From myth to reality
Vinland, Norembergue, Kanata, Acadia, New World, New France... how many names was Canada called before it became the country we know today, how many myths does it echo, how many dreams does it correspond to? It first appears in the Icelandic Sagas, a corpus that blends legend and fact, and reminds us that the first European (although others undoubtedly preceded him) to set foot on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence beyond Greenland was a Viking, Leif Erikson. Although this first expedition, around the year 1000, was recounted in The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders, written two centuries later, and archaeological digs have confirmed a Viking presence (which does not seem to have been perpetuated, perhaps due to conflicts with the natives), it remains difficult to specify to which territory exactly the Vinland evoked corresponded. It's equally complex to assess whether Noremberg, which appears on the first maps of North America, is myth or reality. In any case, this ghost country echoes Irish tradition, which has it that Brendan, a6th-century saint, crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a "currach", a light boat manoeuvred with oars, as explorer Tim Severin set out to prove when he succeeded in reproducing the voyage and landing in Newfoundland in 1976. The porous boundary between fiction and historical truth continued to grow, as new myths were added to the old ones in an attempt to prove that Christopher Columbus was not behind the discovery of the New World, which was already the stuff of fantasy. Think of Ontario's Madoc Township, which takes its name from a Welsh prince - whose very existence has not been proven - who is said to have conquered it as early as 1170, taking the time to initiate members of the Tuscarora First Nation into the mysteries of its language. Last but not least, we must mention the culture of the aboriginal peoples, who may not have had a writing system (but did have numerous idioms), but were nonetheless rich in beliefs (akin to animism) and legends that have been preserved thanks to oral tradition.
It's easy to imagine that the first navigators to explore the Canadian coast had in mind all these images of a land of milk and honey, but colonization proved to be a perilous business. Although literature was certainly not the major preoccupation at the time, this does not mean that we should overlook the interest of the writings of the time, from the Relations of Jacques Cartier (who, it is said, gave his name to the country after the Iroquois word "kanata" meaning "village") to Des Sauvages (Typo editions) by Samuel de Champlain, who founded the city of Québec in 1608. The following century was no picnic either: the Seven Years' War pitted the French against the English, resulting in the 1763 Treaty of Paris on this side of the Atlantic, in which the former ceded Canada to the latter. From this long, troubled period, it is nevertheless interesting to note the extensive correspondence of Marie de l'Incarnation, an Ursuline who left Tours for Quebec in 1639. Although her vocation was initially thwarted, the missionary became a mother, and it was to her son Claude, who remained on the Old Continent, that she recounted her experiences until his death in 1672. Encounters with native peoples also inspired chronicles: the work of anthropologist Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce (1666-1716) was a sensation in the 18th century, rivaling that of historian Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761). Last but not least, the famous Louis-Antoine de Bougainville took part in the War of Conquest against New England, and even though, as a bilingual, he unfortunately had to negotiate his country's surrender, these episodes figure prominently in his Memoirs.
While the French literature resists..
The British regime tried, without success, to assimilate the Franco-Catholic settlers, but this was only the first step in the establishment of a fragile balance which, over the years, would have to allow two languages, two cultures and two religions to cohabit. Beyond the political aspect and its many twists and turns, it is indeed the French language of Quebec that is at stake, as much by the threats it will be the object of, as in its specificity, it which from now on will evolve far from the Parisian influence. A struggle that took on patriotic accents during the 19th century, which began with a publication that is usually remembered as the first French-Canadian novel: L'Influence d'un livre, by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé fils (1814-1841), published in 1837 and then republished in 1864, after a few cuts, by Henri-Raymond Casgrain under the title Le Chercheur de trésors. Our good censor, who was also a man of the cloth, did a lot of work for the preservation of Canadian literature and was a pioneer in the critical approach to it. His meeting with Octave Crémazie (1827-1879), the "first national poet of Quebec", who was also a bookseller, was decisive and led to the creation of the École littéraire (or patriotic) de Québec. This movement, rather romantic and of Catholic influence, gathered around two publications: Les Soirées canadiennes, created in 1861, and Le Foyer canadien, in 1863. Of the eminent members of this cenacle, we will particularly remember Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (1824-1882), who wrote the novel Jean Rivard and the song Un Canadien errant, and Hubert LaRue (1833-1881), a doctor who also wrote for other magazines, even if Abbé Casgrain never minimized the influence of their elder François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866), famous for L'Histoire du Canada , which has remained a classic, and whose biography he wrote. Henri-Raymond Casgrain then devoted himself to travel, some of his works were crowned by the Académie française, and he died at the same time as the new century was being born, in 1904, in Quebec City, leaving behind the image of an important literary activist.
