Since the Quiet Revolution, many Quebecers have been convinced that the times leading up to this great awakening amount to a pitiful survival that deserves, at best, our condescension. The literary world is no exception to this prejudice. Our pre-1950 literature, with some exceptions, makes so-called modern minds smile and that of the 19th century.e century, in the same eyes, is not even worthy of the name. Historians sometimes speak of it, but it is almost always to underline, at the same time, the weakness of this corpus.
Out of ignorance, because that’s what it is, we thus deprive ourselves of frequenting works which not only constitute the basis of our letters, but which are, moreover, far from being devoid of literary qualities. . These works, Claude La Charité, professor of literature at the University of Quebec at Rimouski, knows them well and loves them.
In The invention of Quebec literature in the 19th centurye century (Septentrion, 2021, 162 pages), he presents some of them with delightful didactic mastery. The style, limpid, combines with an instructive subject of rare vivacity. Dedicated to great literary figures, often unrecognized, of this period, the eight chapters of this book introduce us to colorful characters and give us the taste to read unjustly forgotten works.
Contrary to popular belief, the Quebec literature of the XIXe century, explains La Charité, “is distinguished by its exceptional diversity, both politically and aesthetically”. There is no shortage of conservatives, but neither are liberal minds, there are multiple genres and literary currents – romanticism, symbolism, Parnassus, neoclassicism – too. Revelation: this century, which we imagine flat in our lands, is alive!
Two intentions, according to La Charité, are at the source of the invention of our literature: to refute Lord Durham, who in 1839 concluded that our history and our literature did not exist, and, under the influence of Romanticism, to define our national identity. There was a literature in New France, that of Cartier, Champlain and Lahontan, but it fell within the bosom of French letters. The project of a truly national literature was born here in the 19th century.e century, and immediately the result looks like us.
The influence of a book (1837), the first novel in our literature, shines, like its author, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé fils, by his muddled and boastful energy. The story of this poor farmer who dreams of getting rich by using magic says, in his own way, something about us, who are both convinced of our worth and forced to see our misfortune.
Impudent, the young author of this novel will serve in prison for having provoked one of his ideological opponents to a duel, before later depositing a stink bomb in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. He died at the age of 26, probably drunk on alcohol. In the preface to his book, he noted that literature was no longer a time of beautiful phrases and entertaining stories, but of exploring the human heart.
In 1863, his father, another “vanquished in history”, a former fallen lord and sheriff of Quebec imprisoned for embezzlement, will deliver, with Former Canadians, a solid and moving “compensatory fiction”. A successful book, this novel presents the French Regime as a golden age, in which the descendants of Europeans lived in good harmony with the Aboriginals, and calls, in conquered Quebec, for “the reconciliation of opposites”, writes rightly The charity.
Among the authors who have the honor of appearing in this book – the classics Patrice Lacombe, Louis Fréchette, Laure Conan and Émile Nelligan – two, less well-known, particularly hold attention. The first, Joseph-Charles Taché, imposes himself by his erudition. Doctor, journalist and deputy, Taché, author of the collection of tales and legends Foresters and travelers (1863), wrote scholarly pamphlets on a variety of subjects, including agriculture, and, despite his political conservatism, showed a deep admiration for the Aboriginal people and their cultures, which he frequented as a friend.
The second, Father Henri-Raymond Casgrain, also author of legends, which he considers “the poetry of history”, will be our first literary critic. The priest, notes La Charité, preferred literature to religion, signed biographies of writers – Marie de l’Incarnation, François-Xavier Garneau, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé – focused on texts, edited Crémazie and went to France sixteen times. between 1858 and 1899.
Thanks to these pioneers, warmly presented by Claude La Charité, if Durham came back today, he would have to take his hole.