Browse Items (93 total)
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The Voice Is All : The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
Biographical portrait of Jack Kerouac, with uniquely heavy emphasis on the suggested influence of his French Canadian heritage - and the French language - on the style and content of his creative works. Written by a Kerouac contemporary and former friend. Covers from Kerouac's early life and those of his parents, to 1951, shortly after the publication of his first novel, The Town and the City. -
Inside Peyton Place : The Life of Grace Metalious
Biography of Manchester, New Hampshire author Grace Metalious. Famous for her novel "Peyton Place" and its various film adaptations. Emily Toth is also the biographer of novelist Kate Chopin.
From University Press of Mississippi: "The juicy biography of the scandalous novelist who lifted the lid off a New England town...Grace Metalious, an unpretentious housewife from the wrong side of the tracks, had written an explosive bestseller. From a ramshackle cottage in a small New England milltown, she zoomed to national stardom. She met movie stars, famous writers, and the hangers-on who gravitate to those who achieve sudden wealth. She partied with the glamorous; she traveled; always a generous friend, she entertained lavishly. It was a Cinderella dream. But it did not last....Grace refused to be confined by the fifties' notions of a woman's place. In her struggle to find herself, she lifted the lid off sex and violence, power and powerlessness, truth and hypocrisy, and became known as the Pandora in Blue Jeans. 'If I'm a lousy writer,' she said, 'then an awful lot of people have got lousy taste.'...Emily Toth has given us a complete and sympathetic portrait of Grace: the idealistic young scribbler, the partier, the sometimes reluctant wife and mother. Tracing the television shows, the films, the Peyton Place sequels and later novels, Toth shows Grace plagued by periods of self-doubt and loneliness, striving desperately and feeling pressured to create another 'hit.'"
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Kerouac: A Biography
Seminal biography of native of Lowell, Massachusetts, Franco American, novelist, and poet, Jack Kerouac. Republished in 1994. Written by Ann Charters, who worked with Kerouac during the final three years of his life. In her writing of this book, Charters was assisted by Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and other contemporary artists close to Kerouac and essential to the Beat Movement in art, literature, and broader Americana. -
Unveiling Kate Chopin
Biography of the author of "The Awakening." From University Press of Mississippi: "In 'Unveiling Kate Chopin,' Emily Toth, the foremost authority on Chopin's life and works, creates a sharply revealing portrait of a modern woman in a Victorian world. Born in St. Louis in 1850, Kate O'Flaherty was raised by wealthy, feisty widows and educated by brilliant nuns. She endured a mysterious 'outrage' committed against her by Union soldiers in her teens and suffered what moderns now call a 'loss of voice.' But she survived to become a lively, dangerously clever social observer." -
Jack Kérouac : Essai-Poulet / A Chicken Essay
Un livre comme essai sur les rélations entre la vie et la littérature de Jack Kerouac - son écriture et son héritage - avec des réactions de l'auteur. -
Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families
From ECW Press: "With this fascinating new book, Jim Jones debunks many of the myths surrounding the life and times of Jack Kerouac. Jones concentrates on those whose lives were most affected by Kerouac: daughter Jan Kerouac, wives Edie Parker, Joan Haverty, and Stella Sampas, as well as nephew Paul Blake Jr. 'Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families' takes its title from advice given to Jan during her second and final meeting with Jack, who encouraged her to profit from the surname she shared with the famous author of 'On the Road.' Sadly, not one of these individuals so closely tied to Kerouac seems to have benefited from the connection, as Jones discovers in his in-depth interview with Jan. She discusses at length her 15 months as a prostitute, her own divorces, her hospitalization, and her life as an author, including a wild European book tour for [her novel] 'Baby Driver.' Although Kerouac is one of the most 'biographied' American writers of our time, Jones offers a new perspective on the King of the Beats and his generation, one in which formerly marginalized figures in the Kerouac storyparticularly womenbecome strong, central characters. He also exposes the cut-throat wheeling and dealing that has plagued the Kerouac estate and that continues today as the various players do battle over the legacy of one of the counterculture's biggest idols." -
The Girl from Peyton Place: A Biography of Grace Metalious
A biography of the New Hampshire author, Grace Metalious, whose works include "Peyton Place," "The Tight White Collar," and "No Adam in Eden."
