The article focuses on ironic references to the traditions of rural literature in Jean Hamelin’s The Rage. The author explores the concept of the “writing of excess,” and claims that whereas actual country is an evanescent category, the territory that one can possess is that of language.
Key-words: Intertextuality, rural novel (roman de la terre), irony , writing of excess.
The article is an attempt to classify the novel of Gabrielle Gourdeau entitled “Maria Chapdelaine ou le Paradis retrouvé”, which retells the story of the emblematic character of French-Canadian literature (formerly portrayed by Louis Hémon in his novel “Maria Chapdelaine”). With the use of the theory of “hypertext” by Gérard Genette, the author shows that Gourdeau does not merely “continue” Hémon’s narrative but re-visions and re-invents the character of Maria Chapdelaine, by means of such techniques as transposition, transtylization and transvalorization.
Key-words: intertextuality; hypertext; the Maria Chapdelaine myth; continuation; transposition
The article analyzes conceptual links between the play “Le Don Juan chretien“ by Jacques Ferron and its original version by Moliere. The author shows how the myth of Don Juan as a seducer paves the way for the modification of the role of the woman, by means of redefining her social status. The assumption of the article is that Ferron’s play becomes a part of the literary tradition of Quebec, by building on its cultural and linguistic heritage.
Key-words: Jacques Ferron; intertextuality; parody; imitation; the myth of Don Juan
The article examines the instance of triple intertextuality in Jacques Ferron's Le “Saint-Elias”. It focuses on representations of women and studies Ferron’s references to the Faust myth, to the biblical story of Mary Magdalene, to Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos’ “Les Liaisons dangereuses”, as well as to Jean Rotrou's “Saint Genest”.
Keywords : Jacques Ferron; intertextuality; irony in literature; Faust myth; Mary Magdalene biblical episod; Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses'; Jean Rotrou's Saint Genest
The article examines the ways in which Monique Bosco, in her « Les lamentations de la vieille en ce jour duKippour »,combines the main features of the lamentation - an ancient genre which was employed in the Bible - with elements typical for the short story. The clear presence of biblical roots makes the modern setting and theme of the text unusual and, not infrequently, unsettling for the reader.
Key words: Short Story; Lamentations; Bible; Psalms
The article focuses on the analysis of Sergio Kokis’ novel “Errances” as an example of contemporary transvalorization of the myth of Odysseus. Kokis’ novel is treated as a „récit odysséen” (an „Odyssean narrative”), i.e. a type of fiction characterized by the theme of an exile’s return to the native land and the exploration of the protagonist’s narrative identity by means of metafictional devices. In the process of rewriting the Homeric epic and 20th century versions of the myth of Odysseus (Nikos Kazantzakis’ “The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel” and Joseph Conrad’s novels), Sergio Kokis deconstructs the concept of the return to the native land defined in terms of territory and ethnicity. What emerges from the novel, is a concept of the ethos of the eternal wanderer based on the shattering of the illusion of collective belonging as the source of identity.
The article studies Marco Micone’s « Le figuier enchanté » (a novel inspired by a Quebecois classic – “Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel” by Marie-Claire Blais) as the author’s attempts to get closer to the Quebecois cultural heritage. Micone is an Italian-Canadian writer who became famous for his public interventions in favor of the marginalized and the oppressed (both immigrants and workers exploited by the capitalist regime). His novel is strongly impregnated with the idea of the battle for a better tomorrow which, in his view, is possible only when all the inhabitants of Quebec get to know and help each other.
Key-words:Marco Micone ; « Le figuier enchanté » ; Quebec ethnic minority literature; Italian Canadian literature; immigrant writing; intertextuality; comparative perspective; engagement; polyphonic novel; « Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel »
Although the works of Michel Tremblay are replete with references to other authors, it is the phenomenon of autotextuality that becomes the focal point of the analysis in this article. The author of “Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal” and numerous plays and novels binds them all together by resorting to the recurrence of his figures. Thus, the figure of Mother, a figure grafted onto the network of Michel Tremblay’s works, undergoes a metamorphosis from boisterous and authoritarian Nana Tremblay (in the autobiographical prose and drama) to a symbol of ideal motherhood embodied by The Great Mother of Tremblay’s universe. She gives the beginning to both new life and new writing and hence she becomes her writer-son’s inspiration and creative muse.
Key words: Michel Tremblay; autotextuality; metamorphoses; mother; writing
Few writers have done as much rewriting as the Québécois poet Gaston Miron. The poems collected in his masterwork “L’homme rapaillé”, first published in 1970, have been subjected to a long process of rewriting from the end of the 1940’s to his death in 1996. As Miro himself claimed, the last edition of “L’homme rapaillé”, published in 1993, was “non definitive” and numerous verses were still considered unfinished (“vers en souffrance”). The article examines this peculiar poetics of rewriting in order to explain the reasons and the circumstances that kept bringing Miron back to his poems, while his work was enthusiastically received by readers and critics alike.
The article analyzes two short stories – “Madame Bovary” by Monique Proulx and “L’Apparition” by Roland Bourneuf. The author compares and contrasts the two texts, referring, at the same time, to their common “model” – Gustave Flaubert’s novel “Madame Bovary”.
Key-words : Quebec; Monique Proulx; Roland Bourneuf; Flaubert; Emma Bovary; Salomé; Hérodias; short story; rewriting; hypertext; hypotext; literary myths
The article concentrates on the problem of intertextuality in Robert Lalonde’s “L’Ogre de Grand Remous”, based on Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Tom Thumb” and the motto to Jean Giono’s “Deux cavaliers de l’orage”. The author argues that Lalonde’s novel is a pretext to present the problems of modern times and cultural references to Quebecness, Americanness and Europeanness.
