French Writer Research Articles

Introduction: Venice, Real and Imagined

Abstract: Despite its steady political decline, Venice was still a bustling center of commerce in the long eighteenth century and boasted a vivacious social and cultural life that attracted tourists and artists. The uniqueness of the city elicited a productive interplay between reality and imagination in the visual arts and in the memories of visitors. François-René de Chateaubriand, however, was unimpressed by Venice during his first visit in 1806. His letter to a friend laconically chronicling his negative view of the city was published in the Mercure de France and spurred a lively debate. The Venetian noblewoman, writer, and salonnière Giustina Renier Michiel countered the French writer's disdain for her city with a scathing, public response that solidified her fame and reputation for patriotism. Indeed, as Susan Dalton argues, Renier Michiel incorporated "strategic accommodations" in her response in order to safeguard her literary fame. One of the most fascinating aspects of Venice's uniqueness was this type of female agency and visibility, which was embodied by famous poets of the Renaissance like Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco and by celebrated eighteenth-century artists like Rosalba Carriera. Nevertheless, as John Hunt's essay demonstrates, female visibility and agency in Venice transcended social class. Even women of the lower classes partook in the city's political life thanks to their freedom of movement and access to valuable information. Records of witchcraft trials testify that some of them, in fact, exploited Venetians' passion for gambling and claimed to have the power to magically predict the names of the noblemen who would win elections.

Eugen Simion – opinii privind editarea operei lui Panait Istrati

In the collection entitled Opere fundamentale (Fundamental Works), initiated and coordinated by Eugen Simion for more than two decades, two editions are dedicated to Panait Istrati: the first one, consisting of two volumes, entitled Povestiri, romane (Stories, Novels), published in 2003, was edited by Teodor Vârgolici; the second one, edited by Zamfir Bălan, is intended to have eight volumes, four of which have already been published (literature, I-II, 2019; III-IV, 2021), two are being prepared for print (journalistic writings), while the last two volumes (correspondence) are in progress. The Introduction signed by Eugen Simion (revisited and completed, for the 2019 edition) reiterates – even if the discussion may have seemed completed since the ‘60s – the issue of whether the writer who debuted, in 1924, with Kyra Kyralina in the Rieder collection Contemporary French Writers belongs to the Romanian literature or not. Since, right from his debut, many Romanian critics considered the docker of the Braila Port to be a French writer, Eugen Simion made from the editing of Panait Istrati’s work under the patronage of the Romanian Academy also a form of recognition, from the level of the most prestigious scientific and cultural institution, of Panait Istrati’s belonging to the Romanian literature. The present paper synthetizes the critic opinions of Eugen Simion as he wrote them down in the Introduction and sketches, in a comparative manner, the history of how Panait Istrati’s works were published in Romania, from 1935 till now.

Жанровые особенности антиутопического научно-фантастического романа Пьера Буля «Планета обезьян»: коммуникативный аспект

The enduring popularity of 20th century science fiction authors among readers of all age categories has been noted in numerous works of literary scholars. An extremely important aspect is the fact that the author and the reader must have a common language in order for communication to be effective. The relevance of the study is due to the growing interest in the problem of interpreting the genre of science fiction works. The aim of this study is to try to trace the synthesis of genre forms from the point of view of communicativism and the theories of C. Darwin and T. de Chardin in the novel "Planet of the Apes" by the famous French fiction writer Pierre Boulle. Darwin and T. de Chardin in the novel "Planet of the Apes" by the famous French fiction writer Pierre BoulleIn the course of the study, the methods of contextual literary analysis, cognitive-discourse analysis, as well as stylistic and genre analysis were applied. As a result of the study, the conclusions were obtained that the novel "Planet of the Apes" by P. Boulle combines elements of the genre of science fiction novel, philosophical parable, utopia and dystopia. The novel is a satirical work, touching upon the themes of scientific progress, communication, evolution and human society, which are topical at present. The author, when creating a work, follows literary conventions or deliberately goes against them, creating something innovative. The genre of science fiction has been and remains a synthetic genre, incorporating elements of various genres, which intricately intertwined, enter into communication with the reader, helping him to create fictional worlds. Scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that for the first time in Russia the study of genre originality of P. Boulle's work in the aspect of communication with the reader is undertaken. The article may be useful for literary scholars, postgraduates, students and all those interested in the problems of genre synthesis in modern science fiction.

