ma-reading-list

[ma-reading-list]

L’esclavage des noirs

The Plot:

Olympe de Gouges inclut une préface à sa pièce pour la défendre. Durant cette époque, la colonisation par la France et l’utilisation des esclaves prévalaient. La pièce Zamore et Mirza pose la question de l'intérêt de l'esclavage. Évidemment, ce message était controversé. L'auteur adresse un message aux esclaves et à leurs propriétaires européens. Elle parle de la violence contre les esclaves, mais aussi de la violence des esclaves envers les colonisateurs. De plus, elle affirme que la pièce recommande la sagesse et la justice qui n’étaient pas présentes[pourquoi ?] dans les colonies.

Acte I

Dans le premier acte, les personnages principaux sont introduits. On voit Zamore et Mirza, seuls sur l’île à cause d’un crime commis par Zamore contre son maître. Il y a une tempête et Zamore sauve Sophie, une Française qui était sur le navire naufragé pour chercher son père. Elle pense qu’elle a perdu son mari et son bébé, mais Valère, son mari, était avec Mirza sur la côte. Les quatre personnages parlent et Sophie et Valère apprennent le crime de Zamore. Sophie et Valère pensent que le crime était justifié. Le serviteur de Valère, Félicio, apparaît et il dit qu’il n’a pas pu sauver le bébé. À la fin de l’acte, Zamore et Mirza sont arrêtés.

Acte II

Le deuxième acte est centré sur Mme de Saint-Frémont, la femme du Gouverneur. Elle parle avec les serviteurs de Zamore et Mirza et des événements qui se passent avec les esclaves et les soldats dans la ville. Un capitaine trouve un bébé, que Mme et M. de Saint-Frémont veulent garder et élever. C’est dans cet acte que Mme de Saint-Frémont apprend que son mari avait une autre femme et une fille avant son mariage. Mme de Saint-Frémont rencontre Sophie, qui est très reconnaissante que sa fille soit en sécurité. Sophie demande à Mme de Saint-Frémont d'aider Zamore et Mirza. Celle-ci répond qu’elle fera ce qu’elle pourra. À la fin de l’acte, on apprend que l’armée essaie de réprimer les émeutes que les esclaves fomentent pour lutter contre l’arrestation de Zamore.

Acte III

Dans le troisième acte, les soldats sont chargés par M. de Saint-Frémont de préparer l'exécution de Zamore. Sophie tente de convaincre Mme de Saint-Frémont de s'opposer à son mari, mais elle ne réussit pas. Valère essaie de persuader M. de Saint-Frémont qui argumente qu’il doit faire un exemple avec Zamore. Les esclaves essaient de protéger Zamore. Sophie découvre que M. de Saint-Frémont est son père. Après cette révélation, le Gouverneur décide de ne pas exécuter Zamore et de permettre le mariage de Zamore et de Mirza.Important Points:

-parallel between colonial slavery and political oppression in France. One of the slave protagonist explains that the French must gain their own freedom, before they can deal with slavery.

-”l’Autre” 

-race and slavery

-feminism

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again:

-female voice

-race

-the Other

[ma-reading-list]

Manon Lescaut

The Plot: 

Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero, the Chevalier des Grieux, and his lover, Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and by cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury.

The two lovers finally end up in New Orleans, to which Manon has been deported as a prostitute, where they pretend to be married and live in idyllic peace for a while. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach an English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion the following morning and, after burying his beloved, Des Grieux is eventually taken back to France by Tiberge.

[ma-reading-list]

The Poem: 

Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages, Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour, Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l'océan des âges Jeter l'ancre un seul jour ? Ô lac ! l'année à peine a fini sa carrière, Et près des flots chéris qu'elle devait revoir, Regarde ! je viens seul m'asseoir sur cette pierre Où tu la vis s'asseoir ! Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes ; Ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs déchirés ; Ainsi le vent jetait l'écume de tes ondes Sur ses pieds adorés. Un soir, t'en souvient-il ? nous voguions en silence ; On n'entendait au loin, sur l'onde et sous les cieux, Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence Tes flots harmonieux. Tout à coup des accents inconnus à la terre Du rivage charmé frappèrent les échos, Le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m'est chère Laissa tomber ces mots : « Ô temps, suspends ton vol ! et vous, heures propices, Suspendez votre cours ! Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices Des plus beaux de nos jours ! « Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent ; Coulez, coulez pour eux ; Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent ; Oubliez les heureux. « Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore, Le temps m'échappe et fuit ; Je dis à cette nuit : « Sois plus lente » ; et l'aurore Va dissiper la nuit. « Aimons donc, aimons donc ! de l'heure fugitive, Hâtons-nous, jouissons ! L'homme n'a point de port, le temps n'a point de rive ; Il coule, et nous passons ! » Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d'ivresse, Où l'amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur, S'envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse Que les jours de malheur ? Hé quoi ! n'en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace ? Quoi ! passés pour jamais ? quoi ! tout entiers perdus ? Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface, Ne nous les rendra plus ? Éternité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes, Que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez ? Parlez : nous rendrez vous ces extases sublimes Que vous nous ravissez ? Ô lac ! rochers muets ! grottes ! forêt obscure ! Vous que le temps épargne ou qu'il peut rajeunir, Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature, Au moins le souvenir ! Qu'il soit dans ton repos, qu'il soit dans tes orages, Beau lac, et dans l'aspect de tes riants coteaux, Et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages Qui pendent sur tes eaux ! Qu'il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe, Dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés, Dans l'astre au front d'argent qui blanchit ta surface De ses molles clartés ! Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire, Que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé, Que tout ce qu'on entend, l'on voit et l'on respire, Tout dise : « Ils ont aimé ! »

The Plot:

The poem tells the story of a man returning to the lake where he would meet with a woman he loved and he misses her after her passing.

Important Points:

-love

-death/mortality

-the passage of time

-(perhaps unrelated, but the man was an Orientalist) 

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again:

-love poems? 

[ma-reading-list]

L’assommoir

The Plot:

The novel is principally the story of Gervaise Macquart, who is featured briefly in the first novel in the series, La Fortune des Rougon, running away to Paris with her shiftless lover Lantier to work as a washerwoman in a hot, busy laundry in one of the seedier areas of the city.

L'Assommoir begins with Gervaise and her two young sons being abandoned by Lantier, who takes off for parts unknown with another woman. Though at first she swears off men altogether, eventually she gives in to the advances of Coupeau, a teetotal roofing engineer, and they are married. The marriage sequence is one of the most famous set-pieces of Zola's work; the account of the wedding party's impromptu and chaotic trip to the Louvre is one of the novelist's most famous passages. Through a combination of happy circumstances, Gervaise is able to realise her dream and raise enough money to open her own laundry. The couple's happiness appears to be complete with the birth of a daughter, Anna, nicknamed Nana (the protagonist of Zola's later novel of the same title).

However, later in the story, we witness the downward trajectory of Gervaise's life from this happy high point. Coupeau is injured in a fall from the roof of a new hospital he is working on, and during his lengthy convalescence he takes first to idleness, then to gluttony and eventually to drink. In only a few months, Coupeau becomes a vindictive, wife-beating alcoholic, with no intention of trying to find more work. Gervaise struggles to keep her home together, but her excessive pride leads her to a number of embarrassing failures and before long everything is going downhill. Gervaise becomes infected by her husband’s newfound laziness and, in an effort to impress others, spends her money on lavish feasts; leading to uncontrolled debt.

The home is further disrupted by the return of Lantier, who is warmly welcomed by Coupeau - by this point losing interest in both Gervaise and life itself, and becoming seriously ill. The ensuing chaos and financial strain is too much for Gervaise, who loses her laundry-shop and is sucked into a spiral of debt and despair. Eventually, she too finds solace in drink and, like Coupeau, slides into heavy alcoholism. All this prompts Nana - already suffering from the chaotic life at home and getting into trouble on a daily basis - to run away from her parents' home and become a casual prostitute.

Gervaise’s story is told against a backdrop of a rich array of other well drawn characters with their own vices and idiosyncrasies. Notable amongst these being Goujet, a young metal worker, who wastes his life in unconsummated love of the hapless laundress.

Eventually, sunk by debt, hunger and alcohol Coupeau and Gervaise both die. The latter’s corpse lying for days in her unkempt hovel before it is even noticed by her disdaining neighbours.

