French Literature

Usually when I have a lot of time, like during school breaks, I like to come up with some sort of a theme focus my studies on. Somehow French literature is my theme for the beginning of this summer break. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but it happened unintentionally, and is turning out to be a lot of fun. One of my professors loaned me a copy of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" a little while back, which I have been reading ever since. And I just started reading Proust's "Swann's Way," which is the first of his "In Search of Lost Times" series. I went to a friend's going away party two nights ago, and he was giving away some books. One of the books I took was Balzac's "Père Goriot," which is also French. So I decided that I should just spend the next couple of weeks reading these works, as well as some essays by Derrida and Foucault, just to get a solid French experience before I move on.

Also I'm planning to continue studying French this summer. That will start...any day now.

Afterwards I'll be reading a lot of Shakespeare and some 19th century British novels as well as some epic poems. I feel so motivated; hopefully this motivation won't go away too soon.