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Unhoming Francophone Studies : A House in the Middle of the Current
Professor Rosello writes on Francophone Studies "as a discipline...that can be imagined as a type of unhomeliness," characterized by a variety of conversant cultural or political forms. She argues what Francophone studies is, fluidly - cultural studies, literary studies, border studies - compared to the solid "hexagonal" form from which it sprung in France. -
Présence visible et invisible de la langue française dans la littérature franco-américaine contemporaine
Pris de Glottopol, la revue de sociolinguistique en ligne: "Présence invisible dans le champ des littératures francophone et ethnique américaines, la littérature franco-américaine de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, qu'elle s'exprime en français ou en anglais, est la gardienne d'une mémoire francophone, d'un patrimoine culturel et linguistique qui réfute l'oubli. Peggy Pacini analyse la place de la langue française dans quelques romans franco-américains, qui y apparaît sous différentes formes (discours métissé, forme dialectale, français littéraire) et y occupe diverses fonctions (incise, dialogue, narration, monologue). L'image de la langue française dans ces romans permet de mieux comprendre, selon l'auteure, cette dialectique du bon et du mauvais français qui est sûrement à l'origine de la disparition de cette langue au sein de cette communauté."..."Triès peu répertoriée, la littérature franco-américaine de la Nouvelle-Angleterre est devenue une présence invisible dans le champ des littératures francophone mais aussi ethnique américaine. Néanmoins, qu'elle s'exprime en français ou en anglais, elle est la gardienne d'une mémoire francophone, d'un patrimoine culturel et linguistique qui réfute l'oubli. Il sera donc question d'analyser la place de la langue française dans ces romans, quelle que soit la forme qu'elle prenne (discours métissé, forme dialectale, français littéraire) et la fonction qu'elle occupe (incise, dialogue, narration, monologue). Pour cela, il faudra recontextualiser l'évolution de cette langue dans ce contexte nord-américain particulier et son rapport à l'idéologie de la survivance telle qu'elle était véhiculée par le clergé canadien français. De la même façon, l'image de la langue française dans ces romans permet de mieux comprendre cette dialectique du bon et du mauvais français qui est sûrement à l'origine de la disparition de cette langue au sein de cette communauté." -
Debunking the Myth of Ethnic Solidarity in Three Franco-American Texts
From refdoc.fr: "This article examines three Francophone texts written by Franco-American authors of New England, texts that have received scant critical attention. Writing in a language other than English in the United States foregrounds issues of cultural survival. Whereas in the past Franco-American literary efforts depicted unified communities engaged in the preservation of their distinct cultural heritage-la langue, la foi, et la culture françaises-the works examined here subvert this picture of cohesiveness. In exposing the rigid class structure, dysfunctional families, and bitter disputes over language that fragment this linguistic group, they debunk the myth of ethnic solidarity in Franco-American society." -
Francophonie
Professor Bensmaia's thoughts on "Francophone" as a designator replacing "French" in the world of literary studies, and his participation in the academic opening of the French literature discipline to the contributions of French-speaking peoples outside of the "hexagon" - continental France. -
"All This / Is Abenaki Country": Cheryl Savageauâ's Poetic Awikhiganak
Article critically describing and exploring the work of poet and visual artist Cheryl Savageau through the contexts of other 20th and 21st century Abenaki historical and literary writings. Savageau is the author of the collections "Home Country," "Dirt Road Home," and "Mother/Land," among other creative works. -
Writing an Ethnic Identity between Worlds : Claiming and Maintaining a Franco-American Self
Historical trends, social dynamics, family systems, and psychological traits characteristic of Franco Americans and their communities. Examples from the author's life and family history; relevant psychological research; scholarship in Franco American studies. Observations of the psychosocial implications of the cultural notion of "la survivance," New England Franco Americans' dense communities, and their proximity to Canadian places of ancestry in Québec and Acadia. Includes descriptive content from interviews with several Franco American poets and writers: Beverly Matherne, Darrell Bourque, Jim Bishop, Rhea Côté Robbins, Denise Duhamel, Christine Gelineau, Chad Parenteau, David Surette, and Paul Marion.Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Language and Linguistics, Leominster MA, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Essay, Nonfiction -- Ethnic Studies, Nonfiction -- Psychology, Nonfiction -- Social Sciences, Poetry, Québec, Religion, Webster MA, Worcester MA -
Flight from Certainty : The Dilemma of Identity and Exile
Collection of essays in cultural criticism, with specific emphases on national, ethnic, and linguistic identities in transit. Divided in the text by the geographies to which each essay pertains. From the introduction: "The authors [in 'Flight from Certainty'] have attempted to combine scholarship, personal experience, wit, and irony in dealing with questions which so far have gone unanswered: 'How far is identity modelled by the country in which people grow up and believe they have their roots? What happens to the concept of identity when a person abandons one country to live in another?'"Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Africa, Australia, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, England, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, India, Ireland, Italy, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, New England, New Zealand, Québec, Sanford ME, South Africa, South Asia, Sri Lanka, Violence -
The Catholic Counterculture in America, 1933-1962
Examination of immigrant Catholic influences on the traditions of Catholicism in the United States. A collection of largely biographical segments dedicated to certain influential, thought-provoking, and paradigm-shifting American Catholics from the middle of the twentieth century. The influence of these thinkers on a country not without skeptics or critics of Roman Catholicism. From UNC Press: "James Fisher argues that Catholic culture was transformed when products of the 'immigrant church,' largely inspired by converts like Dorothy Day, launched a variety of spiritual, communitarian, and literary experiments. He also explores the life and works of Thomas A. Dooley and Jack Kerouac to show that their experiences signaled a new Catholic appreciation of the American tradition of creative freedom." Contains the following chapters: "The Conversion of Dorothy Day" "Fools for Christ" : Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement, 1933-1949 The Catholic workers and Catholic culture, 1933-1949 The limits of personalism : "Integrity" and the Marycrest Community, 1946-1956 Thomas A. Dooley and the romance of Catholic anticommunism A Catholic errand in the wilderness : Tom Dooley in Laos and America, 1956-1961 Jack Kerouac and Thomas Merton, the last Catholic romantics.Tags Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fiction and Literature, Government and Politics, Irish Americans, Kentucky, Laos, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Minnesota, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Religion, Religion, United States -
Through a Glass Darkly : Ethnic Semiosis in American Literature
Critical research that questions the concept of "ethnic literature" and explores the phenomenon of ethnicities being written out in American literature. Problematizes designating "ethnic literature" as a thing apart, given the peculiar ethnic and cultural blends that run through American social life and American literature in general. Uses the authors Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and others, as examples. -
A Map of Mexico City Blues : Jack Kerouac as Poet
From Southern Illinois University Press: "In this pioneering critical study of Jack Kerouacâ's book-length poem, 'Mexico City Blues' a poetic parallel to the writerâ's fictional saga, the 'Duluoz Legend' James T. Jones uses a rich and flexible neoformalist approach to argue his case for the importance of Kerouacâ's rarely studied poem....After a brief summary of Kerouacâ's poetic career, Jones embarks on a thorough reading of 'Mexico City Blues' from several different perspectives: he first focuses on Kerouacâ's use of autobiography in the poem and then discusses how Kerouacâ's various trips to Mexico, his conversion to Buddhism, his theory of spontaneous poetics, and his attraction to blues and jazz influenced the theme, structure, and sound of Mexico City Blues....Jonesâ's multidimensional explication suggests the formal and thematic complexity of Kerouacâ's long poem and demonstrates the major contribution Mexico City Blues makes to post–World War II American poetry and poetics."
