Turning the Pages of Paris Paris Seen Through the Eyes of Writers from Hugo to Hemingway

Lecture Series March 2014

Turning the Pages of Paris Paris seen through the eyes of writers from Hugo to Hemingway

with Sylvia Sagona Travels Through Time Cultural Studies and Tours Contact Details Melbourne : (03) 9017 0897 email : [email protected] web: www.travelsthroughtime.com Turning the Pages of Paris he Revolution of 1789 consolidated Paris as the centre of French politics, culture and fashion and also coincided with the rise of the novel as a literary genre. Indeed, the Tworks written during the next 150 years up until WWII obsessively explored the city itself for clues not just to the destiny of the main characters but for the key to French identity. This course will investigate novels inspired by Paris and link them to the distinctive flavour of the districts they describe. From Hugo to Hemingway, Paris is a Moveable Feast.

Lecture Series Details This lecture series will consist of 3 x 1.5 hour illustrated lectures. Please select one stream.

Dates Time Guy de de Guy

Stream 1 : Wednesdays – March 5, 12, 19 10:30 – 12:00 noon Stream 2 : Fridays – March 7, 14, 21 10:30 – 12:00 noon The Hare with the the with Hare The Cost Venue (film) Allen Woody – Bel Ami – Ami Bel The cost for the 3 sessions is $135 (incl GST) Alloarmo – 5 Grattan Street, Hawthorn VIC 3122

Session 1 – March 5 / 7 McLean; Paula Paris of the Romantics : Hugo, Dumas, Balzac and Eugène Sue Paris in Midnight

Eugène Sue’s Mysteries of Paris, describing the dark alley ways of the old Balzac; de Honoré Ile de la Cité, was the inspiration for the wanderings of Hugo’s character Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Hugo returned again to the same area

in his Notre Dame de Paris which was more a plea for the restoration of – Wife Paris The

monuments that spoke of French identity than a romantic tale of love and Rowley, Hazel Old Goriot – – Goriot Old

woe. Balzac, who firmly believed that a person’s habitat determined his personality and career, also described the inner city area in the 100 or so novels he composed for the Comédie Humaine. This lecture will explore the 1st – 4th arrondissements of Restoration Paris through the texts. Tête à Tête – – Tête à Tête André Breton; Breton; André

; ; Session 2 – March 12 / 14 – Victor Hugo; Hugo; Victor –

Fin de Siècle Paris : Zola, Maupassant, Baudelaire and Proust – Nadja

In 1852 Napoleon III began his reconstruction of Paris and demolished

most of the settings evoked in the novels of the previous lecture. The Weiss Andrea new Paris was minutely charted by Zola in his Rougon Macquart series

whether it were the slums of the new suburbs around Montmartre or Misérables Les the dazzling new Paris around the Parc Monceau. Baudelaire and Proust reflect the melancholy of change while Maupassant embraced th th th

it. This lecture will evoke in particular the Paris of the 8 , 9 and 18 Hemingway; Ernest arrondissements. Emile Zola; Zola; Emile

Session 3 – March 19 / 21 – Woman a was Paris Paris of the Surrealist, Existentialists and the “Lost Generation” : Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, Breton and de Beauvoir This lecture will concentrate on the Paris of the Left Bank from the Odeon to L’Assommoir – L’Assommoir Montparnasse frequented by American expatriates such as Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald as well as the notoriously flamboyant gay group of Djuna Edmund de Waal; Waal; de Edmund Barnes and Natalie Barney. As Hemingway remarks in Paris is a Moveable – Feast Moveable a is Paris Feast, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever Emile Zola; Zola; Emile

you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” While the Surrealists, Breton and Aragon, evoked the strange atmosphere of the covered passage ways which had sunk into disrepair, Sartre and de Beauvoir Amber Eyes – – Eyes Amber Maupassant; Maupassant; Bibliography – Nana would make famous the post war intellectual culture of Saint Germain des Près.