French Literature Research Articles

L’Âtre périlleux: roman arthurien du xiiie siècle. Édition bilingue établie, traduite et présentée par Laurence Mathey-Maille et Damien de Carné

Brian Woledge’s venerable edition of L’Âtre périlleux has rendered service since its publication in 1936 but has for a while stood in need of updating. Nancy Black’s 1994 edition and English translation, riddled with errors and misunderstandings, if anything marked a reversal in our knowledge of the romance and its scholarly fortunes. Laurence Mathey-Maille and Damien de Carné have come to the rescue with an excellent text, edited afresh from the manuscripts, and a clear and elegant translation into modern French. This book joins the ranks of accessible mass-market dual-language editions which are slowly bringing medieval literature to a reading public beyond the narrow confines of academia. Mathey-Maille and de Carné provide both specialist and general readers with all the basic information they need before approaching the text. A literary study first situates this romance in the context of Arthurian romance generally, particularly as a Gauvain text, stressing at the same time the care taken by the anonymous author to structure an interlaced narrative of apparent disorder and ambiguity. This might serve as a starting point for the examination of a good number of Arthurian romances, in both verse and prose, from the middle of the thirteenth century, which seem to resist the kind of standard analysis which can prove so fruitful when applied to, say, the œuvre of Chrétien de Troyes. Careful descriptions of the three manuscripts of L’Âtre périlleux occupy pages 29–39, while pages 40–51 justify in some detail the editorial procedures followed. Like Woledge, Mathey-Maille and de Carné choose Paris, BnF, fr. 2168 as their base manuscript. Despite the careless hand of its principal scribe, the text of fr. 2168 appears to be less innovative than that of the other copies. The editorial policy is sensible, neither too conservative nor too interventionist, and all interventions are justified in footnotes to the text and facing-page translation. The substantial discussion of the language of author and scribes is especially welcome at a time when philology strictly defined is in a moment of crisis. It is a reminder that a solid knowledge of the language and the nature of medieval textuality is an absolute prerequisite for editors. A summary then provides a basic guide to the narrative, which will help those reading the text for the first time to navigate the twists and turns of the complex series of adventures. There is a generous bibliography. The text and translation occupy the bulk of the book, and are followed by selected variants, a glossary, and an index of proper names. Mathey-Maille and de Carné are to be congratulated on this excellent edition and translation which will surely afford reading pleasure to a wide public and matter for scholarly reflection to specialists of Old French literature.

Coverage of Ukrainian Baroque in Research of European Scientists

The purpose of the study is to highlight the topic of Ukrainian baroque in the research of European scientists, to emphasise their main conclusions. The research methodology consists in the use of general scientific methods. Among general scientific methods, we apply analysis, synthesis, deduction, and induction. Separately, we single out the method of comparison, which made it possible to identify certain common and distinctive features in the interpretation of the Ukrainian Baroque problem. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the main markers of the study of the Ukrainian baroque culture in modern European thought have been determined. Conclusions. The study of Ukrainian baroque in Romanian, French, and Polish European specialist literature shows that the western borders of the spread of its influences are considered to be the territory of Hungary and Slovakia, and in the south – Moldova and Romania. The work also defines the vision of the European researchers of the roots of the Ukrainian variety of this art trend, which is partially seen in Polish or Italian influences. Determining the ways in which baroque influences entered Ukraine (via the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or directly from Italy) belongs to the urgent tasks of future research.
 Key words: Ukrainian Baroque, European studies, influences, Ukraine.

Phraseology of French Literature

This article explores the phraseology of French literature, which are unique phrases that reflect the cultural and historical aspects of France. The study focuses on analyzing and categorizing the most important phraseology in French literature, highlighting their linguistic and cultural significance. The research methods used in this study include a review of fiction texts and an analysis of the language structure and syntax of phraseology. The results section provides a complete list of the most widely used phraseology in French literature in combination with its meaning and cultural contexts. The discussion section examines the linguistic and cultural consequences of phraseology and their importance in modern French literature. The article concludes with suggestions for further research on the topic

The (dis)engagement of mangrove forests and mangrove rice in academic and non-academic literature on Guinea-Bissau-a systematic review protocol.

