Roman à thèse
A roman à thèse (French; German: tendenzroman, lit. 'thesis novel') is a novel which is didactic or which expounds a theory.[1][2]
In a book on the genre and French examples thereof, Authoritarian Fictions: the Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre, literary scholar Susan Suleiman proposed the definition "a novel written in the realistic mode [...] which signals to the reader as primarily didactic in intent, seeking to demonstrate the validity of a political, philosophical, or religious doctrine."[3]
List of romans à thèse
- Candide by Voltaire
- Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The Plague by Albert Camus
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
See also
References
- ^ Baldick, Chris (2015). "roman à thèse". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Terms (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ Speake, Jennifer; LaFlaur, Mark (2002). "Tendenzroman". The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199891573.001.0001. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ Suleiman, Susan Rubin (1983). Authoritarian Fictions: the Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 7. ISBN 0-231-05492-0. LCCN 82023551 – via Internet Archive.