Les Disparus de Daniel Mendelsohn et La Carte postale d’Anne Berest : deux succès aux antipodes

This study compares the success of two books written by descendants of Holocaust victims in France. With The Lost. A search for six of six million (2006) / Les Disparus (2007), Daniel Mendelsohn brought from the United States a new look at the Holocaust and a true originality in the restitution of this event. Fifteen years later, French writer Anne Berest’s La Carte postale (The Postcard) (2021) trivializes the model of third-generation family investigation that The Lost represented. The study first details the markers of success (sales, prices, reception in the media) which already indicate two very different target audiences, then – in a second part – compares these investigations which, despite some similarities, are differently narrated, Anne Berest even adopting on the essential the opposite positioning of Daniel Mendelsohn. Finally, the last part relies on readers’ opinions to verify and clarify the trivialization detailed in the second part.

La revie ou les deboires de l’oubli : quels marqueurs ?

The article deals with the question of revival in the fields of literary production and other arts, based in part on the case of a French writer, Gérald Hervé (1928–1998). This question, which covers a theoretical-practical field that emerged a few decades ago, is still in its infancy. The author traces its history and its developments since its appearance in the 1980s. He then outlines its main axes from a definitional and methodological point of view, illustrating the subject with various tables. This article also aims to draw the attention of researchers and theoreticians in the human sciences to the necessary theoretical developments and to the practical application of the field.

Anomalie littéraire: la plume comique d’Hélène du Taillis

Literary anomaly: The comedic style of Hélène du Taillis When we think of classic comedic novels, the names of male authors such as Rabelais, Cervantes, or Scarron often come to mind. However, the contributions of women writers to this genre have been overlooked as literary anomalies. Hélène du Taillis (1873-1961), a French journalist and writer, is a literary anomaly in the history of early 20th-century French literature. She wrote not one but two successful and critically acclaimed comedic novels, "Enterrons l’adultère" (1923) and "La Nouvelle Bovary" (1927), at a time when this genre was largely dominated by male writers and considered marginal literature (and still is today). This article aims to examine Taillis's two novels from the perspectives of Hamon and Saint-Gelais on irony and transfictionality. By doing so, highlighting the unique aspects of Taillis's comedic writing, demonstrating that a comical heritage also exists among women writers.

Some thoughts about artificial stupidity and artificial dumbness

In a recently published book, the French writer and comedian François Rollin has discussed various aspects of the notion of stupidity, including artificial stupidity, the stupid counterpart of artificial intelligence. His claim is that a system of artificial stupidity is a system that provides wrong answers to any task it should solve, leading to absurd solutions in most cases. We believe that this claim is (at least partially) false and that designing artificial stupidity is not as trivial as it seems. In this article, we discuss why and how one could design a system of artificial stupidity. We believe that such a reflection on (artificial) stupidity can bring about some interesting insights about (artificial) intelligence.

‘Let us play a game of decadence…’

The article polemizes with V. Milchina’s paper that focused on the discussion of the problem of decadence and/or decay in French and Russian intellectual cultures. The author examines several texts that feature the general cultural concept of decay in its meaning of decadence as used in literature in close relation to the concepts of modernity and nihilism. Based on his reconstruction of C. Baudelaire’s polemic with the French writer Barbey d,Aurevilly, S. Fokin concludes that, thanks to their literary dispute, the French word décadence developed a new literary, political, psychological, social, and, most importantly, modern (in reference to modernity) sense, which separates this lexeme from its earlier historical and general cultural meaning of decay. Following an overview of Nietzsche’s latter reaction to Baudelaire’s work, the author emphasizes the concept of ‘the consciousness of decadence,’ which is supposed to reveal the problematic nature of the use of décadence as the name of a literary movement. It refers to a matter more substantial, but also fleeting, transient, and ephemeral — in other words, modern, and therefore, a phenomenon of literary fashion.

ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІЙНІ МОТИВИ У НАРАТИВАХ УЧАСНИКІВ РОСІЙСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ

The need to investigate the peculiarities of existential categories in active and passive participants in the war is determined by the basic postulate of existentialism, in which existence precedes essence. Such a situation requires the use of a specific methodology that does not belong to the philosophical methodological base. The narrative approach is used to study the experience of an individual and his life space. The article is devoted to the analysis of the situation of the Russian-Ukrainian war, worldview reflections of its participants. The main existential categories are considered. The narrative is used as the main research method. In the first place are the categories of absurdity of existence, evil, fear, despair, loneliness, suffering, death. Attention is also paid to the categories of freedom of choice, risk, communication and trauma, responsibility, fatigue, sense, values, and others. Emphasis is placed on the importance of non-material priorities for the existence of war participants. The phenomenon of memory in the conditions of war is analyzed as one of the driving forces for actions. Existential narratives are characterized from the «classical» position of the French philosopher and writer Albert Camus and the «non-classical» position of the psychiatrist and philosopher Viktor Frankl. The choice of thinkers is determined by the need to discover different existential categories and their interpretation in the wartime worldview. The article refers to the interviews and reflections of 2022-2023 Ukrainian soldiers, volunteers, medical instructors, entrepreneurs, journalists, managers, heads of charitable organizations, mostly women. A total of twenty one interviews are analyzed.

Англоязычные заимствования как источник формирования французского молодежного арго

The article considers the significance of English-language borrowings in the development of the French youth argot which plays a crucial role in the non-format system. Members of the specified social group create a particular subculture trying to separate themselves from the representatives of other society strata by means of a specific sociolect, among other things. Using English words, the younger generation of the French assimilates them to create a subjective communication code with the help of word-formation techniques that operate on various language levels. The purpose of the research is to determine the main specific and non-specific mechanisms for the formation of new argotic units based on lexemes of English origin obtained by the continuous sampling method on the basis of linguo-stylistic (selection of vocabulary incorporated into the works by modern French writers and rap song scripts) and lexicological (analysis of scientific articles and argotographic sources) areas. The paper deals with the structure of modern French youth argot. The work gives the characteristics of the argotic functional features determining the variety of ways of word creation that cause linguistic isolation. The conducted analysis resulted in a classification of convergent models of neologization concerning the phonological, morphological and semantic linguistic levels. The relevance of the study of the modern youth sublanguage is explained by its intensive structural transformation, active replenishment and, in this connection, by the desire to analyze the communication environment of this reference group that has significantly expanded due to the Internet popularization and the variety of messengers, to understand its vocabulary repertoire and culture. For that reason we should note the necessity for further complex research of the processes occurring with the obtained non-conventional English-language lexical units in the speech of modern French youth.

A Whole Mind, an Unconquered Eye: Self-Reliance and Freedom in Henry James’s Daisy Miller

Looking at Henry James’s literary contexts can fruitfully help shed light on his work. Brilliantly versed in the literary traditions of his time, he was influenced by American, English, French and Russian writers. This article traces the influence of Emerson’s notions of freedom, natural spontaneity, innocence and self-confidence as expressed in his essays “Nature” (1836) and “Self-Reliance” (1841) in Daisy Miller (1878), whilst it investigates the ways James’s novella articulates the all-important dichotomy of self-sufficiency (individual freedom, autonomy, innocence) vs. social conformity (fear, heteronomy, hypocrisy) at play in the narrative. Daisy is the female embodiment of self-reliance as conceptualised in Emerson’s homonymous essay – a free, innocent, uncultivated, wild, and unsophisticated spirit – and so she is never afraid. Epistemology turns out to be central to the conception of the novella, as Winterbourne and the American matriarchs are shown struggling to grasp the protagonist’s puzzling innocence and true nature. As Daisy is a wild being living in accord with Nature as conceived by Emerson, the novella is punctuated by critical moments where the heroine is most at home when enmeshed in the green world, particularly in the outdoor scenes in the Château de Chillon in the Swiss Alps, the Palaces of the Caesars, the Colosseum and the Protestant cemetery in Rome.

