Negotiating the New in the French Novel: Building Contexts for Fictional Worlds

1. Thresholds 2. Dynamics of world-play between contexts, texts and participants: Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste 3. 'The novel' as we know it?: Balzac's Le Pere Goriot 4. The written artifact and the authority of absence: Flaubert's Madame Bovary 5. The doubly-authorised text. Personal responsibility and social roles: Zola's L'Assommoir 6. Self-assertion and the dynamics of power: Celine's Voyage au Bout de la Nuit 7. The novel as mediation: Sarraute's Portrait D'un Inconnu 8. Further dynamics of world-play: Perec's W ou le Souvenir D'Enfance Afterwoed: Genres, participants and territorial behaviour