Coastal areas in Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere in West Africa are bordered by mangrove forests. In several of these places, swaths of mangrove forest have been removed and the landscape has been technologically adapted for the production of mangrove rice-a regionally important staple. However, the effects of global warming, in particular sea-level rise, pose challenges to these socioecological environments. In this context, knowledge appears as an important resource and knowing what knowledge has been produced and which perspectives have guided that production may inform future responses to climate change. We have developed a systematic literature review protocol focusing on the main question: "How have mangrove forest and mangrove rice spaces been represented in the literature on Guinea-Bissau?" The main hypothesis is that although they occupy contiguous, interrelated and interactant spaces in coastal environments, mangrove forests and mangrove rice have been studied and analyzed independently in the literature. This is a protocol for conducting a systematic review that will include academic and non-academic literature in Portuguese, English and French. The academic literature will be retrieved from both Web of Science and Scopus using Boolean expressions. The non-academic literature will be accessed from relevant institutions, specialized libraries, and reference lists of previously selected items. Data extraction will follow a standard procedure based on an information sheet. Our analysis will be both qualitative (inductive and deductive coding, content analysis) and quantitative (word clouds, descriptive statistics and statistical testing). This systematic review will provide information about the conceptual framework that has been produced through research, policymaking, and conservation and development programs in the management of coastal areas. This study will identify the limitations of previous approaches and contribute to both future research and strategies for planning adaptation to climate change. Finally, the outputs will add to broader debates about people-nature coexistence and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

A Century of Clinical Use of Phages: A Literature Review.

Growing antibiotic resistance and the broken antibiotic market have renewed interest in the use of phages, a century-old therapy that fell into oblivion in the West after two decades of promising results. This literature review with a particular focus on French literature aims to complement current scientific databases with medical and non-medical publications on the clinical use of phages. While several cases of successful treatment with phages have been reported, prospective randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm the efficacy of this therapy.

Le Spleen de Paris: An ‘unknown’ masterpiece?

The article explores the origins of Baudelaire’s final book, Paris Spleen. Little Prose Poems [ Le Spleen de Paris. Petits Poèmes en Prose ] in relation to the poet’s recently discovered letter to the publisher A. Houssaye. Supplying a Russian translation of this dedication to Houssaye, penned by Baudelaire as a preface to the Little Prose Poems , the author also offers its interpretation. The closing paragraphs contain an analysis of the principal and manifesto-like aspects of the dedication. Stating that no one can say about his new work that it has ‘neither head nor tail,’ Baudelaire alludes to the trite expression which describes ‘incoherence’ in French, but which the poet effortlessly transforms into an expanded metaphor of a serpent. In other words, rather than merely dedicating his poems to the editor-in-chief of La Presse , the poet lavishes on him a ‘poisoned gift.’ The poet loathed the newspaper civilisation, but, unlike the ‘aristocratic party’ of French literature, could not afford to withdraw into an ‘ivory tower’ and so had to resort to stratagems to cooperate with the Fourth Estate. The dedication to Houssaye effectively constitutes such a ploy.