Idea against Others Ideas: Caligula – History of Supreme Suicide

French writer Albert Camus (1913-1960) is known for the readers as wise but controversial writer who created novels, stories, plays, philosophical and literary essays. His early literary creations as well as his world out-look were prepared with the characteristics of European philosophic tra-ditions and literary development.Camus is one of the important representatives of French existential-ism though he was always objected being called an existentialist or even a philosopher: The former – possibly because that in the evolution of his viewpoints time after time he used to separate its chief statements; and the latter because he did not have the system of philosophical conception.Caligula is the History of Supreme Suicide. Caligula is the killer not by nature but by philosophic principles. He is paradoxical, he thinks that he is right but in fact he is wrong. Caligula refused to escape from genuine-ness and to hide behind illusions. Human beings’ attitude towards death is metaphysical, mysterious and inevitable. The fears of death, mysterious experience and human weakness are the components of Camus’ works. The death dominates over the life thus life becomes pointless. The beauti-ful world is just a glimpse.According to the existential philosophy, fear and death are the defini-tion of human life. Caligula cannot understand that it is impossible to destroy everything without self destruction. It is the most tragic, cruelest truth. The Emperor demands impossible thing. He tries to establish ab-normal freedom but he fails.

Development of Portfolio Assessment Prototypes for Learning French Writing Class X High School Students

Development of Portfolio Assessment Prototypes for Learning French Writing Class X High School Students

The Nurse of Yesterday and Today: The Evolution that has led to the Development of New Knowledge

More and more over the years, the statement “to know, to know how to do, to know how to be” that many Nursing theor-ists have underlined in their writings become the pivotal point that distinguishes an nurse. This process leads to more freedom of decision making and greater assumption of responsibility: as Jean-Paul Sartre (French writer and philosopher) said: “It is true that you are not responsible for who you are, but you are responsible for what you do with who you are. This study aims to highlight the evolution that led to the birth of the figure, of an infirm attentive to the legal profiles of his profession. The legal and forensic nurse is a very recent specialty in Italia compared to other States and its function has the purpose of contributing to the identification of problems in the field of health and ligation for both the persons assisted, but also addressed to the sick-men themselves. The forensic nurse in Italy still has a long way to go, especially because the general care nurses-science has found only in recent years radical changes.

“The New Onegin” from France with Love

The article presents to the Russian reader a remake of Pushkin’s novel «Eugene Onegin» written by a young French writer Clementine Beauvais and published in Russian under the title «Is it really the same Tatiana?» in 2019. The first part of the novel mostly follows the plot of the original: Tatyana falls in love with Onegin and writes him a letter, to which she receives a refusal. But here are important differences too. The main characters are young French people: when they met, she was less than 15, and Onegin was 17 years old. The next meeting happens accidentally in the Paris metro 10 years later, and the situation changes dramatically. This time the feelings of the characters are mutual, but there are new obstacles on the way to happiness. As in Pushkin’s novel, there is a third important character there, a narrator, or, to be exact, a female narrator who loves to appeal to the reader commenting on the behavior of her characters, and introducing lyrical digressions on landscapes. She is more sympathetic to the main character then to Tatiana, because he reinterpreted his past critically and this time he is ready for anything to make his union with Tatiana come true. But an obstacle comes from Tatyana. The ending of the novel is open. The author invites readers to choose their own version, as well as to compare many other plot parallels with Pushkin’s original. C. Beauvais successfully experiments with interactive forms: e-mails, emoticons, etc. As a result, C. Beauvais’s novel has got a great diversity of rhythmic and strophic lines, which especially attracts a young reader

Maria Weston Chapman, French Salons, and Transatlantic Abolitionism in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

AbstractThis article examines the idea of anti-slavery sociability as part of a wider analysis of the informal elements of the transatlantic anti-slavery movement. It considers how American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman drew support for the American anti-slavery cause from French salons during her time spent living in Paris from 1848 to 1855. This case-study highlights how a focus on the informal dimensions of anti-slavery activism illuminates the often underappreciated work of female abolitionists in the transatlantic reform sphere. Through the connections she established with the likes of French writer Victor Hugo and Russian exile Nicholas Tourgueneff at salons in Paris, most notably that of Mary Clarke Mohl on the Rue de Bac, Chapman was able to cultivate European support for abolitionism in myriad ways. This included financial donations, goods to be sold at anti-slavery bazaars, and, perhaps most importantly, testimonies against American slavery from renowned Europeans like Hugo that could be republished in the United States.

