Reading skills and the teaching of literature to university students of a second foreign language

Abstract

This article focuses on the way to teach French Literature to university students with only an intermediate level of language. We begin by considering the implications of what has always been a key factor needed to fully understand a literary text : an adequate command of the language and the ability to grasp its stylistic features. To solve the problem we are faced with, we have opted for the Reception Theory as it provides a more accessible approach to the literary documents, and at the same time it allows us to cater for the cognitive and aesthetic processes of the reader.