Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
49 - The roman personnel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
While the origins of the term roman personnel may be traced back to at least the late nineteenth century, and while it continues to enjoy largely unproblematic critical currency as a shorthand designating a subset of the French Romantic novel, there is little agreement amongst literary commentators as to what constitute the defining characteristics of the genre. The broad-brush definition of the personal novel as the fictional transposition of the lived experience of the author, and the general acknowledgement of the centrality of Rousseau's influence, which are common to most accounts, conceal significant divergences regarding the genre's thematic or formal attributes. Must a roman personnel be narrated in the first person? Is the roman personnel primarily autobiographical or fictional? Is the introspection of the roman personnel compatible with (realist) plot development? Depending on one's critical position in relation to these questions, the corpus of novels considered to be representative of the genre will vary, but will normally be drawn from the following long-list: Chateaubriand, Atala (1801) and René (1802); Staël, Delphine (1802) and Corinne (1807); Krüdener, Valérie (1803); Senancour, Obermann (1804); Constant, Adolphe (1816); Duras, Ourika (1824) and Édouard (1825); Sand, Lélia (1833); Sainte-Beuve, Volupté (1834); Musset, La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (1836); Balzac, Le Lys dans la vallée (1836); Nerval, Sylvie (1854); and Fromentin, Dominique (1862).
Whatever one's definition of the roman personnel, this list of titles highlights its concentration in two main periods: the very first years of the nineteenth century, and the early 1830s.
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- The Cambridge History of French Literature , pp. 441 - 449Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011