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Francophone Literatures : An Introductory Survey
From Oxford University Press: "The canon of French literature has undergone substantial transformation in recent years and francophone literature is now an increasingly important element in French literature courses. This study introduces the diverse literatures from the numerous French-speaking areas around the world, including Africa, French Canada, and both the Caribbean and Indian Ocean Creole islands, among others. Moving region by region, Jack details the ways in which the most important authors establish a post-colonial and linguistically and culturally unique literary tradition while they subvert--through rewriting, parody, and pastiche--the established French literary tradition. More importantly, she suggests a new critical approach for understanding these various French-speaking cultures and, consequently, the French culture which they recast and subvert." -
Textes de l'exode : recueil de textes sur l'émigration des Québécois aux États-Unis (XIXe et XXe siiècles)
De textes fictives et non-, une grande collection qui commence à expliquer le phénomiène de l'exode canadien-français aux Etats-Unis. Contiens des piièces de Pierre Anctil, Josaphat Benoit, A. Bourbonniière, Anna-Marie Duval-Thibault, Jack Kerouac, Adélard Lambert, Camille Lessard-Bissonnette, Robert B. Perreault, Claire Quintal, et plus d'autres. Du texte: "Ce recueil, TEXTES DE L'EXODE, concu comme introduction à un événement majeur de notre histoire, vise l'ensemble du phénomiène. Il veut, par son contenu et sa facture, être largement accessible. Sa présentation prend la forme d'un agenda (qui veut dire 'choses à faire'); les textes et documents présentés se trouvent répartis chronlogiquement ou par thièmes, et les trois sections majeurs - le survol historique d'études du phénomiène, les textes de l'exode (ayant pour objet la survivance des émigrés aux Etats-Unis) ainsi que les textes littéraires (des Franco-Américains) - forment non pas l'histoire définitive de l'exode, mais plutot un carnet de 'rendez-vous' destiné aux chercheurs." Table des matiières En exergue: "Aux Canadiens des ètats-Unis," poième de William Chapman (1908) Remerciements Présentation, par Maurice Poteet I. Dimensions de l'exode A. Survol historique 1850: "èmigration des Canadiens vers les ètats-Unis," L'Abeille (version corrigée de 1908) 1872: "L'émigration," par L.O. David, L'ètendard national 1890: "Impressions de voyage" (extraits), par A. Bourbonniière, Le Travailleur (des ètats-Unis) 1893: Les Canadiens des ètats-Unis: ce qu'on perd à émigrer, par T. St-Pierre (Montréal), La Gazette 1905: "Significance of the Canadian Migration," par Annie Marion MacLean, American Journal of Sociology 1908: "La population française des ètats-Unis," par Léon Kemner, La Revue franco-américaine 1929: "The French Canadian Exodus," par E.L. Chicanot, The Canadian Forum 1947: "L'émigration canadienne aux ètats-Unis," par Adrien Robitaille, Relations B. ètudes récentes 1979: "La Franco-Américanie ou le Québec d'en bas," par Pierre Anctil, Cahiers de géographie du Québec 1984: "Un Québec émigré aux ètats-Unis: bilan hitoriographique," par Yves Roby, dans Les Rapports culturels entre le Québec et les ètats-Unis, Québec, IQRC II. La Franco-Américanie "Le Québec retrouvé ou les imperatifs de la survivance," texte de Régis Normandeau A. Le départ 1. La rupture: extrait de Pour rester au pays (1926), par l'abbé Georges-Marie Bilodeau 2. Les embaucheurs: extraits de journaux (1879-1881) 3. Le voyage: extraits de journaux (1869-1890) 4. La liste des émigrés, extraits de "L'émigration aux ètats-Unis il y a 40 ans et plus," d'èdouard-Zotique Massicotte (1933), Le Bulletin des recherches historiques B. La survivance 1. "Notre position sociale aux ètats-Unis," discours de M. l'abbé J. Roch Magnan (1893), extrait de Historique des Conventions générales des Canadiens-Français [sic] aux ètats-Unis, 1865-1901 2. La paroisse: extraits de L'à‚me franco-américaine, de Josaphat Benoit 3. "L'émigré chez lui," extrait de Les Canadiens-Français [sic] de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, d'èdouard Hamon (1893) 4. L'école, la langue, la vie culturelle: extraits de journaux et de rapports (des "Conventions générales") et du Catéchisme d'histoire franco-américaine, de Josaphat Benoit 5. La presse: extraits de journaux franco-américains; discours des "Conventions générales" et extraits des ouvrages d'Alexandre Belisle et de Maximilienne Tétrault 6. La naturalisation (ou le rapatriement), texte de Ferdinand Gagnon (1871) et extraits de quatre journaux 7. L'américanisation des noms: extraits de l'étude d'Ulysse Forget (1949) et de l'essai d'Adélard Lambert (1918) 8. Des opinions américaines: extraits du New York Times et de la Catholic Review III. Textes littéraires "èmigration et colonisation: thièmes jumeaux de la littérature canadienne-française du XIXe siiècle," de David M. Hayne (traduit par Pierre Sabourin, 1982) A. Hypothièses institutionelles et thièmes 1. "La minorisation de la littérature de l'exode québécois vers la Nouvelle-Angleterre," par Pierre Sabourin "Le roman comme patrie," par Manon Richer B. Textes choisis 1. Jeanne la fileuse (1878), extraits: Honoré Beaugrand 2. Canuck (1936), extraits: Camille Lessard-Bissonnette 3. "Une fête Saint-Jean-Baptiste dans un village américain", d'Adélard Lambert 4. "L'èmigré" (1920), de Régis Roy 5. "Une premiière veillée de Noà«l aux ètats-Unis", d'Anna-Marie