Important Points:

-the cycle of poverty and alcoholism 

-19th century naturalism 

-description of the city

-the machine 

-art

-the single, fatal flaw

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again:

-naturalism (specifically the novel as an experiment)

-fate vs. free will

-the idea of the city as the thing that destroys

[ma-reading-list]

Les Lais de Marie de France

The Plot:

Set of lais with individual plots: 

~ Guigemar: a knight who is unable to feel love hunts a white stag, injures himself in the thigh from a reflected arrow, comes to the magical kingdom by boat, falls in love with a woman (married to the lord of the kingdom).  They tie knots to maintain chastity when they are discovered and Guigemar goes back to his own kingdom where he is hailed as a hero.  The lady eventually follows and is captured by another lord who wishes to marry her (and rape her) but is unable to do so by the knot.  Guigemar comes to the castle for a tournament, finds the lady, asks to have her, the lord refuses, war breaks out, lots of people die, Guigemar gets the girl. 

~ Equitain: the one with the king whose wife is having an affiar, they try to kill him in the bathtub, but they slip and fall and kill themselves instead. 

~ le frene: princess left in an ash tree

~ Bisclavret: werewolf 

~ Les Deux Amants: the lovers who want to marry but can only do so if he carries her to the top of a mountain.  She has a magic potion to give him strength, he refuses, gets her to the top and dies.  She flings the potion, flowers grow, and she dies too. 

~ Yonec: Another woman in a tower, falls in love with a bird knight, husband finds out and kills him.  She follow the bird knight to a silver city (he’s a fee) and gets a magic ring to make sure no one remembers the knight.  She’s pregnant with Yonec, when he grows up they all go to the grave, she tells the story, and dies. Yonec kills his stepfather, the end. 

~ le Rossingnol: woman married to a bad husband, finds a lover across the balcony, talks to him at night.  Husband finds out, asks her what she’s doing, she tells him she’s listening to the nightengales.  Husband kills a nightengale, she gives the body to her lover, he carries it around in a box.  creepy. 

~Milon: Milun, a knight without equal who lives in southern Wales, falls in love with a beautiful noblewoman (a baron's daughter). They begin a secret affair and soon conceive a child. The noblewoman fears for her reputation because they are not married. She is able to hide the pregnancy. Once the child is born, she has him sent away to her sister in Northumbria along with precious silk, a ring, and a letter.Not knowing her love for Milun, the woman's father marries her off to another man. Unwilling to break contact, however, Milun sends messages to his lover by sending a swan with letters hidden in its feathers. This continues for many years, while their son grows up in the home of his aunt.The young man grows into a powerful knight, whose renown spreads throughout the kingdom, and one day he decides to attend a tournament at the Mont Saint-Michel. Hearing tales of this valiant knight, Milun also decides to attend the tournament, completely unaware that it is his son. Eventually, the father and son meet in battle, where the son is victorious. He knocks off Milun's helmet, and realizing that he is fighting an older gentleman, he approaches him to pay his respects. However, as he gets closer, Milun recognizes the ring on the young man's finger and realizes that this is his long-lost son.The two share a tearful reunion, and Milun tells his son the entire story of his conception. The young man determines that his only course of action is to return to his mother and kill her husband so that his parents can be reunited. They return to Wales, and when they arrive, they are greeted by a messenger who tells them that the lady's husband has died. Thanks to this coincidence, Milun marries his lady

~le Malheureux: lady is in love with 4 knights, they all duel in tournament, all but one dies and he is made impotent.  everyone is sad. 

~ Chevrefeuille: the Tristan and Isolde one

~Lanval: the Amie is a boss

~ Eliduc: valiant knight has 2 wives in 2 different kingdoms.  One finds out and “dies,” the other comes to her grave, sees 2 weasels doing their weasel thing and bring back the dead, does the same to the younger wife, (yay).  The older wife goes to a convent, the younger couple marry, then go to the convent too to be with God. 

