A Feminine Context
in Quebecois Poetry:
Rina Lasnier, Anne Hebert and Celyne Fortin
By
Caroline A. LeBlanc
INTRODUCTION:
The poetry of
French Canada—more specifically Quebec—is a dark poetry
full of white and snow and cold; of the deprivation and
despair, anger and nationalist longing of people
historically oppressed by the Roman Catholic church of
their ancestors and the state organ and population of their
English conquerors. From 1608, New France, including Acadia
and Quebec, was settled. Their mother country neglected
them and finally forfeited the provinces to England in
1863. By then, third generation colonials populated the
province (Jack, 59). In his 1970 anthology,
The Poetry of
French Canada in Translation, John Glassco writes that “the
poetry of French Canada is a poetry of exile—from France
and North America alike….[T]he note of desertion, of
nostalgia, of the dépayé [displacement]…forms …a
ground-bass to themes of avoidance, retreat and escape.”
Glassco describes the population as proud and conservative,
religious and restless, sentimental and neurotic. French
Canada’s poets, “rather than her religious and political
leaders have always been the true spokesmen of her
reality.” The “uniformity [of] her literary attitudes”
grows out of “the defensive armour generally assumed by
people whose normal evolution has been checked and
stifled…Nature, the Self and Death [are] the three constant
sources of poetic inspiration (xvii-iii).” The history of
French-Canadian literature is pocked with conflict over
what constitutes the “appropriate language…in which to
write a national literature,” the debate over centuries
gravitating toward the central magnet of Quebec City and
later, the Quebec dialect of Joual.
As Jack notes, “contemporary writing… [celebrates]
language(s) and [is] playfully self-conscious in terms of
register” (58). French-Canadian literature was subject to
severe censorship until the twentieth century and, as Jack
observes, “the practical utility …of the
writing…discouraged experimentation… [and] encouraged
orthodoxy.” The two poets who were exceptions were both
“exiled from Quebec society (one abroad and the other in a
mental institution)” (72). The succes de
scandale of Refus
global—a 1948 manifesto by
“Paul-Emile Borduas and fifteen co-signatories—is now
referred to …as the single event marking the beginning of
‘modern’ Quebec (Jack 61).”
To read the entire paper, please go to the following link:
LanierHebertFortin.doc
or
LanierHebertFortin.pdf
Do not reproduce without the permission of the author:
©Caroline A. LeBlanc
Caroline A LeBlanc, MS, RN
Candidate, MFA, Creative Writing
Wilderness Heart Workshops
Adams, NY 13605
315-232-3101
"Caroline LeBlanc"