Duval-Thibault 6. "Marie la petite Française" (1895), de Sarah-Orne Jewett, (traduit de l'américain par Régis Normandeau) 7. "Le livre américain": chronique de Louis Dantin (1938), Le Jour (de Montréal) 8. Une lettre de Jack Kerouac IV. Témoignages Présentation de Pierre Anctil A. Robert B. Perreault (Manchester, N.H.) B. Claire QUintal (Worcester, Mass.) V. Epilogue Plus de 13 millions d'Américains ont des ancêtres français VI. BibliographieTags Boston MA, Canada, Chicago IL, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Fiction and Literature, Holyoke MA, Journalism, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Michigan, Montréal QC, New England, New Hampshire, New York, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Québec, Religion, Rhode Island, Waterbury CT, Wisconsin, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Accentuating the Differences
A preface to this issue of Yale French Studies that focuses upon the idea of "writing in Québec(ois)." Sarkonak traces the North American transition from français, to Canayen, to French Canadian, to québécois, and asks how language and writing in Québec helps to rethink French Studies. -
The People of Survivance : Franco-Americans in New England
Thesis on late twentieth-century New England Franco American literature and some of its creators - John Dufresne, Dorianne Laux, Steven Riel, Denis Ledoux, Susann Pelletier, Bill Tremblay, David Rivard - couched in a culture-specific analysis of historical identity and psychological debt. How these literary figures and their work at once inform and are informed by regional and familial experiences of ethnicity, language, religion. Close-readings of their work informed by writings of psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva. -
Le roman franco-américain en Nouvelle-Angleterre, 1878-1943
Une dissertation sur la littérature - le roman - franco-américaine : ses grands thièmes, ses auteurs dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre, et les historiques américaines et québécoises qui forment son contexte. Met l'accent sur les textes suivants:"Jeanne la fileuse," d'Honoré Beaugrand; "Un Revenant," de Rémi Tremblay; "Bélanger ou l'histoire d'un crime," de George Crépeau; "Mirbah," de Emma Dumas; "La jeune Franco-Américaine," d'Alberte Gastonguay; "Canuck," Camille Lessard-Bissonnette; "L'innocente victime," d'Adélard Lambert; "Sanatorium," de Paul Dufault; "Les Enfances de Fanny," de Louis Dantin. Une présentation des profils de chaque auteur. Table des matiières Avant-propos Introduction générale I. L'Exode: Expérience collective 1. La défense: Honoré Beaugrand et Anna Duval-Thibault 2. L'histoire régionale: George Crépeau et Emma Dumas 3. La vie franco-américaine: Alberte Gastonguay, Camille Lessard, Adélard Lambert II. L'Exode: Expérience intime 1. Le Canadien errant: Rémi Tremblay 2. L'Isolement: Paul Dufault et Louis Dantin ConclusionBibliographieTags Burlington VT, Central Falls RI, Criticism and Review, Danielson CT, Fall River MA, Fiction and Literature, Holyoke MA, Lewiston ME, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Manchester ME, Manchester NH, Nashua NH, New England, North Grosvenordale CT, Québec, Religion, Rochester NH, Waterville ME, Winooski VT, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Le Canada français et le roman américain (1826-1948)
Les rélations culturelles entre le Québec, les canadiens français, et la littérature américaine tel qu'ils apparaissent dans le roman américain. Les impressions américaines populaires de ces romans sur des perceptions du Canada français. L'histoire de cet impact entre 1826 et 1948 - vers la période de la grande migration des canadiens français aux États-Unis.Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Boston MA, Canada, Detroit MI, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fiction and Literature, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Montréal QC, Native Americans, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Québec, Religion, United States -
Une certaine Amérique aè lire : la beat generation et la littérature québécoise
Du texte: "Cette thièse porte sur l'inscription de la Beat Generation dans la littérature québécoise. J'y analyse non pas la réception de ce mouvement au Québec lors de son émergence dans les années 1950, mais bien sa réappropriation postérieure. II faut pour lire ce corpus québécois contemporain une connaissance sans faille de celui de la Beat Generation et des travaux sur le mouvement et ses écrivains. Dans cette optique, je trace d'entrée de jeu les grandes lignes de l'histoire personnelle et de l'approche littéraire des principaux auteurs de la Beat Generation, qui n'ont jamais rédige de manifeste. Par la suite, je prociède a une analyse du corpus québécois a partir de thièmes privilégies du mouvement, d'inscriptions textuelles, de citations et de références explicites ou masquées dans des noms de personnages ou de lieux. J'établis aussi les filiations entre les personnages d'un corpus et de l'autre. Il s'agit donc, toujours en restant prés des textes, d'analyser la présence « Beat» au sein du corpus québécois." -
French Ethnic Literature and Culture in an American City : Holyoke, Massachusetts