Our Civilizing Mission: The Lessons of Colonial Education. By Nicholas Harrison

Nicholas Harrison’s excellent book is not only a fascinating study of colonial education in Algeria and an examination of literary texts which trace the impacts and influences of colonial teaching on writers and teachers. It is also an examination of the ‘critical anxieties about the historical and conceptual foundations of “humanities” education’ (p. 7), a topic of increasing urgency today as the humanities as an area of study is repeatedly under threat from governments who pour money into ‘profitable’ STEM subjects to the detriment of the humanities. In this highly relevant and multidisciplinary book, Harrison draws on concepts and debates from history, postcolonial studies, and literary studies. Some of the key questions he raises include: How were Algerian writers influenced by France’s ‘civilizing mission’ — France’s political rationale for empire as evoked in the title of the book — through their own education and the education they offered to their students? What might they have gained from their colonial education, what caused them anxieties, and how did their experiences as student and teacher help them to advance their writing career? The study is bookended in the Introduction and Conclusion by Harrison’s astute reflections on the value of humanities education and the teaching of literature at university level. In Chapter 1 he discusses Edward Said’s approach to the teaching of literature through his works, and he sees Said’s writing as ‘paradigmatic in its equivocal relationship to literary education and humanities education more widely’ (p. 10). The following chapter takes a historical approach to colonial education in Algeria. Chapter 3 explores writings by Mouloud Feraoun which give insight into what it was like to be a teacher during the Algerian War of Independence, while Chapter 4 focuses on texts by Feraoun, Mohammed Dib, Assia Djebar, and others which recount the culture of colonial schools through the lens of gender and laïcité. The final chapter analyses accounts of children’s experiences of learning French and French literature at school in Algeria. This thematic approach to literature about colonial education is one of the many strengths of the book, as Harrison deftly demonstrates the richness of his selected works of fiction and memoir and the complex relationship of the writers towards colonialism as contained in the texts. A further strength is that the book is very well researched; Harrison draws on many historical, biographical, literary, and critical sources, offering detailed close readings of the texts but also providing comprehensive contextualization of the period in which they were written. Furthermore, he nuances our understanding of colonial education in Algeria, arguing that many pro-colonialists were quite suspicious of using education as a colonial tool because they wanted to keep ‘indigenous’ people in an inferior position to the colonial French authorities. Harrison’s book is essential reading for scholars and students of Algerian literature and the history of colonial education; more broadly, it will be of interest to all advocates of literature and the humanities.

Duras and Beckett: Close Encounters at a Distance

Marguerite Duras and Samuel Beckett, both prominent writers internationally during the same period, and both living in Paris during most of their careers and rooted in French literature, appear to be a remarkable case of closely parallel writerly trajectories in conjunction with an apparent absence of exchange between them. Living in the same capital, they shared aesthetic, theatrical, editorial and political allegiances, and were both at some points intrigued by each other’s work and life. Both produced a medially diverse oeuvre including novels, theatre plays, screenplays, both worked as directors, rather often with the same actors or troupes, and they were regularly considered as examples of the same aesthetic tendencies in literature and the theatre. Their writing – themes and styles – tends to diverge importantly on several points, but Beckett was impressed by Duras' first theatre play, and Duras occasionally identified strikingly with Beckett. Nonetheless, hardly any form of contact or of direct influence between the authors is known.

Cultural Capital: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

<i>Cultural Capital</i>: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

Mark Faulkner. A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century: Language and Literature between Old and Middle English

Mark Faulkner’s book is a milestone in the study of early English, and essential reading for any scholar engaged with England’s literary and linguistic landscapes in the High Middle Ages. As he notes, scholarly treatments of the evolving language and writing of the period between securely ‘Old’ and safely ‘Middle’ English have suffered from a traditional perception of rupture, loss, and absence in the record, resulting from the (literal and figurative) marginalization of English during an efflorescence of Latin and French literature. This apparent literary scarcity following the Norman Conquest has led scholars to offer ideological readings of English writings and their relative absence alike, as assertions or failures of English identity embodied in a newly subaltern language; the earliest Middle English works have been described as fundamentally isolated and deracinated. Faulkner’s substantial achievement, quietly and painstakingly traced through a seriously impressive weight of written evidence and close analysis, is to show that both of these perceptions are incorrect.

Pour le sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature. Edited by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines

Four decades on from Richard Holt’s pioneering Sport and Society in Modern France (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1981), few would dispute the assertion by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines that ‘the study of sports is viewed as serious academic business’ (p. 13). More specifically, their Introduction to the present volume highlights the contention by the influential Allen Guttmann that ‘the French were probably the first moderns to make sport into a major literary theme’ (cited p. 13). The thirteen essays that follow offer ample evidence of this creative preoccupation, maintaining the editors’ distinguishing focus on aesthetically significant writing, while also underlining an admirable inclusivity as regards themes and genres. This approach enables the diverse contributions productively to juxtapose the stylistics of running and writing in the novels of Dominique Braga (Thomas Bauer) and Jean Echenoz (Curto), the aesthetics of mountaineering from the Romantics to the clubs alpins (Pierre-Olaf Schut), and some surprisingly subversive depictions of sport and gender in Le Petit Nicolas (Cynthia Laborde). The volume’s targeting of a broadly conceived ‘physical culture’ further allows the inclusion of premodern athletic practices, exemplified by the noble jeu de paume, from the medieval and early modern periods (John McClelland) to the fiction of Prosper Mérimée (Corry Cropper). This broad historical sweep notably includes the Vichy regime’s suppression of rugby league, through a thoughtful reassessment of the writings of rugby union’s most zealous advocate, Paul Voivenel (Keith Rathbone). Such production belongs to a tradition of consciously literary sports commentary, exemplified elsewhere by Henri Desgrange (Wines), Antoine Blondin, and even Roland Barthes, whose 1955 essay on ‘Le Tour de France comme épopée’ was destined to become a cornerstone of cultural studies in his celebrated Mythologies (Ruadhán Cooke). These interrogations of territorial implantation and literary representation together address the complex articulation of professional sports and modern masculinities. They thereby complement the later studies of association football in — and between — France and Algeria, as part of the volume’s broader engagement with the negotiation of sporting identities, an ongoing process in which the 1998 and 2018 FIFA World Cup competitions constitute watershed moments. So, on the one hand, Zinedine Zidane remains the ‘overdetermined’ signifier of the triumphant multiculturalism of 1998 in both literary texts and arthouse cinema (Luke Healey), his parting coup de boule in 2006 notwithstanding. While, on the other, Kylian Mbappé, as player and persona, encourages a critical examination both of the cultural significance of French victory in 2018 and of the durability of the republican model of citizenship. The centrality of football and boxing in banlieue literature (Marshall L. Smith) in turn provides a stimulating counterpoint to the analyses presented here of soccer culture in postcolonial Algerian texts (Christa Jones) and of combat sports in Senegalese novels from the 1960s to the 1980s (Christopher Hogarth). Whether or not sport has entered the mainstream of French and francophone studies remains a moot point, but this fascinating collaboration argues persuasively for taking physical culture seriously, not only as a social barometer but also as a literary field in its own right.

WAR EXPERIENCE AND ITS REFLECTION IN GEORGES BERNANOS’ POLITICAL WRITING AND NOVELS

The article analyzes the reflection of the 20th century’s war experiences both in fictional writing and political pamphlet of Georges Bernanos, a representative of the Catholic Literary Revival movement in French interwar literature. A chronological classification of the entire writer’s heritage connected with the subject of war is offered and divided into three periods. The most representative texts are proposed for each. Further research attention is devoted to the early period, namely the experience of the First World War, in which the author participated as combatant, and the problems of the first novel «Under the Sun of Satan» (1926). The novel, which does not directly talk about the war in its plot, is nevertheless classified as warlike. Metaphysical evil and the deterioration of the human soul are regarded as the main ideological constants through the images of the two protagonists of the novel. Emphasis is made on the animalistic image of evil rooted in the biblical tradition and the creation of the image of saint is, according to Bernanos, the only answer to the triumph of evil, which he saw with his own eyes during the war. The explicit manifestation of the Civil War in Spain 1936-1939, witnessed by the author, reinforced by the eschatology and prophetic nature of the narrative, as well as the use of biblical archetypes to denote the nature of violence, is analyzed on the base of the political pamphlet «The Great Cemeteries under the Moon» (1938). It is this war that becomes a turning point in the biography of Bernanos, who as a right-wing nationalist and Catholic discovers for himself the illogical impossibility of supporting the Franco regime, because of the terror. This very problem of mass violence and the propensity of human nature to evil were analyzed using the theory of mimetic violence by the French anthropologist R. Girard.

