Module 2

Question 1

Pourquoi les textes de
Madame de Staël et de Terry Eagleton peuvent-ils être considérés comme
théoriques ?
(Why are texts by Madame de
Staël and Terry Eagleton are considered theoretical?)

Answer 1

1 Texts that formulate definitional hypotheses.
2. that attempt to answer a general question (What is literature? What is its essence? Its
spirit?)
3. Reflective texts (on how literature works - its laws
4. They proceed by
comparisons.
Please note: these are not theoretical texts

Question 2

Qui est Platon?

Answer 2

428-348
–Intelligible world VS sensible world
-The latter having a lesser degree of reality, because it is a copy of it
-For Plato, the copy is therefore negative
- Greek art, which attempts to reproduce sensible nature, is therefore, for Plato, a deception.
-For Plato, poets must be expelled from the city! Ouch

Question 3

Platon - Le Lit

Answer 3

-socrates explores the nature of artistic representation and questions the relationship between appearence and reality within painting
- It is from Plato’s philosophical dialogue “the Republuc” where Socrates argues with Gaucon.
-socrates critisizes the art of imitation, and points out that artistic representation, such as painting, is far from the truth.
-what artists represent is only a phantom or illusion of reality.
-Socrates acknoweldges that artists cand deceive children and the ignorant by allowing imitation to be mistaken for truth

Question 4

Plato and reality of a bed- 3 levels

Answer 4

1. The philosopher thinks in bed. For Plato, it’s REALITY
   2.The craftsman makes a bed from his idea. It’s a COPY of reality
2. The painter paints a bed. It’s a copy of the copy of
   reality

Question 5

Aristotle?

Answer 5

• The work aims to be not only descriptive but also prescriptive: it explains how to compose the fable if one desires the poetic composition to be beautiful.”

Question 6

ARTS DE L’IMITATION

Answer 6

Imitation can improve, preserve or depreciate what is represented.

-Tragedy: represents the heroism of human beings
-Comedy: its ridiculous side
IMITATIVE ARTS
-painting/drawing
-singing/voice
-dancers/ through movement, passions
-poetry [literature]/ imitates language

Question 7

Catharasis

Answer 7

we like to see the horror represented, without liking to see it in “real life”.
-This is what we call catharsis: we see pain, and it heals, once represented
-“And, by representing pity and fear, it (representation) achieves a purification of the pain. (representation) achieves a purification

Question 8

THE RHETORIC

Answer 8

• dicipline that situates philosiphical problems as scientific in the human context
  -where it it is necessary to please and manipulate, where we are seduced and where we are forced to believe it
  -rubs shoulders with literary art

Question 9

Les Figures de Rhétorique:

Answer 9

Figures of speech are used to enrich

Analogie: comparison

Métaphore

Substitution

Amplification/attenuation - hyberbole “i think i could go 10 thousand years without speaking”

Opposition - oxymoron

Question 10

Synthése (synthesis)

Answer 10

1. Mimesis, Plato: art as a copy of reality
2. Aristotle: the poetics of the arts of imitation. Observation of the formal functioning of
   texts. (Rules of composition)
3. Rhetoric: the art of persuasion. Figures of speech: the means used to enrich
   to enrich speech
4. Poetics and rhetoric refer to language and artistic forms.

Question 11

Souvent, pour s’amuser, les
hommes d’équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes
oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents
compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les
gouffres amers.

Often, for fun, the crew crewmen
take albatrosses, vast
birds of the sea,
Who follow, indolent
indolent companions,
As the ship glides over
bitter chasms.

What is 2 things found in these sentences?

Answer 11

Continous metaphor - “vast birds of the sea, Vastes oiseaux des mers”

Personification - “as the ship glides over bitter chasms” “Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers”

Question 12

À peine les ont-ils déposés
sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l’azur,
maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs
grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à
côté d’eux.
No sooner had they placed them
on the boards,
These kings of the sky,
clumsy and ashamed,
Piteously let their
great white wings
Like oars drag beside
beside them.

What are two notes about this Baudelaire poem?

Answer 12

Périphrase - “rois de l’azur, kings of the sky”

Comparison/analogie “Commes des avrions traîner à côté d’eux, like oars drag beside them”

Question 13

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il
est gauche et veule !
This winged traveller how clumsy and spineless he is!