From the author: "This study examines the French literary and cultural life of French Canadians in New England with emphasis on Holyoke, Massachusetts, between 1869 and 1940. At the turn of the century French Canadians became known as Franco-Americans; they tried to maintain their native language and traditions as American citizens in a New England urban industrial setting....Holyoke's history and its unique character are considered in terms of their effects on the French Canadian settlers....We will attempt to examine Holyoke's French cultural and literary life in the framework of French Canadian life in New England through a general consideration of the French Canadian immigration, the role of the parish, the schools, the family, and societies."Tags Community: Customs and Social Life, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Fiction and Literature, Holyoke MA, Journalism, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- Language and Linguistics, Performing Arts, Poetry, Québec, Religion -
"Accidents of terrain" : The native and foreign worlds of David Plante
From the author: "David Plante, an American writer born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1940, examines the inextricable connection between space and time, place and identity in his most important work, a series of semi-autobiographical novels and short stories about the Francoeur family. This study follows Daniel Francoeur, Plante's principal recurring character and fictional counterpart, on a journey of self-discovery in five novels that are representative of the three decades of Plante's career and illustrative of experiences located in both the native and foreign environments of his fictional world. In these five novels: The Family, The Woods, The Country, The Foreigner, and The Accident, Plante maps a terrain that extends in time and space from the insular French Canadian, Catholic parish in Providence where Daniel Francoeur grows up to the cities of Europe where he spends his late adolescence." -
Postcolonialism in North America : Imaginative Colonization in Henry Thoreau's "A Yankee in Canada" and Jacques Poulin's "Volkswagen Blues"
Also featured, in abridged form, in the Massachusetts Review (see 'Journal Articles'). From the author: "This thesis introduces the concept of imaginative colonization in postcolonial literary and cultural studies, which has a particular relevance to the literatures of North America. It argues that the postcolonial experiences of the former colonies of England and France in the Americas, particularly the United States and French Canada, have been primarily conditioned by their relations to each other and not by their relations to the former colonizing power. Imaginative colonization occurs when one former colony, using the means of the cross-border narrative and/or the postmodern recuperation of history, reimagines another not as an autonomous cultural entity, but as a feature of its own history, language, ideology, and even cartography. Focusing especially on Henry Thoreau's travelogue, 'A Yankee in Canada' (1866) and Jacques Poulin's postmodern novel, 'Volkswagen Blues' (1984), but taking into account the entire history of French Canadian-American relations, this thesis establishes that the practice of imaginative colonization in North American literatures is parallel but nonsynchronous: both American and French Canadian literature go through the same developmental stages of decolonization and postcolonial imaginative colonization, even though they do so in different centuries. The examples presented also indicate that imaginative colonization blurs the established dividing lines between works of fact and fiction and that it occurs in both French and English." -
La littérature française de Nouvelle-Angleterre
Un oeuvre qui explore le phénomiène de la littérature langue française écrit et lit dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre, jusqu'à 1945. Réédité en 1946 par Fides, les Publications de l'Université Laval (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5198661).Tags Acadians, Boston MA, Canada, Community: Customs and Social Life, Criticism and Review, Fall River MA, Fiction and Literature, Fitchburg MA, Government and Politics, Holyoke MA, Journalism, Language and Linguistics, Lewiston ME, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Montréal QC, New England, New York, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Poetry, Religion, United States, Vermont, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Border Spaces and La Survivance : The Evolution of the Franco-American Novel of New England (1875-2004)
From Lees: "This dissertation examines nine texts written by Franco-American novelists of New England. Themes of migrancy, exile, and cultural survival (la survivance) ground my study. I explore the negotiations of cultural, social, political, linguistic, and gendered spaces as experienced---and chronicled in these novels---by the 1.5 million French-Canadian laborers and their families who migrated to New England between roughly 1865 and 1930."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Government and Politics, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Mills and Mill Work, New England, Québec, Religion -
Le milieu, l'appartenance et l'integration à la société américaine : la littérature comme outil de connaissance des Franco-Américains
Thièse de premier cycle qui explore les écrits de Jack Kerouac, Robert Perreault, Gérard Robichaud, et Rhea Côté Robbins. Une analyse de leurs littératures comme oeuvres franco-américaines, ou exemples de «littératures mineures» qui offrent un commentaire unique sur la géographie et l'idée d'un «sentiment d'appartenance». Undergraduate thesis that explores the writings of Jack Kerouac, Robert Perreault, Gerard Robichaud, and Rhea Cote Robbins. Examines their literature as Franco-American works, and as examples of "minor literatures" that offer a unique commentary on one's geography and "sense of place." -