THE HOLOCAUST IN TATIANA DE ROSNAY’S SARAH’S KEY (2007)

The article offers an analysis of the Holocaust theme in the novel by a contemporary French writer Tatiana de Rosnay, whose writings incorporate patterns of mass literature as related to relevant concepts of modern culture. The novel Sarah’s Key (2007), the first literary text in English later translated in French, reveals a dark episode in the life of French society within the Nazi occupation in 1940-s, namely one of the biggest crimes committed by Nazis against Jewish people — the raid of Vel’ d’Iv (July 1942) that was witnessed and partially supported by a number of population in Paris. The paper provides an analysis of the events described in the novel as a significant sample of writings on Holocaust in the corpus of the modern French literature in the lights of trauma studies and the concept of transgenerational memory and based on historical approach, as well as comparative and narrative methodology. In particular, the circumstances and consequences of the raid are viewed from historical and cultural aspects, the comparative aspect is incorporated through the analysis of the concept of memory in the novel by de Rosnay and in Patrick Modiano’s writings, whereas fondamental metaphors and symbols in the novel are classified and interpreted in their relation to the theory of ‘lieux de mémoire’ by Pierre Nora. Such a complex approach in the research is to reveal several distinct interpretative levels of the Holocaust theme in the novel; it also helps to reinforce the writer’s dialogue with her predecessors and contemporaries in modern European literature against the background of the current war in Ukraine.

Perinatal Psychoactive Substances Use: A Rising Perinatal Mental Health Concern.

A significant increase in psychoactive drugs use was observed in women of childbearing age and during the perinatal period worldwide. Yet, the use of illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco during pregnancy is a serious health risk for the mother, developing fetus and newborn. This review of current trends and consequences of psychoactive substance use in the general population and in pregnant women was conducted using the English and French literature published during the years 2000 to 2022, supplemented by guidelines, meta-analyses and reviews. According to current rates of prenatal substances use, it was calculated that 380,000 offspring were exposed to illicit substances, more than 500,000 to alcohol and over one million to tobacco during uterine life. Alarmingly, drug-related pregnancy-associated mortality has shown a staggering 190% rise between 2010 and 2019 in the USA. Different drugs of abuse, when used during pregnancy, increase the risk of stillbirth, neonatal abstinence syndrome and sudden infant death. Adverse effects on pregnancy include premature rupture of membranes, placental abruption, preterm birth, low birth space? weight and small-for-gestational-age infants. There is also an increased risk of morbidity and mortality for the pregnant women. Long-term negative adverse effects of perinatal exposure to substances also include a number of neurocognitive, behavioral and emotional dysfunctions in infants. Each type of substance has its own specificities, which will be briefly summarized. All childbearing age women must be informed about the potential harm of the prenatal use of psychoactive substances and should be encouraged to stop their use when pregnancy is planned and, at least, when pregnancy is known. Questioning women about their alcohol consumption should be systematic at the first prenatal visit and then at every prenatal visit until delivery. Multidisciplinary prevention approaches as well as intervention measures targeted to each type of psychoactive substance can save mothers' lives and mitigate serious adversities to the offspring.

Le thème du féminicide dans la littérature française au XIXe siècle

L’enjeu de cet article est d’examiner le thème du féminicide dans la littérature française au XIXe siècle. Dans La Fille aux yeux d’or et La Duchesse de Langeais, où Balzac projette son rêve de l’Orient, le héros dispose de la vie de son amante en tant que maître absolu de celle-ci. Les femmes sont censées admirer la force des hommes et accepter leur violence. Par contre, l’Indiana de George Sand dénonce la violence masculine comme un crime. Tandis que dans la littérature romantique le thème du féminicide est teinté d’exotisme, dans la littérature naturaliste ce thème devient plus proche de la réalité. Dans La Bête humaine, Zola met en scène plusieurs personnages criminels. Bien qu’il exploite des faits divers et des références scientifiques telles que les idées de Lombroso, Zola s’en différencie par ses propres notions sociales et esthétiques. Ainsi, cet article met en évidence le fait que ce thème du féminicide est imprégné du désir et de la peur des hommes envers les femmes, aussi bien que de leur appétit de domination.

Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature by Annabel Kim

Reviewed by: Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature by Annabel Kim E. Nicole Meyer Kim, Annabel. Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature. UP of Minnesota, 2022. ISBN 978-1-5179-1088-4. Pp. 289. Brilliantly argued and written, Kim's book proposes daringly different readings to canonical authors ranging from Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Daniel Pennac. Her opening sentence, "French literature is full of shit," immediately engages the reader. What follows does not disappoint. Through its transgression of boundaries, its potential to invigorate narrative, and its ability to reframe the materiality of language, excrement exudes power in the literary context according to Kim. While focusing primarily on twentieth- and twenty-first-century French literature, Cacaphonies displays deep erudition, compelling theoretical support, and convincing critiques of other critics' misreading and dematerializing of shit through the imposition of psychic or other misfitting structures upon it. In addition, she recognizes the import of literary predecessors such as François Rabelais. Arguing that defecation in Céline's Mort à crédit is intimately linked to the lack of time, Kim convincingly argues that the material experience of defecation communicates Céline's struggle against death. Much like his later anti-Semitic political writings that color how this author is read, shit sticks to whatever surface it encounters. Kim deftly addresses Céline's failings while providing a riveting analysis of his essential role in both challenging and reframing what French literature is and what language can do. Samuel Beckett's Malloy transforms the concrete excrement of this predecessor to the passing of air. While both feces and farts pass through the anus, Beckett shifts the paradoxical relation of shit to the food that it once was, sending us out of the body, according to Kim. Although Jean-Paul Sartre's Saint Genet caused a definitive break between him and Jean Genet, the former's L'enfance d'un chef (1939) and the latter's Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs (1943) "mobilize fecality" to express the importance of freedom as these two pivotal authors see it. Turning to Holocaust-related narratives Kim turns to Marguerite Duras and Romain Gary. Marguerite Duras's La douleur illustrates the impact of the inhumane violation of human dignity upon the body. A close reading of Duras's description of her husband's inhuman, bubbling, viscous, slimy defecation bespeaks of the unspeakable experiences of the concentration camps. The formless nature of this voluminous matter expelled from her husband exceeds Duras's understanding as well as our own. Kim's reading of this scene points to how life and death are blurred, and how the act of wiping assimilates the person doing the wiping to the one who is wiped. In Kim's words, "shit is truly the leveler of difference" (159). Moving into the twenty-first century, her brilliant reading of Garréta's Dans l'béton exposes the political impact of this work. Garréta's antihierarchal, anti-difference approach and exposure of the pervasive social and cultural structures that exclude others reveal the ways this innovative author works with and against language. In Journal d'un corps, Daniel Pennac's displacement [End Page 278] of chronology contributes to how he places literature between propreté and propriété. Annabel Kim calls for a "caca communism" that understands feces and literary language as a shared corporeal experience. A must-read, Cacaphonies provides a truly insightful, engaging, and joyful reading experience. [End Page 279] E. Nicole Meyer Augusta University (GA) Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French

Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature ed. by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines

Reviewed by: Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature ed. by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines Jodie Barker Curto, Roxanna and Rebecca Wines, eds. Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature. Liverpool UP, 2021. ISBN 978-1-80085-689-9. Pp 332. When choosing this book to review over the summer, I believed that I would be embarking upon a reading voyage full of fun and amusement, as the title might imply. While these characteristics do make appearances throughout the edited volume, the work as a whole presents the nuanced—and often thorny—circumstances and perspectives that sport and physical culture highlight in the literatures and cultures of the French-speaking world. The volume opens with a thorough introduction that outlines its organization and explains the content of each essay, which is particularly useful considering the large scope and diversity of its essays. According to the editors, the essays are ordered "more or less chronologically" and while their theoretical tone is at times heavy, the observational quality that many of them embrace as part of their style is a welcome point de repère for the reader. For scholars working in early time periods whose physical culture is often overshadowed by contemporary sport phenomena, Part I, "Physical Activities and Games Prior to the Twentieth Century," will be of particular interest. Each of the three chapters performs unique and insightful readings of physical culture that include jeu de paume, mountaineering, and trictrac in works by Chrétien de Troyes, Montaigne, and Mérimée. In the four parts that follow, the essays explore sports including rugby, running, boxing, cycling, and, as one might expect, soccer as seen in literature and in contemporary culture. One of the volume's most important contributions is its exposure of the common themes that arise regardless of the century or sport, such as the relationship between sport and power, between sport and social class, between sport and race, and also between sport and gender, which is demonstrated in Cynthia Laborde's engaging analysis of Le petit Nicolas. Yet it is the relationship between sport and violence that is perhaps not only the most fascinating, but also the most disturbing and urgent issue, which the volume brings to light. With a work that encompasses so much, then, what could be missing? Sports like fencing, pétanque, and sailing, which one could assume as inexorably linked to some French-language cultures, do not make an appearance in the volume. This, however, is not necessarily evidence of an oversight or inherent lack. Rather, it reveals further opportunities to explore physical culture in French-speaking countries in scholarly contexts, or even just pour le sport. [End Page 272] Jodie Barker University of Nevada, Reno Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French

