Mar 28, 2024  
2022-2023 University Bulletin 
    
2022-2023 University Bulletin [ARCHIVED BULLETIN]

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FREN 211 - Literary Topics: Les Misérables

3 Credit Hours


Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, a transcendent story of suffering and redemption, grace and damnation, and selflessness and greed, has been feverishly reinvented in books, plays, films, and musicals since it first appeared in 1862. A tense thriller, roundly portraying both hunter and hunted, the story is epic, bearing witness to aftermath of a revolution that culminated in regicide. Hugo captures the drama and dignity of generations of souls condemned to even greater poverty and injustice as the nation struggled to realize the liberal principles of the Enlightenment and establish a new social order. Students will discover the universality of Hugo’s rally for humanitarian causes by analyzing films that retell his story in the contexts of WWII and housing projects of today. Targeted readings and film adaptations from 1957 to 2019 will spark discussion and debate and inform position papers, and students will become intimately familiar with the plight of the poor and the punitive policies that imprison them.

*Taught in French. 

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202  or consent of instructor. 



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