Department of French and Italian

Chair

François P. Rigolot

Director of Graduate Studies

Helen Sheppard Kay

Professor

David M. Bellos, also Comparative Literature

Pietro Frassica

Marie-Hélène Huet

Helen Sheppard Kay

Gaetana Marrone-Puglia

Suzanne C. Nash

François P. Rigolot

Associate Professor

Volker Schröder

Thomas A. Trezise

Assistant Professor

André Benhaïm

Göran Blix

Natasha Lee

Simone Marchesi

Aïssata Sidikou-Morton

Senior Lecturer

Christine M. Sagnier

Fiorenza Weinapple

Lecturer

Florent Masse

Carol N. Rigolot

Associated Faculty

Anthony T. Grafton, History

Philip G. Nord, History

Ezra N. Suleiman, Politics

 

The aim of the Department of French and Italian is to train students to become effective teachers and scholars of French language and literature. (The department does not offer a graduate program in Italian; it does, however, teach graduate-level courses in Italian literature for suitably qualified students in this and other departments.) Instruction and supervision are so arranged as to ensure that students acquire a broad understanding of the whole field of French studies as well as a specialized grasp of its sub-fields, and are well-prepared to develop independently as scholars.

General Requirements

To qualify for graduate work in the department, the candidate must show evidence of a comprehensive knowledge of French literature and competence, written and oral, in the language. A broad training in the humanities is an advantage.

By the end of the second year of graduate study, all students must demonstrate a reading proficiency in two additional languages. Students are urged, however, to fulfill these requirements in the first year of residence. All language requirements must be satisfied in order for the student to be authorized to take the general examination.

Course of Study

Programs are arranged on an individual basis, in consultation with the director of graduate studies, according to the needs, preparation, and interests of the student.

The normal Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program takes five years, the first two being devoted to preparation for the general examination, the third through fifth to the conceptualization and writing of the dissertation. Reenrollment each year is contingent upon satisfactory performance. Courses may be broad and basic or designed to prepare students for more specialized and original work, or they may be seminars intended to prepare students to work independently and intensively on particular projects. Students are encouraged to take courses in allied subjects, such as art history, comparative literature, and history, when such work is of demonstrable importance to their field. During the fourth term students begin working with their future dissertation advisers to draw up a list of topics to be researched during the summer following the first two parts of the general examination in preparation for the third part administered early in the fifth term. Students are encouraged to take two to three additional courses related to their dissertation project during this term. Although five years following the general examination are allowed for completion of the dissertation, students should make every effort to complete it during their residence at Princeton.

Students qualify for the award of the Masters of Arts (M.A.) degree by successfully completing all course work, fulfilling the language requirement and passing the first-year oral examination, and the first two parts of the general examination.

Fields of Concentration

As early as the end of the second term, but no later than the end of the fourth, students select a field of concentration from among those listed below. A program of study is established in consultation with the director of graduate studies. The fields are:

• (1) The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• (2) The Ancien Régime (Classicism and Enlightenment)
• (3) The Revolution to the Present

The department expects students to enroll in some courses or seminars in each of the fields. Normally, by the end of their fifth term of study, students should have taken a total of 15 courses or seminars. In the general examination, which is based on a comprehensive reading list, students are examined both on their field of concentration and on their general knowledge of the other fields. The dissertation is in the chosen field. Students may, however, choose to bridge fields in selecting a dissertation topic.

Schedule of Exercises and Examinations

Oral Presentation. The oral presentation, required of all first-year students at the end of the first term, consists of a brief, critical reading of a literary text in French, followed by questioning on the subject. This examination is not graded, but comments are recorded and presented to the student in an interview with his or her director of graduate studies.

General Examination. The general examination consists of three parts. Parts I and II are normally taken in May of the fourth semester, toward the end of the examination period set aside in the Graduate School calendar. Parts I and II are each of three hours duration and are administered on successive days. Each part generally consists of a minimum of three questions, out of which the student chooses at least two. The first part deals with the student’s field of specialization (Middle Ages to Renaissance; 17th to 18th centuries, etc.). The questions focus on any combination of works on the reading list. One of the questions in part I is formulated and answered in the language not native to the student. The second deals with fields other than the student’s area of specialization. All sections are read by at least two examiners. They agree, in consultation, on a grade for each question, and for the whole examination. In averaging the final grade, each part has equal weight. After receiving a passing grade on parts I and II of the general examination, students are automatically eligible for a Master of Arts degree. Application forms are available through the Graduate School’s Web page. During the fourth term students will begin working with their future dissertation advisers to draw up a list of topics to be researched during the summer following parts I and II of the general examination. Early in the fifth semester students take part III of the general examination (formerly called “special field examination”), a three-hour examination on the topics researched over the summer. Students and advisers will collaborate in formulating the questions for this examination.

