Charles Perrault's Contes, published in 1697, is one of the most famous works in French literature. Its success has been such that the expression 'conte de Perrault' has become a generic term Much of what has been written about the Contes seeks to consider them as a collection of traditional folk stories. Drawing upon mythological, linguistic, ethnological, or psychoanalytical contributions, critics, from Saintyves to Bettelheim, have defined these tales as a mere representation of collective or individual significance. Another orientation (Propp, Levi-Strauss) focuses on the morphology and structure of the conte My thesis situates Perrault's Contes within their particular historical and literary context which is the end of the 17th century, a time of many crises. It examines the theme of genealogy which traverses the tales and its significance which is mainly ideological. I argue that genealogy is used in the Contes to represent (desired) shifts in the nature of the familial, political, and social structures This dissertation has as its theoretical framework socio-historical studies on the period. It also profits from psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytical reading illuminates the larger historical dimension by uncovering the ideological conflicts that the Contes express The thesis consists of five chapters. In the first I address the problem of the genre. The ambiguity involving the genre of the conte raises the question of genealogy In the second chapter I study the break in the characters' genealogical line, and their invention of fictional origins The third chapter explores the question of paternity, the absence of the father leading to the invention of a fictive father The law and its transgressions are the focus of the fourth chapter. A word was in fact necessary on the expression 'Ma Mere L'Oye' and its phonological analogy with the law. Here the emergence of the unconscious questions the established order In the concluding chapter I propose an in-depth analysis of a particular tale, La Barbe bleue, chosen not only because it may be the only 'conte' Perrault invented, but also because it illustrates in condensed form all the preoccupations of the dissertation / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

The series of works of Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc is an ensemble of about fifty different French texts written and published in France between 1905 and 1939, in which the eponymous character is famous for being at once a 'gentleman' and a 'burglar.' The works in the series are usually classified as detective stories and since this classification is generally considered in a pejorative light, one might well be inclined to consider the Arsene Lupin stories as minor works It is my thesis that the Arsene Lupin detective stories foreground a complex character and a multi-narrative style which function symbiotically in such a way as to create patterns of perplexity and longing which in themselves contribute to the enshrinement of Arsene Lupin in a more traditional canon of French literature. My study has focused on these several areas in an effort to isolate and clarify the interesting dynamics involved To this end, I first consider the Arsene Lupin works as part of the genre commonly called 'detective stories.' I show that, according to different criteria, the series actually belongs to this genre Then, I consider the eponymous character, Arsene Lupin , as the force which drives the overall series. As simultaneously a 'gentleman' and a 'burglar', Arsene Lupin creates, between these two extremes, a space of freedom in which, at once multiple and mobile, he dedicates his power to a quest which governs his entire life: the quest for the truth Finally, I consider the narrative instance in the series. I show that the narrator, in spite of repeating that he is the 'confident' and the 'historiographer' of Arsene Lupin, is not merely what he pretends to be. Actually, he is omniscient and tells everything he wants, constantly switching his focus from one element to another without warning his readers that he is doing so The text, the eponymous character, and the narrator, all together multiple and mobile, work towards confusing the reader as well as pleasing him. And we even can say that these elements work towards preparing, in their own fashion, the way for subsequent literary movements / acase@tulane.edu

The intent of this dissertation is to provide an in-depth study of the phenomenon of jealousy in the courtly love literature of Occitania, with particular emphasis on three novas of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, Castia-Gilos, Las Novas del papagay, and Flamenca The introductory chapter presents an overview of the terminology and ideology of fin'amors and illustrates the courtly triangle (lady, lover, and obstacles to their love) as it appears in the cansos of selected troubadours. There follows a consideration of the vidas and razos of the troubadours and the light which these works shed on the biographical and poetic background of the treatment of jealousy The Castia-Gilos is studied as the model for the presentation of the punishment of the jealous husband; its structure reveals that the lady, much more so than her chevalier, is the active agent in overcoming obstacles and reestablishing order in the courtly universe. The theme of the jaloux cache, introduced comically in the Castia-Gilos, dominates Las Novas del papagai in that the husband is never presented; his existence is suggested by the presence of gardadors who might function as lauzengiers. Las Novas del papagai appears to be primarily an esthetic expression of the lovers' ability to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles to their union Flamenca, the longest and most complex of the novas, presents a study of jealousy that approaches modern concepts of paranoia, while simultaneously exploiting all of the literary possibilities of the theme, including jealousy's complete invasion of the courtly universe and its alteration of the concept of love itself. It presents the first well-defined lauzengier, the Queen of France herself; it carries the theme of the jaloux cache to the extreme of the gilos' complete loss of humanity; it reveals the psychological depths of the courtly triangle, and it displays a profound sense of characterization Our study leads to the conclusion that the theme of jealousy is necessary to the universe of courtly love and that previous critical studies have generally understated its importance and, most particularly, its multiple complex manifestations throughout the corpus of the medieval literature of Occitania / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