Fortunately, the flame was not extinguished before it was already fed by the Literary School of Montreal. On the initiative of poet Jean Charbonneau and his writer sidekick Paul de Martigny, the first meeting was held on November 7, 1895. Germain Beaulieu was then president and Louvigny de Montigny helped. The "exotists" drew their inspiration from elsewhere, benefiting from influences as diverse as symbolism and the French Parnassians. In 1897, the circle welcomed a very young man, Émile Nelligan, a dazzling comet who illuminated Quebec poetry. This ardent admirer of Baudelaire, an absolute romantic in all the themes he tackled, from childhood nostalgia to feminine beauty, aroused everyone's admiration when he declaimed La Romance du vin on May 26, 1899. It was, however, his swan song, since shortly afterwards, when he was not yet 20 years old, he was committed for mental disorders and remained locked up until his last breath in 1941. His friend Louis Dantin (1865-1945) collected his writings and had them published in 1903, beginning his preface with these terrible words: "Émile Nelligan is dead", thus foreshadowing that the divine inspiration had definitely dried up.
The École littéraire de Montréal, for its part, published Les Soirées du château de Ramezay in 1900, a collective work that gave an account of the conferences held up to that point, and then seemed to fall into a certain lethargy from which it did not really emerge until 1909, with the launch of a new journal, Terroir. The relative success of this magazine can perhaps be explained by an editorial line that was too far from the first goals of the association, but which at the same time did not convince the enthusiasts of a current that was then about to become predominant, that of the "terroirists. Indeed, regionalist literature had existed since the middle of the 19th century, but the movement had intensified at the beginning of the 20th century with the creation of the Société du parler français au Canada, under the impetus of two professors from Laval University, Adjutor Rivard and Stanislas-Alfred Lortie. At the same time, the clergyman and future rector Camille Roy had begun writing a manual of French-Canadian literature, the first draft of which, in 1907, was an immediate success. The challenge was twofold: to affirm the originality of Quebecois, in detachment from and even in opposition to French from France, and to extol traditional values such as the land, the family and religion. The most telling example is certainly Maria Chapdelaine which, however, was written in 1913 by an exiled Brest native, Louis Hémon.