Oral Examination on the Dissertation Proposal. Taken no later than February of the sixth term, the oral examination on the dissertation proposal consists of a 60-minute exercise comprising (1) a 20-minute presentation in French of the student’s dissertation proposal and (2) a comprehensive interrogation dealing with the implications of the proposal and the student’s general program of study. The questions focus on matters such as literary history and bibliography as well as on critical methods. In order to be admitted to this oral examination, students are required to submit, no later than one week prior to the exercise, a written text of the proposal outlining the issues they propose to explore, the methods of analysis they propose to adopt, and the bibliography of the topic. Students may not sustain the oral examination on the dissertation proposal until they have successfully passed the special field examination. The faculty will make suggestions concerning the proposal, and can approve it, recommend that it be revised and resubmitted, or, in accordance with University regulations, recommend that the candidate be awarded a terminal master’s degree.

In the event of failure to sustain the oral examination, students may present themselves on one further occasion, within a time period determined by the director of graduate studies. Departmental recommendation of graduate students for a fourth year of study is contingent on their having sustained the oral examination on the dissertation proposal.

Especially well-qualified students who have completed the language prerequisites may, upon successful application to the department’s Committee on Graduate Studies, be authorized to present themselves early for the general examination and the oral examination on the dissertation proposal.

Final Public Oral Examination. After the completed dissertation has been recommended for acceptance by the two appointed readers, the examination is set for a date convenient to the candidate and the department. The examination consists of a formal public lecture of 30 minutes in length, describing the work undertaken and achieved in the writing of the dissertation. The lecture may be delivered in English or French. The candidate’s examining committee then initiates a question period, taking the doctoral dissertation and related areas as the point of departure. No grade is given for this examination, other than a pass or fail.

Teaching Requirement and Assistantships

As a matter of policy, the department requires its graduate students to gain experience in undergraduate teaching. Most students are appointed as part-time teaching assistants each year they are in residence. Normally, students do not teach during their first term of residence or in their fourth term, when they are preparing for the general examination. In the third, fourth, and fifth years, students normally teach three hours per week for each term in elementary or advanced language classes. Opportunities to teach in literature courses sometimes arise. This teaching is guided and supervised by a faculty member who confers with the student and reports to the department chair on his or her classroom performance.

Financial Assistance

Financial support may be in the form of fellowships of varying stipend levels, teaching assistantships, or a combination of the two.

The Fulton McMahon Research Fund, established by Alfred Foulet, Graduate School Class of 1927, in honor of Fulton McMahon, Class of 1884, provides funding for summer study and thesis research projects to graduate students in good standing.

The department also enjoys the exclusive disposition of funds allocated specifically to graduate fellowships and stipend increments. Among these may be counted the Behrman, the Bergen, the Boudinot, and the Schultz fellowships, awarded to graduate students who demonstrate outstanding scholarly promise. The Edward C. Armstrong Fund, established in perpetuity by Alfred Foulet, Graduate School Class of 1927, through a generous testamentary bequest made at his death in 1987 in memory of his Princeton teacher and colleague, provides for fellowship stipends and increments, as well as grants for thesis research and summer study projects both abroad and at Princeton to students in good standing.

Research Facilities

The department’s primary scholar resources are located in Firestone Library, where it shares the B Floor with the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, German, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures. Books catalogued as belonging to the department of French, Italian, and Romance Studies are located on B Floor as well, so that graduate students in the department have easy access to them.

French and Italian Colloquium

The French and Italian Colloquium, comprising the faculty and graduate students of the department, affords participants an opportunity several times a year to hear distinguished visiting and local scholars present new approaches to the study of literary, cultural, and linguistic problems, both in public lectures and frequent “lunchtime colloquia.”

French Courses

FRE 500 Pedagogy Seminar

Christine Sagnier

Practical and theoretical preparation for teachers of French. Sessions may be held in common with other language programs.

FRE 502 Language and Style

Staff

History, theory, and practice of literary translation.

FRE 506 Medieval French Readings

Sarah Kay

Reading of selected texts from the beginnings of literary composition in French to the end of the Middle Ages.

FRE 509 The Troubadours and the Occitan Tradition

Sarah Kay

Readings in troubadour poetry, and the narrative and didactic literature of the midi.

FRE 510 Seminar in Medieval French Literature

Sarah Kay

Intensive study of a selected literary or cultural topic such as chansons de geste, courtly love, comic writing, the history of the book, or poetry and thought.

FRE 511 Humanism and the French Renaissance

François Rigolot

A study of the intellectual and religious expression of the Renaissance, as seen against the political and social movements of the age.

FRE 512 Lyric Poetry of the French Renaissance

François Rigolot

Intensive study of a selected subject from topics such as the forms of narrative prose, poetics and logic, chamber theater and fête, Reformation and Counter-Reformation writings, travel, literature, and the critical spirit.

