Foreign Languages and Literatures at UAB

FR 101-102 > Introductory French

Introduction to French.--Essentials of grammar. Oral and aural practice. Elementary reading and composition. 102 is the continuation of FR 101, with 101 (or equivalent) as prerequisite. No previous knowledge of French is expected for French 101.
Textbooks: Valette and Valette, Contacts, Langue et culture françaises, 7th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000); Valette and Valette, Contacts, Cahier d'activités, Workbook/LabManual, 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).

FR 108 > Intensive Introductory French

Intensive Introductory French. Intensive study of the essentials of language needed for proficient communication. This is an extremely high-paced course which includes basic exercises in listening comprehension, speaking, writing, and reading, as it combines French 101 and 102. FR 108 includes a one-hour lab requirement. This is a class for highly motivated students.

Minor level---Prerequisite: FR 102 (Semester system) or equivalent

FR 201 > Intermediate French I

Studies in French Language and Style.--Subjunctive plus Intensive grammatical review. Reading of
well-known modern French authors. Readings consist of poems, articles and short literary excerpts from well-known French and Francophone authors . The prerequisite is FR 102 (semester system), its equivalent, or permission of the professor.
Textbooks: Comeau and Lamoureux, Ensemble: Grammaire, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994) and Comeau and Lamoureux, Ensemble: Littérature, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994).

FR 202 > Intermediate French II

Studies in French Language and Style.--Intensive grammatical review. Reading of well-known modern French authors. Readings consist of poems, articles and short literary excerpts from well-known French and Francophone authors. Although FR 202 is the continuation of FR 201, the prerequisite is FR 102 (semester system), its equivalent, or the permission of the professor.
Textbooks: Comeau and Lamoureux, Ensemble: Grammaire, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994) and Comeau and Lamoureux, Ensemble: Littérature, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994).

FR 210 > French Conversation and Culture

Stress on development of free and prepared oral expression based on contemporary aspects of French civilization. Stress is also put on the acquisition of vocabulary, class discussion and oral presentations on current events in France. Prerequisite is FR 102 (Semester system), its equivalent or permission of instructor. Textbook: Comeau and Lamoureux, Ensemble: Culture, 6th Edition (Fort Worth: Holt, Reinehart and Winston, 1994).

FR 220 > French Composition

This course is a fundamental composition course which will focus on the syntactical patterns of French, vocabulary building, correct usage, stylistic control, writing skills, and free composition. It will integrate the four language skills into a structured approach to composition. Weekly compositions will tackle both creative and expository topics.
Textbook: Nina M. Furry and Hannelore Jarausch, Bonne continuation: approfondissement à l'écrit et à l'oral (Prentice Hall, 2001). ISBN: 0-13-082908-0
Workbook: Nina M. Furry and Hannelore Jarausch, Workbook/Lab Manual (Prentice Hall, 2001).
ISBN: 0130830526

Major Level---Prerequisite: 12 hours of French at the minor level.

FR 306 > Advanced French for the Professions

A business French course, with concentration on writing letters, negotiations, and reading skills and
vocabulary build-up for the legal, medical, or business fields.
FR 307 ......... Advanced Grammar and Composition I
Part I of thorough review of all principles of French grammar, vocabulary and idioms, and compared French and English linguistics. Includes extensive written and oral exercises, work on composition, the translation of various texts and articles, discussion of linguistic choices and grammatical structures.
Textbooks: Léon-François Hoffmann, L'Essentiel de la grammaire française (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995); and Léon-François Hoffmann & Jean-Marie Schultz, Travaux Pratiques
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995).

FR 308 > Advanced Grammar and Composition II

Part II of thorough review of all principles of French grammar, vocabulary and idioms, and compared French and English linguistics. Includes extensive written and oral exercises, work on composition, the translation of various texts and articles, discussion of linguistic choices and grammatical structures. Textbooks: Léon-François Hoffmann, L'Essentiel de la grammaire française (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995); and Léon-François Hoffmann & Jean-Marie Schultz, Travaux Pratiques (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995).

FR 310 > Contemporary France

Contemporary France: political structures, current issues. All contemporary aspects of French civilization.
Textbook: France (Documentation Française)

FR 311 > Survey of French Literature

FR 320 > French Composition

This course is a fundamental composition course which will focus on the syntactical patterns of French, vocabulary building, correct usage, stylistic control, writing skills, and free composition. It will integrate the four language skills into a structured approach to composition. Weekly compositions will tackle both creative and expository topics.
Textbook: Nina M. Furry and Hannelore Jarausch, Bonne continuation: approfondissement à l'écrit et à l'oral (Prentice Hall, 2001). ISBN: 0-13-082908-0
Workbook: Nina M. Furry and Hannelore Jarausch, Workbook/Lab Manual (Prentice Hall, 2001).
ISBN: 0130830526

FR 401> Pre-Revolutionary France

This course focuses on the literature, culture, and civilization of seventeenth- and/or eighteenth-century France reflecting the historical and literary ambience in which Ancien Régime writers, philosophes, and artists worked. Textbook and reading material: Lagarde et Michard, XVIIe siècle; Molière, Le Misanthrope; Madame de La Fayette, La Princesse de Clèves.

FR 402 > Post-Revolutionary France (1789-1913)

This course examines the rise of the novel in France after the Revolution, from Romanticism to Modernism, from Stendhal to Proust. Different literary movements will be defined in light of the works read and through essays written by the novelist whose works are studied: Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir, Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Zola, Germinal and Proust, Du côté de chez Swann.
2 explications de texte, 2 oral presentations, one midterm and a final exam. Prerequisite is advanced undergraduate standing or permission of instructor.