... English literature tries to exist
Until the 19th century, English-language literature followed more or less the same path as that of the French: explorers' tales, settlers' chronicles, poetry and novels. Englishwoman Frances Brooke earned the title of first Canadian novelist with The History of Emily Montague, a novel inspired by her five-year stay in Quebec, while Samuel Hearne enthralled the crowds with Le Piéton du Grand Nord: première traversée de la toundra canadienne 1769-1772 (éditions Payot). David Thompson (1770-1857) captivated them with his surveying and topographical work. We might also mention Susanna Moodie (1803-1885), famous for her account of settling in an Ontario colony, where she made no secret of her difficulty in acclimatizing and her fascination with the native traditions she documented. Her two best-selling titles - Roughing in the Bush (1852) and Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush (1853) - have not been translated into our language, but Margaret Atwood's poetic evocation of her life is at least available in bilingual form from Doucey éditeur. The mid-century period was also marked by a long epic poem dedicated by the American Henry Longfellow (1807-1882) to the memory of the Acadians and their deportation during the Great Upheaval. A symbol of this tragic historical episode, Evangeline (published by Guérin) is also a magnificent love story, one that will never be forgotten. Acadia still rhymes with poetry in the work of William Bliss Carman, who praised the wide-open spaces and magnificence of the province of New Brunswick where he was born in 1861. Along with three other of his peers - Charles GD Roberts (1860-1943), Archibald Lampman (1861-1899) and Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) - he formed the quartet known as the Confederation Poets, whose double commonality was to use the stylistic codes of the Victorian tradition while drawing inspiration from the natural world around them. Carman's cousin, Charles GD Roberts, nicknamed "the father of Canadian poetry" despite the variable quality of his verse, published several collections(Songs of the Common Day, The Vagrant of Time...) as well as stories told from the point of view of animals. Lampman, whose reputation remains intact, absorbed himself in melancholy meditations, contrasting the calm of country life with the hustle and bustle of big cities(The City of the End of Things, Lyrics of Earth, A Gift of the Sun). Scott also published eight books of poetry(The Magic House and Other Poems, Beauty and Life, The Green Cloister...), as well as collections of short portraits(In the Village of Viger, The Witching of Elspie, The Circle of Affection). Although they were the first incarnation of a purely Canadian literary circle, these poets claimed to be cosmopolitan. Some of them - and others affiliated with them - chose to leave their homeland and settle in the United States. On the other hand, some Englishmen continued to cross the ocean, like Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), the famous humorist whose novels can still be enjoyed at Wombat(Au pays des riches oisifs: aventures en Arcadie, L'Île de la tentation et autres naufrages amoureux, Bienvenue à Mariposa). These exchanges and migrations were perhaps a sign of the difficulty that English-language Canadian literature encountered in finding its place, between the weight of British tradition and that of American influence.
And yet, in the end, Canadian authors were able to make a name for themselves internationally, while continuing to write in their homeland. In 1905, for example, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) based her story on a news item about a couple who wanted to adopt a boy to help on the farm, only to see a little girl with flamboyant red hair arrive. Three years later, with the manuscript finally accepted, the heroine, Anne Shirley, became such a crowd-pleaser that 60 million copies of the series of novels devoted to her have since been sold worldwide. French publisher Monsieur Toussaint Louverture re-translated them and republished them in a magnificent boxed set in 2020, with the same success. In the same vein, Mazo de la Roche, born in Newmarket in 1879, devoted herself to a saga set in Jalna, the manor house from which she takes her name. In sixteen novels (reissued in 2023 by J'ai Lu), and as many bestsellers, she imagined the adventures of a family, the Whiteoaks, over several generations. She died in Toronto in 1961, and her body now lies beside that of Stephen Leacock at Sibbald Point, Ontario. Frederick Philip Grove (1879-1948) wrote books about the pioneers of the Canadian West. Through his work - including Fruits of the Earth, his most famous novel - he initiated the realist movement, which Martin Allerdale Grainger (1874-1941) embraced with Woodsmen of the West, and to which Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990) added a contemporary touch in Two Solitudes (1945), highlighting the conflicting relations between French and English speakers.
A double literature freed
Paradoxically, this work - and perhaps even more so Hugh MacLennan's earlier Barometer Rising(1941) - appeared at a turning point for Canadian literature (in both languages), as it succeeded in freeing itself, at last, from too much formalism. It asserted its specificity, the question of "Québécisms" (which also arises in English) being only the most visible part of this small revolution. Stylistically, this took shape notably in the theater on the English side with, for example, the radio plays of Merrill Denison (1893-1975) or the work of the theorist Robertson Davies who was able to step back from his London experiences(Shakespeare for Young Players) to produce an original work(Eros at Breakfast, Fortune, My Foe, At My Heart's Core). On the francophone side, besides the exuberant Abraham Moses Klein (1909-1972) who could have boasted of his ability to make words sound and to turn syntax upside down, all with a ferocious sense of humour(La Chaise berçante published by Noroît, Le Second rouleau published by Boréal), the group of "automatistes" led by Paul-Émile Borduas agitated the 1940s. The artists he brought together - from such diverse backgrounds as photography, dance, design and, of course, literature - published their manifesto Refus Global on August 9, 1948. In it, they claimed the rejection of immobility and a radical opening, artistic and social. The reception was frosty, and some of the signatories had no choice but to go into exile, but the worm was in the fruit and, at the very beginning of the 1960s, the Quiet Revolution took shape, a real period of rupture that proved favorable to the appearance of a more realistic writing style, all the more affirmed. Gaston Miron (1928-1996) also renounced his religious vocation to devote himself to poetry, co-founding in 1953 the first publishing house devoted to this art, L'Hexagone, and then not hesitating to become politically involved. His remarkable investment as a passer and as a writer will earn him a national funeral. We must remember his collection L'Homme repaillé (Typo editions) published in 1970, a major work of Quebec literature.