Normand Beaupré, militant de la résistance canadienne-française aux États-Unis
Un portrait autobiographique raconté par l'auteur franco-américain, Normand Beaupré, de Biddeford, Maine, sur sa profession, sa vie academique, et sa vocation comme écrivain de la langue française dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre. -
Love, Loss, and the Sacred in Maria Chapdelaine
Article discussing the role of the sacred in Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, <em>Maria Chapdelaine</em>. Textual evidence of transcedence in Hémon's language and narrative, perhaps "markings" of a traditioned religious sensibility. A reading of the novel that traces sacredness as a sub-theme, and attends to character spirituality in the recurrence and development of religious - namely Roman Catholic - imagery, attachment, and detachment. How a religious narrative compounds the author's novel of loss and tradition in rural Québec. -
Frost's Way of Speaking
Article exploring tone in Robert Frost's poetry, as well as the poet's emphasis on the ranges of northern New England colloquial language. Thoughts on Frost's use of colloquialisms in the early 20th century. Influences on Frost. Frost's quoted attitudes toward tone. Select close readings of tonal expressions - expecially of Frost's "self-regard" - in "The Onset," "The Mountain," "The Ax-Helve," "The Road Not Taken," and other poems. Remarks on French-Canadian character and English vernacular as featured in "The Ax-Helve." -
Kerouac : l'écriture comme errance
Oeuvre critique biographique et littéraire sur le style d'écriture de Jack Kerouac. En deux parties: "VIVRE," ou les espaces de la vie physicale, personelle, solitaire, etc., dont les oeuvres Kerouackians sont nées; et "ÉCRIRE," ou Kérouac comme personnage, auteur, figure littéraire américain au milieu d'une culture littéraire nationale, marginale, et nord-américaine. -
Postnational United States Regional Hinterlands : Proulx's Ethnic Working-Class Communities in Accordion Crimes
Essay analyzing Annie Proulx's novel, "Accordion Crimes," according to the ethnic groups, working-classes, and cultural identities its characters simultaneously challenge and represent. A mid-1990s United States commentary on assimilation, acculturation, race, and place-identity in which this article's author situates the novel. The symbol of the accordion across cultural and geographic lines, within and across certain immigrant communities in the United States, in environments that temper American myths of upward mobility, and within musical communities of diverse qualities.Tags African Americans, Basque, Cajuns, Chicago IL, Creoles, German Americans, Immigration, Iowa, Italian Americans, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, Maine, Mexican Americans, Minnesota, Montana, Music, Polish Americans, Québec, Sicilian Americans, Viennese Americans, Violence -
The Corpse in the Stone Wall : Annie Proulx's Ironic New England
Essay describing Annie Proulx's critical treatment of New England - in particular, Vermont - in her works of fiction, "Postcards" and "Heart Songs." Tenuous and tenacious relationships of characters to their rural New England landscapes at once idyllic and ruinous. The failures of fictional New England locals and tourists alike, and the "cultural politics" that pit outside economic influence and quaint projections of regional identity against the provincial knowledge afforded in home spaces and local tradition. Comparisons of Proulx's "New England fiction" to her later works set in and about Wyoming. -
Speeding Across the Rhizome : Deleuze Meets Kerouac On the Road
A reading of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" alongside the literary criticism of Gilles Deleuze and his counterparts. Emphasis on Deleuze and Félix Guattari's notion of the "rhizome" in comparison to the spontaneous routes of cross-country travel taken by characters in Kerouac's novel, and the innovative styles and shapes of his prose. Conversation with Deleuze's own reading of and writings on "On the Road" through the critic's descriptions of what is meant by the term "minor literature" : writing which is characteristically "deterritorializ[ed]" and exhibits a collective, political nature. -
Echoes of Antiquity in Maria Chapdelaine
Article exploring Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, "Maria Chapdelaine" (1913), in light of criticism that has considered it in terms of Québec agrarian and religious mythology. The ways in which the novel employs mythological themes that have "roots in classical antiquity"(62). How the novel can be measured by critical insights into the concept of mythology more generally. Specific comparisons of Hémon's work and characters with "The Odyssey," Greek architecture, and some of the temporal and cosmological concerns of literary antiquity as explored by modern critics. -
The Art of Fiction, No. 199
Interview with novelist and short story writer, Annie Proulx, about her life, her craft, and her thoughts on writing. Reflections on some of her past works, including the novels "Postcards" and "The Shipping News," as well as the story, "Brokeback Mountain." Her engagement with a wide range of settings and characters, with an emphasis on rural America. Interview conducted at her ranch home in Wyoming. -