The tournament was one of the great social phenomena of medieval civilization. It became such a standard chivalric event that it was assimilated as a widespread theme into literature. The purpose of this study is to discuss the representation of the tournament as it appears in a select corpus of medieval French texts from 1150 to 1226. The choice of works allows for a comparison of the representation of the tournament in both fictional and biographical verse narratives, from which salient conclusions can be drawn, such as to what extent, if any, genre influenced the way in which the tournament was treated. The work that provides the largest number of tournaments for study is the anonymous Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal. Among the remaining works are romances by Chretien de Troyes and Hue de Rotelande, and lais by Marie de France Existing scholarly contributions concerning the sport concentrate on its technical and regulatory aspects, whereas this study focuses on a limited set of elements that make up its literary re-creation. The study opens with brief background information on the tournament and its supposed origins, plus a short discussion of the bans against it. The remaining chapters treat the preparations and opening and closing practices; the waiting period, the announcement, and heraldry; the participants; the involvement of women; the location and duration; the gains, prizes, and victors; the casualties; and the weapons and techniques. This research further proposes to clarify the problematic nature of the early term for the sport (e.g., tornoi versus ahatine, an apparent synonym), and investigates the function of the tournament in the works This dissertation ultimately shows that fictional representations of the tournament are sometimes more realistic than 'historical' ones, that there is a certain rhetoric applicable to the depiction of the tournament regardless of the genre in which the medieval author chose to work, and, that the question of genre cannot be separated from that of the intended audience The study includes six pages of charts, schematically illustrating eight of the outlined elements with their corresponding works and line numbers / acase@tulane.edu

Throughout this study I would like to establish that Salinas' plays, although well within the context of the dramatic production of his time, spring from a deep personal concern about two essential concepts: reality and destiny. His early death prevented him from attaining solid experience in theatrical techniques, but, at the same time, it enabled him to create a lyrical staging that fulfilled his need to express the rich inner world that he possessed as a poet and dramatist. This dissertation intends to study his dramatic works based on the principle that he divides reality into two realms, material reality and poetic reality I have divided my study into five parts: The introduction will offer a brief outline of the state of criticism on Salinas' plays as well as a summary of the content of the dissertation The first chapter will present a biographical profile of the playwright. Our approach will focus on two aspects of his life: (1) his concern for universal themes, and (2) his pursuit of perfection. These two facets are then related to his dramatic works The second chapter contains the core of our analysis. Here we apply the principle of material reality versus poetic reality and contrast it with the diverse critical theories that other critics have applied to Salinas' theater. Terms such as realism and imagination are discussed while keeping in mind Salinas' perspective as stated in his play, El director The third chapter offers a detailed description of his plays as well as a personal insight into the techniques that are seen as Salinas' own contribution to the Spanish stage The conclusion summarizes our findings regarding the originality of his plays and the importance of his conception of theater. I shall end this analysis with an index of authors and subjects and a bibliography on his theater / acase@tulane.edu

The pastourelle is a genre of medieval lyric poetry which existed between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in Northern France and Occitania. Most pastourelles recount dialogues between knights and shepherdesses in which the knight attempts to seduce the shepherdess and detail their ensuing encounter. This genre has been called monotonous, most notably by Alfred Jeanroy in his 1889 Les Origines de la poesie lyrique en France au moyen age because the characters are archetypal and there are few significant plot twists. There were variations on this prototype, however, both formally and thematically. The most significant of these were Guiraut Riquier's pastorela cycle and Adam de la Halle's thirteenth century play, Le Jeu de Robin et Marion. This dissertation consecrates two chapters to the analysis of these variations, both as individual works and in the context of pastourelle and lyric poetry production This dissertation studies the permutations on the paradigm of the pastourelle which occur both with regard to the individual texts and to the genre using Old French and Occitan texts from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries. This examination calls into question the nature of genre itself and shows that the pastourelle occurred as part of a system of lyric genres within a complex socio-historic dynamic. The pastourelle was in fact essential to the existence of this system and to other forms of medieval lyric poetry, most notably the canso. In fact the pastourelle is not monotonous at all, but rather a genre rich in variety. The repetitiveness of characters and situation existed in order to propagate this system and allow the canso and other genres to flourish. In the course of this dissertation the major avatars of the genre in Northern France and Occitania are studied. Appendices detailing the major plot variations of the individual Old French and Occitan texts and listing the titles of the concerned texts follow the dissertation / acase@tulane.edu

This study examines the aesthetic and representational strategies and objectives of Guillaume Apollinaire's Orientalism in his poetry, prose fiction, literary and art criticism, and journalism. To Apollinaire, the Orient was a body of cultural resources which, when skillfully 'digested' in the creative process, was believed to hold the key to the regeneration of European poetry and art. His ambivalent discourse on a mute and unknown Orient was the means by which--as a foreigner in France--he sought to define himself socially. The general orientation of the thesis rests on the theoretical foundation generated by contemporary discourse analysis, and on a comparative study of literary sources After a first chapter which briefly situates Apollinaire's knowledge of the Orient and his interest in Oriental ideographic alphabets, a new reading of his most hermetic poem, 'Le Larron,' reveals the author's debt to German Romantic and French pre-Romantic thought. The aesthetic and socio-political dimensions of Apollinaire's Orientalism, as shown in the third chapter, are at work, interwoven, in the poet's expressed longing for images and forms. The significance of the speculative Kabbalah--a para-Oriental domain--in Apollinaire's most innovative enterprises is stressed in the following chapter: along with plotting devices, it provides a metalanguage most suitable in theorizing abstract art; the kabbalistic maps, as my study attempts to show, have inspired the poet's first 'lyrical ideograms.' Orientalism as a discursive system of representations and a battery of preset strategies of appropriation is sub-sequently illustrated in the consistent internal dichotomy affecting images and discourse on the East, North Africa and Black Africa. The collection of Culture and representations in La Fin de Babylone is discussed in chapter 5. Apollinaire's criticism of French Algerian literary productions sheds light on the underlying concepts which regulate the literary productions in the Periphery. In Chapter 7, Apollinaire's discourse on Africa and his image as a promoter of African art are reevaluated This thesis' major objectives are to dispel the myth of modernism attached to Apollinaire's creative endeavor and to introduce this poet, novelist and critic, into the current debate on Orientalist, Africanist and Colonialist discourses / acase@tulane.edu