New pens flourished, names were imposed. The very discreet Réjean Ducharme published L'Avalée des avalés in 1966 with Gallimard, his manuscript not having found a buyer in Quebec. He was nominated for the Goncourt Prize and received the Governor General's Award for this book, which was so dark and original that it became a cult novel once again. The same year, a Quebec woman won the prestigious Prix Médicis: Marie-Claire Blais, born in 1939 in Quebec City, with Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel, a great fresco about a family of 16 children! If the deviant behaviors of some of these characters could offend at the time of publication, this work remains important because it accurately depicts the transition between conservative values and progressive ideas. In 1967, Gabrielle Roy received the title of Companion of the Order of Canada, a new recognition for the one who had already been honored by many distinctions. An important figure in Franco-Manitoban literature, the author died in 1983 in Quebec City, leaving her public with short stories, poems and stories to discover, or rediscover, such as Bonheur d'occasion, La Montagne secrète and La Rivière sans repos. Finally, it is impossible to evoke Quebec literature without mentioning the "national writer" Michel Tremblay. It was through the theater that the man entered literature, with a certain amount of commotion when one considers the scandal caused by Les Belles-Sœurs, a play first performed in 1968. In 1978, with La Grosse femme d'à côté est enceinte, he began the cycle of the Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal, and never ceased to publish novels that combine tenderness, humor, critical vision and the enhancement of "joual", the famous Canadian popular French.
English-speaking readers need not be ashamed of the comparison, thanks to Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) - abundantly translated by Alto in Quebec(Une Maison dans les nuages, L'Ange de pierre, Ta Maison est en feu...), Joëlle Losfeld in France(Un Oiseau dans la maison, Les Devins, Les Habitants du feu...). It is a woman, again, who consolidated the edifice by venturing into a dystopia that knew so well how to question society. With The Scarlet Handmaid - Governor General's Award in 1985 -, Margaret Atwood (born in 1939 in Ottawa) earned her reputation as an outstanding representative of contemporary Canadian literature, a status she shared with Michael Ondaatje (born in Sri Lanka in 1943, Canadian citizen since 1965) whose novel The English Patient (Points) was adapted into a film, and now with a new prolix generation to which Jane Urquhat(Niagara, Changing Skies?) and Rohinton Mistry (The New Yorker) belong) and Rohinton Mistry,(Such a Long Journey, The Balance of the World, A Simple Family Affair...), a native of Bombay.
Quebec's literature is also growing and opening up to other cultures with the emergence of "migrant writing", thanks in particular to the voices of Kim Thuy, Dany Laferrière and Wadji Mouawad, who are rising with brio. Today, its echo is international, with successes multiplying, from Jean-François Beauchemin's Jour des Corneilles, Prix France-Québec 2004, to Éric Plamondon 's Taqawan (Quidam) which received the same award in 2018. Quebec publishers (La Peuplade, Mémoire d'encrier, Les 400 coups, Le Quartanier, Alire, etc.) are finding space on the tables of French bookstores, offering strong and innovative texts, and in the face of such a richness of language, few French publishers still wonder about the birthplace of the authors who submit manuscripts to them. Our common language, beautiful in its differences, has been able to ignore borders.
