament, parallel text ed. by André Lanly (Paris: Champion/TCFMA 3, 1992) ISBN 2-85203-313-9
  • The Medieval Lyric, ed. Howell Chickering and Margaret Switten (South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College-NEH, 1988). Anthology I: Troubadour and Trouvère Song
  • Poèmes d'amour des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. Emmanuèle Baumgartner and Francoise Ferrand (Paris: Union Générale des Editions­ 10/18, 1983) ISBN 2-264-00541-6. Have an overview of the genre system in medieval lyric.

Nineteenth Century Poetry

Lamartine Méditations poétiques (1820): "L'isolement" (Méditation première) and "Le lac" (Meditation dixième)
Hugo
  • Les rayons et les ombres (1840): "Fonction du poete" (I), and "Tristesse d'Olympio" (XXXIV) and "Oceano Nox" (XLII)
  • Les châtiments (1853): "Sonnez, sonnez tonjours clairons de la pensée" and "Ultima verba" (the first and last poems of Livre septième, the final section of the recueil)
  • La légende des siècles (1859): "Booz endormi" (VI of section II, D'Eve à Jesus) and "Le Satyre" (the unique poem of section XXII, Seizième siècle--Renaissance-­Paganisme)
Baudelaire  Les fleurs de mal (1857, but use an edition based on the second edition of 1861 and that takes into account the posthumous edition of 1868)
Gautier Emaux et camées (1858): "Symphonic en blanc majeur" (1849) and "L'art," the final poem, first published in L'Artiste (1857)
Verlaine
  • Les fêtes galantes (1869): "Clair de lune" (opening poem)
  • Romances sans paroles ( 1874): "Ariettes oubliées" (opening section of the recueil
  • Sagesse (1881): "Mon Dieu m'a dit: Mon firs, il faut m'aimer. Tu vois" (Opening poem of nine in section VI of part II)
  • Jadis et naguère (1884): "Art poétique" (twelfth poem in "Sonnets et autres vers," opening section of the first part, Jadis)
Rimbaud  "Voyelles" (probably 1870 or before) and "Le bateau ivre" (1871), both published first in Lutèce (October and November respectively 1883) and then in Les poètes maudits (1884) and "Alchimie du verbe" (second of the two Délires in Une saison en enfer, 1873)
Mallarmé Poésies (1898): "Salut" (1893' recited as "Toast," by Mallarmé presiding over the seventh Banquet de la Plume, "L'après-midi d'un faune" (1876) (following "Hérodiade," is the second of nine poems in the section Autres poèmes), "Prose (pour des Esseintes)" (1885, sixth in the section Autres poèmes), "Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui..." (1885, second in the four sonnet cycle Plusieurs sonnets), and "Le tombeau d' Edger Poe" (1877, second in the cycle of eight Hommages et Tombeaux)

Twentieth Century Poets

Apollinaire
  • Alcools (1913)
  • Calligrammes: poèmes de la paix et de la guerre (1913‑1916) and published in 1918.
Tristan Tzara "Chanson Dada," De nos oiseaux (1923)
André Breton "Tournesol," Clair de terre (1923)
Louis Aragon "Else au miroir," La Diane francaise (1945)
Robert Desnos  "Dernier poème," Domaine public (1953; but written during World War II). Available in various anthologies of poetry. (Set to music by François Poulenc in 1956; recording available in the Music Library‑­Poulenc, Mélodies, COM DIS 1961)
Paul Eluard
  • "L'Amoureuse," Capitale de la douleur (1926)
  • *Opening poem of Le Travail du peintre in Poésie ininterrompue I (1946), "A Pablo Picasso."
  • *"A Marc Chagall," Le dur désir de curer (1946)
  • *(These two poems are set to music by Francis Poulenc as "Pablo Picasso" and "Marc Chagall," the opening two poems of a cycle of seven mélodies called Le travail du peintre (1957), a recording of which is available in the Music Library‑‑Poulenc, Mélodies, COM DIS 1961.)
  • These poems may be found in Paul Eluard, Oeuvres complètes, 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard‑Pléiade, 1968).
René Char "Evadné," Fureur et mystère (1948)
Raymond Queneau 
  • "Si tu t'imagines," L'Instant fatal (1948). Recorded by Juliette Greco, Les grandes chansons, III (Columbia WL 174; available in language lab)
  • "Main source Main gourde...," Morale élémentaire (1975)
Aimé Césaire   "Couteaux mid)," Soleil cou coupé (1948); rpt. Cadas tre (1961)
Saint-John Perse "Chant pour un équinoxe," first published in the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, Sept. 1971. Also available in Saint‑John Perse, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard­Pléiade, 1972)

Recommended Literary History

Denis Hollier and Howard Bloch, eds., A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).

Helpful Reference Works

Pierre Bec. La Lyrique française au moyen âge (XIIe et XIIIe siècles): Contribution à une typologie des genres poétiques médiévaux (Paris: A & J Picard/Publications du C.E.S.C.M; 6, 1977).