Answer 13

Métaphore/Comparaison

Question 14

Lui, naguère si beau, qu’il est comique et laid ! How comical and ugly he is!

Answer 14

Antithèse / Chiasme (contrast)

Question 15

L’autre mime, en boitant, l’infirme qui volait ! The other mimes, limping,
the flying cripple!

Answer 15

Énumération (items represented in a line of sucession)

Question 16

Le Poète est semblable au
prince des nuées
The Poet is like the
prince of the clouds

Answer 16

comparison

Question 17

Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher. His giant wings prevent him from walking.

Answer 17

Hyperbole - exaggeration

Question 18

What is the form of Baudelaires L’albatros?

Answer 18

quatrain / 4 strophes / 4 vers / Rimes ABAB

Question 19

Le temps de verbe?

Answer 19

Présent/passé …. descriptif

Question 20

Champs Lexicaux?

Answer 20

Insultes (comique, laid/ugly) Mer (sea) Bateaux, Voyage/nature

Question 21

Internal and External Representation of society through Baudelaire

Answer 21

Internal:
The poet’s self-representation
Albatross/poet analogy
Tension between nature and society
External:
19th century: industrialization / capitalism
The poet’s place in society (uselessness)
“Damned poets”

Question 22

Dans el poème « Le Soleil », quelle analogie el poète Charles Baudelaire utilise-t-il ? Expliquez brièvement de quoi li est question dans ce poème. (atelier 1)

Answer 22

The analogy in this poem involves comparing the sun to a nurturing father. The poet describes the sun as a “père nourricier” (nurturing father) who has positive and life-affirming effects on nature and humanity. The sun is portrayed as a beneficent force that awakens life in the fields, encourages the growth of plants, dispels worries, and brings cheerfulness. By likening the sun to a nurturing father, mphasizes its vital and regenerative role in sustaining life and promoting well-being.

Question 23

Dans le poème « L’albatros », quelle analogie le poète Charles Baudelaire utilise-t-il ? Expliquez brièvement de quoi il est question dans ce poème.

Answer 23

Comme des avirons traîner à côté d’eux. Like oars dragging beside them.

What it is about:

• poem begins by describing the majestic albatross, a magnificent bird with wide wings
  -when the albatross lands on the ship’s deck, it becomes clumsy
  -The poem draws a paralell from the albatross and the poet
• Baudelaire suggests that the poet, like the albatross is out of place in society
• the poet who soars freely in imagination and creativity beacomes awkward and faced with judgements
  -Exploration of the poets alimentation and tension between artistic inspiration and limitations of the everyday world
  -reflects Baudelaire’s themes of modernity and struggle and the complexities of human condition
• reflection of the poet’s identity and the challenges that creative people face

Question 24

Quels sont les trois degrés de réalité que Platon décrit en prenant un lit comme exemple? What are the three degrees of reality that Plato describes, using a bed as an example?

Answer 24

1. the ideal form (or idea). This is the highest degree of reality. The idea of a bed. This is the ultimate reality
2. The individual physical beds that exisit in the material world. Tangible everyday objects that we encounter. They may share certain characteristics with the form of a bed, but they are imperfect and subject to change and variation
3. The artisans’ imitation or representation. The bed created by a craftsman based on their perception of a bed and their understanding of it. It is futher removed, because it is a copy of a copy of a bed

Question 25

Pourquoi, selon Platon, les poètes doivent-ils être exclus de al société (chassés de al cité)? Pourquoi sont- ils coupables de tromperie? Vous pouvez utiliser l’exemple du lit pour bien expliquer.
Why, according to Plato, should poets be excluded from society? Why are they guilty of deception? Use the example of the bed to explain.

Answer 25

• Plato says that poets should be excluded from society, even expelled from the ideal city, due to their presumed tendency toward deception.
• He is concerned that poets, through creating literary works, introduce deceptive representations of reality into the mind of citizens
  -Concept of mimesis or imitation
• Ideal form of a bed, physical bed and poetitic imitation

Question 26

Complétez al listede ces concepts centraux de al rhétorique: ethos, logos….

Answer 26

pathos