Important Points:

- anglo-norman

-female author

- fee presence/fairy tales

- confusing/confused binaries (animal/man, man/woman, secular/religious, love/sex)

- issue of “courtly love” and what is good, true love

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again:

-femininity vs. masculinity 

- animal vs. human

-fairy tales

[ma-reading-list]

Le Chevalier de la Charrette

This book was suggested to me many times by my professor in the use for (both) of my theses on Medieval literature’s progression through the 12th-14th centuries, but I finally read it this year and it’s pretty rad.  It’s the first introduction of Lancelot into Arthurian Legend by Chrétien de Troyes who was (probably) writing under the patronage of Marie de Champagne.

The Plot:

The book starts off as many Arthurian romances do: someone fucks up.  This time, it’s Arthur.  An evil knight comes to Court to ask for Guinevere, and Arthur is more or less tricked into handing her over.  Once she’s “kidnapped,” Arthur sends his best knight, Gawain, after her.  Gawain is overtaken by another knight, how is unnamed, as he rides his horse to death in pursuit of the Queen (3 guesses who he is).  The unnamed knight takes one of Gawain’s steeds, but then kills that one too.  Eventually he is come upon by a dwarf in a cart, who offers him a ride if he gets in the cart (which is, of course, a huge no-no for a knight ((LITERALLY JUST A MOUNTED WARRIOR)) and doing so would dishonnor him).  Because it’s such a no-no, he hesitates for a second, then decides “fuck it” and hops in the cart.  He’s naturally mocked for it by everyone they pass, since why the hell would a knight be in a cart? what the hell did he DO?!, earning himself the name “Chevalier de la Charrette” (Knight of the Cart).  But at least we have a “name” for him now.  He then has a bunch of adventures where he’s underestimated because of his status as the KotC, and is able to avoid certain death.  He has one particular adventure with a maiden who offers to let him stay in her home if he sleeps with her (he refuses to sleep with her, but eventually decides he has to help his lady love), and is torn when he has to save her from a rape (as he doubts his own resolve against her naked flesh).  He does, however, save the poor girl from rape and does not rape her himself, and as they go to bed that night, he stays clothed and as far away from her as possible, and she realises he doesn’t want to sleep with her.  Good for you girl. (Remember her, she’s important later)  Our KotC eventually meets back up with Gawain and they have to cross some scary bridges, Lancelot crosses the bridge of the sword to get to a magical kingdom to rescue the Queen...

(TBC) 

Important Points:

What makes a good knight?

What characterises love? 

How does this new knight fall into the larger scope of Arthurian legend? 

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again:

Body treatments in battle

the Standard of Courtly Love (TM) 

Gawain vs. Lancelot

“Naming”

[ma-reading-list]

La Chanson de Roland

While this is the first book on my reading list, that’s not the reason I am choosing to start with this book.  Rather, I’m starting here because I have read this book several times and I am the most familiar with it and therefore more willing to offer it up as sacrifice to figure out how I want to record my readings in this blog.  

The Plot: 

This book is pretty straightforward as far as plot: the titular character, Roland, is the nephew of Charlemagne and a respected knight and vassal.  After long years of fighting in Spain against “Saracens,” the Emperor seeks peace and to return home.  Roland offers up his stepfather, Ganelon, as a sacrifice of sorts to garner peace with the Muslims, but instead Ganelon betrays the French to seek revenge against his stepson.  Upon Ganelon’s return and “acceptance” of peace, he volunteers Roland to lead the rear-guard as the army returns home.  Of course, the rear guard is attacked, Olivier (Roland’s BFF) begs for him to ‘sound the horn’ to call the rest of the army but Roland refuses and everyone dies.  Charlemagne eventually does arrive once he notices the battle to find Roland dead (in a very dramatic fashion, might I add) with his brains blown out and facing enemy lands.  Charlemagne defeats the rest of the Muslim army, kills Ganelon, and everyone mourns Roland.  why? idk. 

Important Points: 

Does Roland embody a good knight?  Is his refusal to sound the horn chivalric or not? 

Role of the chanson as propaganda for the French nation

the role of Death: who can kill who? the ability of being a “good knight” and “good christian” by how many “enemies of god” you can kill

How I’ve Used it Before/How I Could Use it Again: 

Bonds of friendship between men and their relation to amours affections between men and women

Body treatments in battle

Themes of religion and battle