Negotiating Foreignness Across the U.S.-Canadian Border : Narrating the Francoeur Family's Everyday Life in David Plante's The Family and The Native
Article exploring the Providence, Rhode Island Francoeur family featured in David Plante's novels. The significance that the Canadian-American border plays for this family in shaping the cultural identities of its provincial characters, as well as the French cultural markers that grow out of its Catholic parish Providence locale. Some historical and theoretical discussion of the concept of the "borderland," particularly as it has been considered for Franco Americans within the contexts of Québec, Atlantic Canada, and the US Northeast. The convergence of the Francoeur family's identities as they extend across national borders with those that negotiate the borders of their ethnic neighborhood. -
The Economic and Political Ideas of Honoré Beaugrand in Jeanne la fileuse
Brief article placing Honoré Beaugrand and his single novel, Jeanne la fileuse, in the French, French Canadian, and American socioeconomic and political contexts on which the novel clearly comments. An exploration of Beaugrand's ideological positioning, and the ways in which the author is both a product and a producer of a liberal sociopolitical consciousness at the end of the 19th century. A brief historical background of Beaugrand in North America and abroad, as well as a brief synopsis of the novel in question. -
Maria Chapdelaine : A Controversial Text
Critical analysis of Louis Hémon's novel, Maria Chapdelaine, sparked by the recent centennial of Hémon's birth (1880). Some descriptions of the novel's main character, Maria, and her choice between two suitors - one to remain in Canada, or one to leave for Massachusetts. Arguments in favor of a certain type of reading the novel, as well as of the character Maria's eventual choice, her reasoning, and what the author believes to be her self-empowerment. Contrasting interpretations from other literary scholars. Assumes some familiarity with the novel. -
Canuck, nomade franco-américaine : persistence et transformation de l'imaginaire canadien-français
Une étude sur le roman feuilleton "Canuck," par Camille Lessard-Bissonnette, comme example de la continuité des thèmes littéraires - et d'une imagination - canadiens-français dans la littérature aux États-Unis. Des transformations subtiles de ces thèmes dans un nouveau milieu américain. Une discussion d'un nouveau "nomadisme" nord-américain dans le texte : un histoire d'une famille émigrante à Lowell, Massachusetts. -
Jack Kerouac : une conscience de la mort
Une article qui décrit la rôle de la mort dans deux des oeuvres de Jack Kerouac: Visions de Gérard et Tristessa. L'auteur suggére que la préoccupation ou "l'obsession" de Kerouac avec la mort dans ces textes est son certain type d'engagement avec la vie. Quelques comparaisons avec les écrits en prose de Rainer Maria Rilke. -
Les fictions de la franco-américanité
L'introduction au numero 53 de la revue "Québec Studies," dont les auteurs décrivent le contenu comme projet dans la littérature de la franco-américanité: canadienne-française, acadienne, franco-américaine. Discussion des textes majeures dans ce canon littéraire, et de les essais qui explorent sa nature. -
A Picaresque Revenant
Article on Québec emigrant writer, Rémi Tremblay, and the serialized novel based on his time as a Union soldier in the United States Civil War, "Un Revenant: épisode de la guerre de Sécession." Textual interpretations of Tremblay's perceptions of war, and insights to his fiction based on information gleaned from his autobiography, "Pierre qui roule: souvenirs d'un journaliste." Explorations of Tremblay's portrayal of French Canadian emigration to the US at the turn of the century, and his literary representation of what the author calls "a new Francophone vernacular" (380). -
We Too Are Sons of Liberty : Franco-American Ethnic Advocacy in Joseph P. Choquet's Under Canadian Skies, a Historical Novel of the Rebellion of 1837
Article describing the early twentieth-century English-language novel, "Under Canadian Skies," as unique to the canon of francophone Franco American novels of the same historical period. How author Joseph Choquet's form of literary ethnic advocacy differs from a more popular notion of "la survivance" apparent in the works of writers Jules Verne and Ernest D. Choquette. Thoughts on the novel's depiction of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837. -
Nationalism, Feminism, Cultural Pluralism : American Interest in Quebec Literature and Culture
Article describing the recent attraction of USA scholarship to French Canadian literature. The integration of this literature within academic French programs, and the various practical and theoretical challenges it poses to the broader canon of Francophone Studies. The unique tie between Quebec literature and the growth of feminist, postcolonialist, and cultural minority literary critiques in Canada and the USA. The impact of Quebec nationalism - as well as multiculturalism - on its provincial literatures, and vice versa. -
The Erasure of Grace : Reconnecting Peyton Place to its Author
Critical article on the connection between the public reception of the 1950s breakout novel, "Peyton Place," and the attitudes and public persona of its author, Grace Metalious. How Metalious' life might be read in the depictions and trials of her novel's female characters. How the fictional town of Peyton Place - based on Metalious' New Hampshire home - resonated with readers across the United States. -