FRE 513 Seminar in the French Renaissance

François Rigolot

To suit the particular interests of the students and the instructor, a subject for intensive study is selected from topics such as the forms of narrative prose, poetics and logic, chamber theater and fête, Reformation and Counter-Reformation writings, travel literature, and the critical spirit.

FRE 515 The Classical Tradition

Volker Schröder

Major authors, dominant genres, and masterpieces of the classical age of French literature. The contemporary awareness of tradition and hierarchy, the significance of codification, and the question of imitation are among the problems to be explored. Authors and topics may include Racine, Molière, Boileau, and La Rochefoucauld; classical theater; the moralists; and memoirs and historiography.

FRE 516 Seminar in 17th-Century French Literature

François Rigolot, Volker Schröder

Usually a treatment of an aspect of the “other” or nonofficial culture of the 17th century such as préciosité, parody, and burlesque; correspondence; personal memoirs; and others.

FRE 517 Forms of Neoclassicism

Volker Schröder

Poetic, dramatic, and narrative systems and conventions in the Ancien Régime. The topic selected is usually generic, but may concern the work of a single writer or a group of works by different writers.

FRE 518 The Literature of Enlightenment

Marie-Hélène Huet, Natasha Lee

The relation of aesthetic form, genre conventions, and ideology is examined through the work of one of the major 18th-century writers or through one or more of the paraliterary forms often preferred by 18th-century writers: the familiar letter, the anecdote, the scientific or critical essay, the commentary, historiography, or natural history.

FRE 519 Enlightenment and Romanticism

Marie-Hélène Huet, Natasha Lee

Study of an aspect of literature or thought in the two periods. Topics envisaged include the writing of history from Voltaire to Michelet, Madame de Staël and the Coppet circle, classical and romantic theories, and practices of translation.

FRE 521 Romanticism

David M. Bellos, Suzanne C. Nash, Göran Blix

The ideological and formal problems raised by the break with classical ideals are studied in a variety of texts, documentary as well as literary, from Rousseau through the late Hugo. Topics include the conception of the literary work as a personal, original production; the struggle of the author for the creation of a style; and the writer’s assumption of his relation to history.

FRE 522 19th-Century Lyric Poetry

Suzanne C. Nash

Intensive textual study of the poetic theories and practices of Hugo, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and the Parnassians.

FRE 523 Studies in Forms of Narrative: The French Novel in the 19th Century (also COM 563)

David M. Bellos, Göran Blix, Suzanne C. Nash

A systematic analysis of narrative forms through the close examination of particular texts. At various times the following is considered: the prose romance, the picaresque, the thesis novel, the novel of manners, and shorter forms of fiction.

FRE 524 20th-Century French Narrative Prose

David M. Bellos, André Benhäim, Thomas A. Trezise

The major developments in French fiction from Proust to Perec. The course focuses either on formal and thematic developments, or on the work of one or two major authors (for example, Proust, Gide, Céline, Sarraute, or Perec).

FRE 525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater

Suzanne C. Nash

The aesthetic theories and practices of dramatists or poets who have helped form our idea of modernism, including Apollinaire, Artaud, Breton, Claudel, Cocteau, Genet, Ponge, Reverdy, and Valéry.

FRE 526 Seminar in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature

Thomas A. Trezise

Treatment of either the works of an individual writer or a broad topic, such as the impact on literature of other forms of intellectual or artistic activity, including philosophy, the visual arts, history, and psychology.

FRE 527 Seminar in French Civilization

André Benhaïm, Marie-Hélène Huet

The role of political, legal, and economic institutions in the development of French society of the 19th and 20th centuries. The course studies writers actively involved in the political life of the country.

FRE 528 World Literature in French

André Benhaïm, Aissata Sidikou-Morton

According to faculty availability, treatment of either francophone literature and culture of a given geographical area (such as Canada, the Caribbean, North or Sub-Saharan Africa, or Belgium), the literary and cultural problems common to several geographical areas, or the work of one or more Francophone writers.

FRE 581 Introduction to Romance Linguistics and Cultures

Staff

The development of the Romance languages, principally French and Spanish, within their cultural contexts and the principles and practices of historical linguistics.

FRE 583 Seminar in Romance Linguistics and/or Literary Theory

Marie-Hélène Huet, Sarah Kay, François Rigolot, Thomas A. Trezise

An examination of either the intersection of linguistic and literary analysis, as illustrated by the Romance languages, or the theoretical foundations of literary study.

Italian Courses

ITA 551, 552 Medieval Italian Literature

Pietro Frassica

Dante and medieval Italian literature to 1321.

ITA 553, 554 Literature of the Italian Renaissance

Pietro Frassica

Currents of Italian thought and literary expression from 1321 to 1600.

ITA 555, 556 Modern Italian Literature

Pietro Frassica, Gaetana Marrone-Puglia

Literature of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

Undergraduate Courses of Interest to the Graduate Program

French and Italian

401 Seminar in French Literature and Culture

407 Prose Translation