The good news and the bad news about the DEFLE 4°

The good news? Fewer exams at the end of the semestre. We will only be examined on our options.

The bad news? Everything else is continuous assessment, so:

I have dossiers to produce on two different books (one on Cabinet-portrait on my own, one in a partnership with a very able student), another short dossier to produce on Oulipo and the novel - where I will try to show how Georges Perec used Oulipo techniques in producing La disparition and La vie mode d'emploi, and a presentation to produce on May 1968 (again in a team, my job is to set the international, political and economic background).

And we have lots of "exercises" and contrôles to do. i.e. tests. This morning 8h30 - 10h30 littérature actuelle was about a text from LeClézio's Procès-verbal. Three questions:

Analyse precisely in this text:
1) the elements that give it an impersonal character
2) the ambiguity of the part beginning "my dear Michèle" and its function in the narration
3) the elements that set the text apart from a novel in classic style.

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

Well a It gets you thinking and writing in French b I'm a preacher. Preachers work with texts, too, and we are committed to the grammatico-historic interpretation, i.e. what do these words mean, in this combination, in this order, in this context, in this historical setting in God's plan of salvation.

So it's pretty good really.

This afternoon is a test in Stylistique, where we have been surveying writing styles in French literature from 16th century onwards. Better go and read my notes.

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