This course "Selected Readings on French Literature II" will mainly introduce 3/4 art works of French Literature of the 20th century.

The period of "French Literature II" is approximately considered from the French Revolution (1789) until today (cf. 'A short history of French Literature', Oxford University Press, 2006), i.e. the 19th century until the 21th century.

Apart from our 'selected readings' we will get to know some authors of this epoch ("French Literature II"). But an important challenge will be the active reading in French, regarding the pronunciation, articulation and the proper prosody.

Therefore our readings should 'not only' provide an comprehension of the text, but in particular let us taste the French language in literature.

We study ‘extracts’ of:


1. Albert Camus (1913-1961): L’Etranger (1942).

2. Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994): La Lecon (1951).

3. Marguerite Duras (1914-1996): Ecrire (1993) & L’Amant (1984).


Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre ('La Nausee' 1938 & 'L'Etre et le neant' 1943) initiated with the so-called "existentialism" new thoughts in Paris during World War II. Sartre developt his concepts among others from Heidegger ('Sein und Zeit' - 'Being and Time' 1927). And Camus created with his >Mythe de Sisyphe< (1942) a original philosophical concept of 'The Absurd Men'. Both writers transferred their theoretical concepts also into a narrative or dramatic form, into a novel or a play. We notice in >L'Etranger< through the personality of Monsieur Mersault a strange and indifferent existence. But why is the protagonist Mersault of Camus's novel (which belongs to the 100 best books of all time) today still so captivating?

The two avant-garde play writers Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett avoided to set up theoretical contructs. But the enormous success and particular style of their plays in the 50s in Paris ('En attendant Godot', 1952 & 'La Cantatrice Chauve / La Lecon 1950 / 1951) confused the audiences and readers: Waiting for Godot? God? And why God doesn't come? To reply some of these questions Martin Esslin defined (derived from Camus) these art works in the term of >The Theater of the Absurd< (1961). Ionesco (a Romanian) and Beckett (an Irish) were both originally not French. How we perceive this language and 'style' in Ionesco's play?

Marguerite Duras understood herself as an authoress and feminist, like her contemporaries Simone de Beauvoir & Marguerite Yourcenar. Yourcenar was 1980 (as the first women) elected as an "immortal" member to the prestigious >Academie Francaise< (estab. 1635). Duras -somehow far from such tradition and establishement- found (out) in her late worldwide success >L'Amant< (1984) a voice she was searching for and called it a "fluent writing" ("L'ecriture courante"). This writing (as she said on TV in 'Apostrophes' 1984 - and later in 'Ecrire' 1993) does not transfer -like Sartre did in her eyes- abstracts concepts into literature, but is rather in search of an (pure) originally voice. How is her understanding of this style and voice ("langage durasien") traceable? How does a writer -according to Duras- create?