Subject Area: Literature - French

LE BIZARRE AND LE DECOUSU IN THE NOVELS AND THEORETICAL WORKS OF DENIS DIDEROT How the Idea of Marginality Originated in Eighteenth Century France

Abrams, Barbara Lise
2009 0-7734-4663-X 168 pages
This book examines the background of our modern concept of marginality by focusing on Diderot’s materialist philosophy and his search for the origins of genius, and locating it within the French Enlightenment quest for truth.

An English Translation of The Woman Writer by Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis

Brown, Noelle
2024 1-4955-1261-4 112 pages
"Gelis's style is not one that lends itself to easy translation into American English, where conciseness and straightforwardness is paramount. In this 1825 novella, Genlis winds ideas into concentric circles, deftly continuing ideas with semi-colons. For the most part, we have preserved this sinuous sentence structure, separating ideas only when needed for clarity. In addition, we found the choice of verb tense to be fascinating and so have retained the sometimes-confusing moves between present, past tense and more. In some passages, we felt that Genlis ludically shifts between what we are expecting to find and what our ears/eyes absorb." -from the Translators' Introduction