African Literatures as World Literature ed. by Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan

Reviewed by: African Literatures as World Literature ed. by Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan Tanure Ojaide African Literatures as World Literature ED. ALEXANDER FYFE & MADHU KRISHNAN New York. Bloomsbury Academic. 2022. 268 pages. AFRICAN LITERATURES as World Literature is in the Literatures as World Literature series, described as "a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations—according to language, nation, form, or theme." However, "African literatures" are not united by language, nationality, form, or theme! The first book in the series dealing with the literatures of a continent unified by culture, one would expect the series editor to add "culture" to the defining "constellations" of world literature. In the introductory chapter, Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan, the editors, lay the theoretical groundwork and issues that undergird the rest of the book. They assert that "world literature, specifically, bifurcates around two interrelated modes: the affirmative and the critical." They go on to define world literature as a "practice … intricately bound not only to the circuits of production, circulation and consecration through which 'a literature' as such is produced but also through its inextricable ties with the external world." The editors emphasize works written in African languages, "cross-border and global dialogue," and transnational literary collaborations. Bhakti Shringarpure's "'African Borders Are Unnatural': Nairobi and the Rise of a World Literature" uses Nairobi as a case study of African literature engaging with migration, mobility, nomadism, exile, and itinerancy. The author discusses how Binyavanga Wainaina and Joy Mboya deploy cosmopolitan experiences of Nairobi in their respective novels. These writers and the literary magazines such as Jalada and Lolwe move the literary conversation beyond the local and national to "a more cosmopolitan, border-defying and transnational agenda." Billy Kahora rejects Shringarpure's argument about Nairobi, the headquarters of "humanitarian consciousness," as inspiring literary creativity and observes that "more often than not, the African novel is now written in the West." Sarah Arens's chapter discusses the francophone Alain Mabanckou's and Koli Jean Bofane's novels set in the two Congo nations, respectively, that "present different visions of African intellectual and literary engagements with the world," which make African literature in French a type of world literature. Another chapter discusses "Kaisa," a narrative Swahili poem set in Angoche in northern Mozambique as world literature. Similarly, early Sesotho, isiXhosa, and isiZulu writings are discussed. Clarissa Vierke and Chapane Mutiua seem to strain to describe these works in indigenous South African languages as "world literature." The ninth chapter, again on Kenyan and Swahili literatures, emphasizes the aesthetics of book production. Lola Shoneyin's chapter on the Aké Festival focuses on the "African world stage" and the Ake Review. She is more "concerned about what Africans think about the works of other Africans than what Western readers think of books authored by Africans." I find Doseline Kiguru's "Contemporary African Literature and Celebrity Capital" very detailed and exhilarating in its analysis of "celebrity capital." Penny Cart-wright discusses two of Binyavanga Wainaina's works as "reversing the global media lens." The last chapter discusses precolonial Fante treatises and essays as literature rather than history. The essays disproportionately represent African literature with eight chapters covering "world literature" issues in Eastern and [End Page 76] South African literatures, two dealing with West African productions, and one with the two Congo nations. There is no single chapter touching on the literature(s) of the Maghreb or North Africa. There are two essays on Nairobi alone, and, adding the essays on Wainaina and Swahili, about five chapters on Kenyan literary productions! This overemphasis on Eastern African literary representations in this book is not borne out by the reality of available literary productions in Africa. In many of the chapters that relate to Kenya and "engaging the world," Wainaina is focused on, and it becomes a form of overkill. There is the impression that world literature has only to do with fiction, as the notion of the novel as the "currency" of world literature is promoted. I believe poetry and drama can also be parts of world literature. "Kaisa," itself a poetic narrative, is the only poetry discussed. There are plays such as Wole Soyinka's Death and the King...

