Literature

Tragedy, from Corneille to Racine, has grounded the French literary canon. This book challenges conventional interpretations, exploring the philosophical, theatrical, and performative aspects of the tragic in sixteenth and seventeenth-century France.

In Lovely Violence, Jørgen Bruhn rereads Chrétien de Troyes’ chivalric novels through contemporary concerns of gender and violence. The medieval characters are both shockingly strange and reassuringly recognisable. The Middle Ages may not be so unmodern after all.

This re-reading of Vittorio Alfieri’s tragedies challenges traditional analyses that marginalize the female character. It argues that Alfieri undermines traditional gender roles, portraying his heroines as determined, active, and intelligent women.

This collection examines women’s life-writing from across the Francophone world. Uniting postcolonial, psychoanalytic, and gender studies, it explores how female autobiographies from Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe write the self as a fragmented, plural construct.