Features of the ironic detective in

Ironic detective is a relatively new genre in literature. Its development dates back to the middle of the twentieth century and continues up to the present days. The final crystallization of the genre is taking place in our time. The works of Polish author Joanna Chmielewska became one of the first examples of ironic detective stories. However, the French literature of the twentieth century also has notable representatives of the genre. The present article examines the peculiarities of the irony functioning in the detective genre, in the context of the work of the popular modern French writer Daniel Pennac. We distinguish irony as a means of comic and as a principle of work organization, which is inherent in the genre of ironic detective. Consideration of the ironic detective is impossible without a brief analysis of the detective development stages as a whole, therefore, the article also deals with the genesis of the detective genre from the classic to the French novel-noir. The emphasis will rest on the peculiarities of the ironic detective’s development. Using D. Pennac’s novel The Scapegoat as an example (the French edition is called Au bonheur des ogres, originally published in 1985), the features of the genre, alongside their manifestations at the content and formal level are illustrated. The article focuses on the fact that naturalistic details, scenes of cruelty, evil and chaos, caused by the consequences of the Second World War, are weakened due to ironic characteristics, stereotypes, as well as the very attitudes of the author and the narrator towards the surrounding world. The research proves that the analysed genre is an artistic form of a panoramic view of the society of the 80s with its false ideals and its consumerism.

Problémom nie sú muži, ale ľudia

The concepts of gender, gender role, gender identity, gender stereotypes, and the relationships between them are explained in the introduction of the study. The main topic is focused on essays about the relationship between masculinity and femininity, its genesis, and consequences in the contemporary life authored by the professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge Mary Beard, the French writer Michel Houellebecq, and Jessa Crispin, the editor-in-chief of Bookslut. The essays resolve male-female power relations differently. Mary Beard offers the concept of over-gender, i.e. universality freed from the conditioning of gender identity.Michel Houellebecq dreams about human cloning and creating a new nature based on a single law, which is the moral law. Jessa Crispin prefers the world of equality based on humanity, built on the ruins of patriarchy, and shared by all people without distinction.

The Ideological Characteristics of Balzac’s Novel “The Magic Skin”

This article details the work of the French realist writer Honore de Balzac, “The Magic Skin.” The use of opposites is an important feature of Balzac's romantic work in the novel The The Magic Skin. Contrasting additions serve to show the evolution of the image of the main character and the restoration of his thoughts and mental states; they are used to describe the main characters of the novel and describe the location of the action, the main plot twists; they also play an essential role in realistic depiction. The interpretation of the fantastic element of the work is also revealed. O. De Balzac’s novel “The Magic Skin” shows the superiority of the romantic creative style.

New Bonds of Intimacy: In/ter/dependence and Ageing in Recent Women’s Writing in French

Abstract This article examines how female francophone authors in the twenty-first century are re-envisaging modes of love, intimacy, and connectedness in old age, in the process moving away from an ideal of independence towards a valorization of interdependence. While second-wave feminism concentrated its efforts on women’s bodily, reproductive, and financial autonomy as a reflection of the concerns of the young women at the heart of the movement, second-wave feminists have since questioned the goal of independence as they have moved into middle and old age. Modelling the interdependencies posited by second-wave feminists as sustaining both individual lives and wider communities, recent women’s writing in French is shown to engage with the re-evaluation of in/dependence in its contemplation of the relationships formed by its authors and textual subjects. Through a critical framework of research in feminist ethics and gerontology, this article offers close readings of recent works by Noëlle Châtelet, Annie Ernaux, Nancy Huston, and Douna Loup that feature new bonds of intimacy built on reciprocity, exchange, and mutual dependence to envisage scenarios of ageing that recognize our complex mutual dependencies while pushing back against the myths and stereotypes of ageing.