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This article offers a deeper understanding of Hugo's social philosophy as expressed in Les Misérables through a reading of the novel's treatment of prostitution and Parisian sewers in the context of contemporary thought. Specifically, Hugo reframes the prostitute- as- sewer metaphor that was commonplace among contemporaries such as Parent- Duchâtelet. First, in the story of Fantine, he provides a narrative articulation of the social problem of prostitution that reveals the full import of Parent- Duchâtelet's work on the subject. Then he offers an alternate understanding of the sewer to which the prostitute was often compared, and simultaneously expands his metaphorical treatment of the sewers to include all of society's outcasts. Hugo thus rewrites prevailing social thought to advocate for a new relationship between society and its most disadvantaged members as well as the reintegration of les misérables into the social whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a literature review of late 20th- and early 21st-century international scholarship devoted to French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). Publications are discussed in thematic categories, such as: analyses of gender and sexuality in Balzac's fiction and drama; his work in historical context, including the influence of the French Revolution and his political views; the significance of landscape and place in Balzac; and his language and style, including textual and narrative analyses.

The manifesto Pour une literature-monde en français, published in Le Monde in 2007 and followed by an edited volume containing texts by over half of the manifesto's 44 signatories, appeared in a context of doubt concerning the place of French culture in the world. The manifesto's authors denounce the formalism of the contemporary French novel, claiming that it is cut off from the world. However, they salute the fact that the world has re-entered the francophone novel thanks to the vibrancy of writing in French from the Caribbean and Africa in particular, writing celebrated each year at the 'Étonnants voyageurs' literary festival that takes place around the world. Although the 'littérature-monde' gospel recalls Goethe's Weltliteratur and Glissant's vision of the 'Tout-monde', it is, as the prepositional clause 'en français' in the title of the Le Monde manifesto indicates, strangely attached to a persistent notion of 'francophonie', the official, institutionalised version of which it appears, however, to reject. It is, above all, based on an apparent inferiority complex with respect to the postcolonial anglophone novel. Publié en 2007, le manifeste Pour une littérature-monde en français , signé par 44 écrivains, s'inscrit dans un contexte de doute sur la place de la culture française dans le monde. Les auteurs dénoncent le formalisme stérile du roman français contemporain qui se complairait dans des recherches formelles coupées du réel. Mais 'le monde revient' grâce aux écrivains-voyageurs, migrants et nomades venus de la Caraïbe, d'Afrique ou d'Asie, que célèbre par exemple le Festival littéraire 'Étonnants voyageurs'. Les signataires du manifeste appellent la littérature française sclérosée à s'ouvrir sur le monde, à devenir une 'littérature-monde'. Malgré les allusions à la Weltliteratur de Goethe et au 'Tout-monde' d'Édouard Glissant, les signataires du manifeste restent paradoxalement fidèles à une écriture 'en français' tout en érigeant le roman anglophone en modèle, et tout particulièrement l'œuvre des auteurs issus de la décolonisation de l'Empire britannique. Le manifeste exalte la vitalité du récit et la richesse d'un monde coloré qui, selon eux, contraste singulièrement avec la grisaille du roman français hexagonal, que seul l'apport d'auteurs venus d'Outre-mer peut sauver. Cette vision sommaire et quelque peu exotisante du roman anglophone traduit un véritable complexe vis-à-vis des littératures de langue anglaise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first installment of Louis Viardot’s translation of the sixteenth-century Spanish novel El Lazarillo de Tormes appeared in Le Siècle in the summer of 1836, weeks before the publication of Balzac’s Une Vieille Fille inaugurated the age of the serial novel in France. Viardot’s reading of the picaresque novel, inscribed both in his introductory comments as well as in the fabric of the translation itself, reinserts the text within the outlines of a new, socially and politically engaged literature for a broader readership. At the same time, the translation’s incongruities reveal the contradictions inherent to debates over the question sociale. This article situates Viardot’s translation among the changing socio-cultural discourses and practices that both informed and were informed by the emergence of a modern popular press and literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]