"Psychopathology" in Frankétienne's Pèlen Tet

Haitian intellectuals such as Frankétienne have long tried to educate their society through literature in French and Creole. Acknowledging the abyss of colonial heritage, Frankétienne criticizes his own people through a self-reflective play. In this interpretive practice, the self consists of a collective body, which is the Haitian people. Frankétienne believes that the atrocities of the past have created destructive habits and behaviors that contribute to Haiti's decline. These patterns are so recurrent that one could say that Haiti is undergoing a collective psychological condition that Frankétienne portrays through a psychopathological conversation in his renowned play, Pèlen Tet (1975).

Literary Slumming: Slang and Class in Nineteenth Century France by Eliza Jane Smith

Reviewed by: Literary Slumming: Slang and Class in Nineteenth Century France by Eliza Jane Smith Amanda Dalola Smith, Eliza Jane. Literary Slumming: Slang and Class in Nineteenth Century France. Lexington Books, 2021. ISBN: 978-1793621146. Pp. 298. Combining sociolinguistic methods and literary analysis, this volume seeks to demonstrate how writers in the nineteenth century represented slang in French literature and ultimately helped define lower-class and criminal culture via linguistic means. True to its title, the book revolves around a concept the author coins "literary slumming," a sociolinguistic style shift in which writers from privileged backgrounds explore forbidden social realms via the appropriation of aspects of lower-class culture, and then fashion them for a bourgeois public in a way that creates a collective cultural image of what it means to be socially disadvantaged, criminal, immoral, or sexually deviant. The phenomenon is heavily mediated by the concept of "indexicality," a process in which context-bounded ways of speaking reference attached cultural ideologies like social class, gender, race, etc., in both referential, e.g., the overt use of informal tu pronouns, and non-referential ways, e.g., the use of a certain dialect, gestures, or slang. Because indexes are subject to an infinite number of interpretations, they exist within an "indexical field," a constellation of meanings that are fluid but ideologically linked. The author's main argument in this text is that the non-referential indexes of slang presented in nineteenth-century French literature are part of a larger adaptable system of ideological interpretation that witnessed a noticeable shift during this time: whereas slang in texts early on often served to index criminals, it later served to index hip Parisians or working-class prostitutes. A new indexical order emerged altogether in Victor Hugo's Les misérables, where slang was used for the first time to index victims, poverty, and social misery, performatively positioning its larger referential group of criminals and working-class figures as individuals in need of assistance from the upper classes. Following an introduction that situates the sociolinguistic framework, the text branches off into six thematic chapters, each exploring a different indexical value for nineteenth-century French slang: criminal code, embodied language, language politics, language of misery, language of Parisians, and language of whores. Within each chapter, discussion proceeds through a series of literary excerpts, each of which is analyzed in terms of its non-referential indexes informing the larger indexical field of slang at various moments in history. The book closes with an epilogue that contextualizes literary slumming even outside the confines of nineteenth-century French literature, e.g., during the Renaissance, in American and British writers, even among 21st-century white hip-hoppers. While advances in printing technology leading to the proliferation of serials for the public may have first accelerated it in the nineteenth century, the mechanism of literary slumming is still alive and well today, not only in literature, but also in music, film, and Internet culture, propagated by the continued presence of social, racial, and gender inequalities. [End Page 254] The book concludes with a call to arms for the dominated to reclaim their self-stylized languages (and not necessarily those popularized by outgroup writers) as an act of resistance against the dominant culture, a message that both literary scholars and sociolinguists alike will agree must never go out of style. [End Page 255] Amanda Dalola University of Minnesota Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French