What Is Québécois Literature? Reflections on the Literary History of Francophone Writing in Canada
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What is Québécois Literature? Reflections on the Literary History of Francophone Writing in Canada Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures, 28 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 1 30/07/2013 09:16:58 Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures Series Editors EDMUND SMYTH CHARLES FORSDICK Manchester Metropolitan University University of Liverpool Editorial Board JACQUELINE DUTTON LYNN A. HIGGINS MIREILLE ROSELLO University of Melbourne Dartmouth College University of Amsterdam MICHAEL SHERINGHAM DAVID WALKER University of Oxford University of Sheffield This series aims to provide a forum for new research on modern and contem- porary French and francophone cultures and writing. The books published in Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures reflect a wide variety of critical practices and theoretical approaches, in harmony with the intellectual, cultural and social developments which have taken place over the past few decades. All manifestations of contemporary French and francophone culture and expression are considered, including literature, cinema, popular culture, theory. The volumes in the series will participate in the wider debate on key aspects of contemporary culture. Recent titles in the series: 12 Lawrence R. Schehr, French 20 Pim Higginson, The Noir Atlantic: Post-Modern Masculinities: From Chester Himes and the Birth of the Neuromatrices to Seropositivity Francophone African Crime Novel 13 Mireille Rosello, The Reparative in 21 Verena Andermatt Conley, Spatial Narratives: Works of Mourning in Ecologies: Urban Sites, State and Progress World-Space in French Cultural Theory 14 Andy Stafford, Photo-texts: Contemporary French Writing of the 22 Lucy O’Meara, Roland Barthes at the Photographic Image Collège de France 15 Kaiama L. Glover, Haiti Unbound: A 23 Hugh Dauncey, French Cycling: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Social and Cultural History Canon 24 Louise Hardwick, Childhood, 16 David Scott, Poetics of the Poster: The Autobiography and the Francophone Rhetoric of Image-Text Caribbean 17 Mark McKinney, The Colonial Heritage 25 Douglas Morrey, Michel Houellebecq: of French Comics Humanity and its Aftermath 18 Jean Duffy, Thresholds of Meaning: 26 Nick Nesbitt, Caribbean Critique: Passage, Ritual and Liminality in Antillean Critical Theory from Contemporary French Narrative Toussaint to Glissant 19 David H. Walker, Consumer 27 Edward Welch and Joseph McGonagle, Chronicles: Cultures of Consumption in Contesting Views: The Visual Economy Modern French Literature of France and Algeria Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 2 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Rosemary Chapman What is Québécois Literature? Reflections on the Literary History of Francophone Writing in Canada What is Québécois Literature? LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 3 30/07/2013 09:16:59 First published 2013 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2013 Rosemary Chapman The right of Rosemary Chapman to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-84631-973-0 cased Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 4 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Contents Contents List of Tables vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Chronology 26 1 How has the literary history of francophone Canada been told in the twentieth century? 43 2 Literary history in the curriculum 103 3 The literary anthology as a tool of literary history 139 4 What does a nation-shaped literary history exclude from within and beyond Quebec? 177 Conclusion: Is there a future for francophone Canadian literary history/ies? 205 Notes 211 Bibliography 255 Index 284 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 5 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 6 30/07/2013 09:16:59 List of Tables List of Tables 1.1 Corpus of histories of francophone Canadian literature 50 1.2 Periodization of Camille Roy, Tableau d’histoire de la littérature canadienne-française (1907) 60 1.3 Periodization of Sœurs de Sainte-Anne, Précis d’histoire littéraire: littérature canadienne-française (1928) 63 1.4 Periodization of Camille Roy, Manuel d’histoire de la littérature canadienne de langue française (1962 [based on 1939 edition]) 64 1.5 Periodization of Berthelot Brunet, Histoire de la littérature canadienne-française (1946) 66 1.6 Periodization of Pierre de Grandpré, ed., Histoire de la littérature française du Québec, 4 vols (1967–69) 69 1.7 Periodization of Gérard Tougas, La Littérature canadienne- française, 5th edn (1974) 73 1.8 Periodization of Laurent Mailhot, La Littérature québécoise (1974) 75 1.9 Periodization of Maurice Lemire, et al., Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires du Québec, 8 vols (1978–2011) 76 1.10 Periodization of Maurice Lemire, et al., La Vie littéraire au Québec, 6 vols (1991–2010) 80 1.11 Periodization of W. H. New, A History of Canadian Literature, 2nd edn (2003) 87 1.12 Periodization of Michel Biron, François Dumont and Élisabeth Nardout-Lafarge, Histoire de la littérature québécoise (2007) 89 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 7 30/07/2013 09:16:59 viii What is Québécois Literature? 