FR 403 > Fin-de-Siècle France (1895-1940)

FR 412 > Civilization: Pre-Revolutionary France

Civilization: Pre-Revolutionary.-- The historical and cultural development of France from its conquest by Julius Caesar to the French Revolution in 1789.The course aims at understanding France's history, as well as French roots, myths, and their constructions. Prerequisites: Advanced undergraduate standing or permission of instructor.
Textbook: G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Histoire de France (Paris: Flammarion, 1994).

FR 413 > Civilization: Post-Revolutionary France

Civilization: Post-Revolutionary.-- The historical and cultural development of France after the French Revolution in 1789.The course aims at understanding France's history, as well as French roots, myths, and their constructions. Prerequisites: Advanced undergraduate standing or permission of instructor.
Textbook: G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Histoire de France (Paris: Flammarion, 1994).

FR 501 > Pre-Revolutionary France
Graduate-level course. See French 401 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)

FR 502 > Post-Revolutionary France (1789-1913)
Graduate-level course. See French 402 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)

FR 503 > Fin-de-Siècle France (1895-1940)
Graduate-level course. See French 403 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)

FR 512 > Civilization: post revolutionary
Graduate-level course. See French 412 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)

FR 513 > Civilization: Post-Revolutionary France
Graduate-level course. See French 413 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)

LT 425 > French Literature in English Translation: Marcel Proust

“My great adventure is really Proust. What is left to be written after that?" —Virginia Woolf

"After I had read A la recherche du temps perdu, I said: 'This is it!’ And I wished I had written it myself." —William Faulkner

"Not to know Proust is not to understand Western civilization." — Lawrence Durrell

Marcel Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past), has been compared to a Gothic cathedral, Impressionist paintings, and Wagner's operas. This remarkable novel offers a vast panorama of French culture and history from approximately 1870 to 1920. Why did Vladimir Nabokov, Iris Murdoch, and Edmund Wilson—to name a few—think In Search of Lost Time was the major novel of the twentieth century? Learn what Proust has to say about a number of topics, such as love, painting, music, society, bad habits, nerves, cruelty, fashion, war, politics, sex, gossip, dreams, bad habits, and most of all about art, memory, and time.

Class meetings will be devoted to lectures and discussion. A variety of supplemental material will be provided, including handouts, films, and slides. Proust has inspired a number of film adaptations, three of which (Céleste, Swann in Love, and Time Regained) will be shown during the course. Marcel Proust: A Writer's Life, an award-winning documentary co-produced for PBS by the instructor will also be screened. This course is available for credit as LT 425 (3 credit hours) or non-credit through UAB Special Studies. For those taking the course for credit, a final exam and a short essay will be required. This course does not count toward a major or minor in French.

FL 485 > Foreign Language Seminar, Graduate level: From Page to Stage: Literary Works
Adapted for Operas

Some of the world’s greatest operas are adaptations of French plays, short stories, and novels. This is true of many favorite operas by non-French composers and librettists. For example, Gioacchino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Italian) and Mozart’s Le Nozze de Figaro (German) are adaptations of Beaumarchais’s plays Le Barbier de Séville and Le Mariage de Figaro. Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, adapted by Richard Strauss was written in French by Wilde and first performed as a play in Paris (1896) while Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Goal. Giuseppi Verdi’s La Traviata is based on the play by Alexandre Dumas fils, La Dame aux camélias. Verdi’s Rigoletto is adapted from Victor Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse. Three of Giacomo Puccini’s operas are adapted from French sources: La Bohème from Scènes de la vie de Bohème by Henry Murger; Tosca from Victorien Sardou’s play written for Sarah Bernhardt; Manon Lescaut from Abbé Prévost’s novel.
Celebrated operas by French composers adapted from French literary works include Georges Bizet’s Carmen based on Prosper Mérimée’s short story by the same name. The story is set in Spain and, like the opera, makes the most of Spanish local color. Claude Debussy’s sole but highly successful opera Pelléas et Mélisande is adapted from the French play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck. Jules Massenet, like Puccini, wrote an opera Manon based on Abbé Prévost’s novel. Massenet created Thaïs from a play by Anatole France. This opera has recently been recorded by Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson.

This list is not exhaustive but certainly contains the most celebrated works—many considered masterpieces—that owe their existence to French literary sources. I am interested in creating a course to study the history of how these works were adapted as operas. This would include reading the works in their original version and then reading the librettos and listening to the operas to see how these texts were adapted and how the characters and dramas are brought to life through music and song. The course would trace the critical reception and performance history of these operas. Most opera recordings come with a booklet containing the libretto in four languages, usually English, French, German, and Italian. This is an ideal opportunity for students to learn about adaptation and translation, especially nuances between meanings in the various languages. Students will be able to compare the different structural and dramatic requirements in a literary text and an opera. One of the most thrilling ways to learn or reinforce knowledge of any language is to hear it sung to music created by the world’s greatest composers. There are excellent film versions available of some of these operas, such as Franco Zefferilli’s productions of Carmen, La Traviata, and La Bohème. These can be shown as part of the course. The course will include a brief history of French opera prior to the works we will study.

Class lectures and discussions will be in English. However, the majority of the readings and writings for the course will be done in the student’s target language. I anticipate inviting guest lecturers from the music faculty as well as performers, conductors, and directors, who have experience in producing and performing opera. I believe the course will appeal to language majors, music majors, and people in the community who are music lovers.

FL 585 > Foreign Language Seminar From Page to Stage: Literary Works Adapted for Operas
Graduate-level course. See French 485 (additional work and assignments for graduate students)