Key-words: Robert Lalonde; Fairy-Tale; intertextuality; contemporary national identities
The article presents François Barcelo’s roman noir “Cadavres” as an attempt at deconstructing the conventions of the literary genre. The definition of a “roman noir” is twofold. On one hand it is a gritty novel narrated by the perpetrator, on the other it delineates the dark side of the society. Barcelo’s novel transgresses the traditional model of the genre by the implementation of metafiction and elements of grotesque. Barcelo creates an original Quebecois crime novel by combining these two characteristics. In order to show the maladjustment and alienation of a social group, he creates an inept villain and transforms the setting of the novel, grotesquely turning an edgy metropolis into a boring provincial town. Thus “Cadavres” goes far beyond the existing French and American models of the black novel.
Key words: François Barcelo; roman noir; metafiction; break with conventions
The article examines the problem of rewriting and intertextuality in the texts of a Québecois writer, Réjean Ducharme. The author analyses Ducharme’s recurrent topic of courtly love in relation to rewriting and intertextuality, juxtaposing the author’s literary texts and his sculptures and paintings, created under the pseudonym of Roch Plante. The text shows the similarity between Ducharme’s literary activity and his artistic collages. Both consist in permanent deconstruction/recomposition of a plethora of literary references, an inomissible element of Ducharme’s creativity.
The article traces rewriting and auto-rewriting strategies in Jacques Godbout’s “Operation Rimbaud” (1999), which revisits places and people from his former novel “Aquarium” (1962). The paper shows how in his latest novel Godbout returns to revolutionary Harar, Ethiopia, which Rimbaud visited, once again creating the character of a corrupted priest. Godbout rewrites Rimbaud’s biography, revising at the same time the biblical story of the Decalogue Tablets, as well as reminisces about his stay in Ethiopia.
The article is a study of intertextual strategies in Godbout’s philosophical novel “Salut Galarneau!” (1967) Claude Filteau which asserts that inter- and transtextuality belong to the democratic regime of writing. Intertextuality works primarily through literary genres. The paper concentrates on the figure of François Galarneau, the main character of the novel who, in his search for truth, is unable to overcome his own contradictions as a self-taught writer and a ‘Quebecois’ without money in a consumerist world. Through copies of letters, classified ads, cooking recipes, women’s advice columns and TV commercials the main hero relates his life story, while dreaming about being stripped off the book pages by his readers. It is Galarneau’s ‘wandering letter’, called by Jacques Ranciére the ‘orphan speech’,
Key words: intertextuality; novel; philosophical tale; heteroglossia; low culture; Canadian literature
In its exploration of the images of Montreal in Emile Ollivier’s fiction, the article discusses the topics of alienation, hybridity and identity, central to immigrant literature of Quebec. In order to highlight new imaginary strategies that aim at regaining ownership of Montreal, the author investigates how “La Brûlerie”transgresses and fictionalizes the topics of dispossession and fragmentation.
The article draws attention to the phenomenon of rewritings of works belonging to the Québécois literary canon by authors born outside the country, yet educated in Quebec. It indicates a significant contribution of immigrant writers to the breaking down of borders between canonical works and so called immigrant writing. The paper focuses on the similarities in theme, structure and imagery between Bianca Zagolin’s “Une femme à la fenêtre” and Louis Hémon’s “Maria Chapdelaine”, as well as Gabrielle Roy’s “Bonheur d’occasion” and Abla Farhoud’s “Le Bonheur a la queue glissante”. Through the penetration of the canon and “écriture migrante”, a new, ‘national text’ is born.
Key words: immigration; rewriting; national text; intertextuality
The article explores rewriting strategies in Anne Herbert’s work, focusing on ‘L’Ange de Dominique’, the story which explicitly refers to the aesthetics, style and imagination of the French Symbolists (Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Debussy and Nijinsky) through the character of the faun. Herbert’s novella is interpreted as a portrayal of the sensibility and poetry at the turn of the century.
Key words: Anne Herbert; Le Torrent; literature of the fin de siècle; Quebec; rewriting; faun; Symbolism; novella
The article focuses on a secret connivance between the author of “Palimpsestes” Gérard Genette and the novelist Jacques Poulin. It reveals how different modes of rewriting developed by Genette have been applied and reproduced in Poulin’s novels. The paper focuses on the rewriting of Defoe and Kerouac in “Les grandes marées” and “Volkswagen Blues”, on reference and borrowing in “La tournée d’automne” and autotextuality in “La traduction est une histoire d’amour”.
Key words: novel; rewriting; theoretical surveys; Jacques Poulin
The analysis of irony in Louky Bersianik’s “The Euguelionne”as one of the major feminist strategies to present the voice of the ’ex-centric’ – is central in this article. The author shows that although parody is caught up in the dialectics of transgression, and thus based on the inherent presence of the parodied text, it is also involved in the oppressing discourse and thanks to its deconstructive power has the potential to de-naturalize what has never been natural.
Patricide in Jean-Francois Beauchemin’s “Le jour des corneilles” is interpreted as a pretext to invoke classical myths and texts (Camus’s “The Stranger”, Homer’s “Oddyssey”). The author examines the parallels between the sufferings of an abused son, presented as a new Orpheus, and the emblematic figures of Sisyphus and Prometeus.
This comparative essay focuses on an ancient, multi-faceted process of rewriting, that the author tries to explore through his personal experience as a writer. Bourneuf begins with by writing about his scholarly research dealing with the influence of one author on another (especially the French-Canadian poet Saint-Denys Garneau) and proceeds to raise the question whether literature is indeed a continuous process of rewriting the same stories, characters, themes and myths. As a professor of literature and a writer, the author muses over the impact that French and foreign literatures had on his own literary career as the author of essays, short stories and novels.
Key words: rewriting; comparatism; essay writing; story writing; myths