1.13 Periodization of E. D. Blodgett, ‘Francophone Writing’ (2004) 96–97 1.14 Periodization in histories of francophone writing in Quebec 98–99 2.1 The 1905 curriculum 110–11 2.2 Literature studied in Years 7 and 8 113 2.3 Recommendations of the Parent Report on the study of literature 122 3.1 Number of literature textbooks published per decade, 1830–2009 140 3.2 Number of French-language readers published between 1800 and 2009 141 3.3 Québécois texts as a proportion of the total number of texts included in secondary school French readers, 1960–2004 144 3.4 Analysis of content of Lectures littéraires 158 3.5 Comparing Roy, Renaud and Laurin 166–67 3.6 Dominant themes in texts included in French textbooks, 1900–50 170 4.1 Indigenous population of Canada and Quebec compared 181 4.2 Literary historical activity hors Québec since 1960 197–99 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 8 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude for the support I have received from a range of sources. At the outset of this project I was supported by a British Academy Small Grant which funded a series of research trips to Montreal, Quebec City and Moncton between 2008 and 2010 to gather material for the book. I was fortunate to be awarded a one-year Research Fellowship in 2011–12 by the Leverhulme Trust which allowed me to devote an uninterrupted period to writing the book. I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of Nottingham who gave me the mental space to focus on producing the manuscript. I am indebted to those who commented on the initial proposal and to the readers who gave their time and experience in evaluating the eventual manuscript. Their valuable insights and advice have helped shape the book in its final form. I have also benefited from discussion with colleagues in the UK, Canada and the USA at the various conferences at which I have presented earlier versions of elements of my research. Particular thanks are due to Margaret-Anne Hutton, Rachel Killick, Diana Knight, Bill Marshall and Annis May Timpson for their support and advice at various stages of this project. I also wish to thank Anthony Cond at Liverpool University Press for making the process of publication run so smoothly. Finally, I thank Graham for his support and encouragement at critical moments. Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 9 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Chapman, What is Québécois Literature.indd 10 30/07/2013 09:16:59 Introduction Introduction The question ‘What is québécois literature?’ may seem innocent and answerable. But, as is the case with many simple questions, the answer is not simple. As my subtitle suggests, the question provokes not answers but further queries and reflections. The shift from ‘québécois’ to ‘francophone writing in Canada’ emphasizes the problematic nature of terminology and classification in this field. As will be seen, the term ‘la littérature québécoise’ was only coined in the mid-1960s, in the very specific context of Quebec’s Révolution tranquille. If I choose to use the cumbersome phrase ‘francophone writing in Canada’ it is because it is a rather more accurate term to refer to the historical, geographical and generic range of literature written in French in Canada, within and beyond Quebec, by authors mostly but not exclusively of European descent. What constitutes ‘literature’ in francophone Canada varies from one historical period to another. As will be seen in Chapter 3, in the nineteenth century the term might be used to include sermons, speeches and works of history, whereas literature as taught in schools in the twenty-first century falls into four main genres: poetry (and song), prose fiction (the novel and shorter forms), theatre and essay. The predom- inance of religious and political rhetoric in nineteenth-century Quebec highlights the ways in which literary histories are a cultural product and serve a specific, local purpose. The literary canon of one culture is not a simple transposition from another. The chapters that follow will demonstrate the ways in which religion and politics have played an active role in shaping and mediating a particular canon to francophone Canada. Literary historians also make very different choices in the balance between genres within the canon which they construct.