Literatures of Exile and Return : Jack Kerouac and Quebec
Critical article exploring two of Jack Kerouac's novels - "Doctor Sax" and "Satori in Paris" - in a way that emphasizes the importance of Kerouac's "translingual" identity, cultural heritage, and his relationship to the diasporic history of the people of Québec and French Canada. How Québec literary scholarship has elevated Kerouac's prose to a level unmatched in the United States, where the author argues little attention has been paid to the influence of Kerouac's cultural and linguistic identity on his American writing. A comparative close-reading of Québec writer Jacques Poulin's novel, "Volkswagen Blues," and the various debts it owes to Kerouac. -
Performances of Franco-American Identity in Mirbah : A Portrait of Precious Blood Parish
Article exploring the French language novel, "Mirbah," written by Emma Dumas in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1910. How the words and actions of the novel's characters can be read as various performances of Franco-American identity. A portrait of Holyoke's Precious Blood Roman Catholic Parish. A particular focus on religious practice and theatrical performance in Holyoke around 1910, and their occurrence within the text, . Thoughts on Dumas's personal commitment to "la survivance," and the writerly activities of her journalistic cultural contemporaries in the early 20th century. -
Mémère Kerouac ou la révanche du berceau en Franco-Américanie
Un bref article de revue sur les significations culturelles dans l'écriture de Jack Kerouac: "un gars de chez vous, aussi bien que de chez nous," comme écrit l'auteur (398). Plus précisement, comment la mère de Jack apparait dans sa vie et, par conséquent, dans sa littérature: ses textes, ses images, son style. -
La littérature franco-américaine : écrivains et écritures
Un livre d'essais critiques et biographiques sur la littérature franco-américane et ses créateurs. Certains extraits littéraires des œuvres littéraire d'auteurs franco-américains contemporains, en anglais et français. Présenté en deux parties; un préface de la rédactrice, Claire Quintal, Directrice de l'Institut Français, Collège de l'Assumption, Worcester Massachusetts.
Book of critical and biographical essays on historical Franco American writers and their works; literary excerpts from the prose and poetry of contemporary Franco American writers. Essays presented in French, with contemporary literary writings in both French and English. Presented in two parts, with a preface written by the editor, Claire Quintal, director of the French Institute at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Table des matières:
Première partie / Part One:
"Louis Dantin (1865-1945)," par Yves Garon, a.a.
"Les Franco-Américains et l'institution littéraire québécoise : le cas de Rémi Tremblay," par Régis Normandeau
"Will James, né Ernest Dufault - romancier du Far-Ouest," par Florence Tormey Blouin
"Camille Lessard-Bissonnette - à la recherche d'un féminisme franco-américain," par Janet-L. Shideler
"La littérature franco-américaine dans un Petit Canada de la Nouvelle Angleterre: Holyoke, Massachusetts," par Ernest-B. Guillet
"Rosaire Dion-Lévesque, fils d'expatriés," Michel Lapierre
"Au-delà de la route: l'identité franco-américaine de Jack Kerouac," par Robert-B. Perreault
Deuxième partie / Part Two:"Tsi Gars," by David Plante
"A Pearl of Great Price," by Gerard Robichaud
"Un Mot de Chez-Nous," par Normand-C. Dubé
"On Writing a Novel about Franco-Americans," by Richard L. Belair
"Ideas of Order in Little Canada," by Bill Tremblay
"Reading from a Work in Progress," by Jacquie Giasson Fuller
Notices biographiques / Biographical notes, by Claire QuintalTags Boston MA, California, Central Falls RI, Criticism and Review, Fiction and Literature, Holyoke MA, Journalism, Lewiston ME, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Montana, Montréal QC, Nashua NH, New England, New Mexico, New York NY, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Poetry, Providence RI, Québec, Religion, Southbridge MA, Van Buren ME, Worcester MA -
A Quest for Language : Jack Kerouac as a Minor Author
Article characterizing the literary works of Jack Kerouac as elements of his search for personal, religious, ethnic, and linguistic identity. Particular emphasis on Kerouac's French Canadian heritage roots. The ways in which Kerouac's novels can be interpreted in light of what theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call "a minor literature," and how these novels unsettle - as the author says - "traditional English prose." Chapter 16 in "Diaspora, Identity, and Language Communities," an issue of Studies in Linguistic Sciences: Illinois Working Papers. -
Two Franco-American Writers : Dantin and Dion-Lévesque
Article exploring the author's notion of cultural "interfacing" through the French Canadian and Anglo American contexts of Montréal-born Louis Dantin (Eugene Seers) and Nashua, New Hampshire native, Rosaire Dion-Lévesque. Both authors wrote in French in early twentieth-century New England. Discussion of Dantin's best-known work, "Les enfances de Fanny," situated in Roxbury, Massachusetts; thoughts on its indifference to "American culture" and to some other themes that predominate other Franco American novels. How the later poetry of Dion-Lévesque, his French translations of Walt Whitman, and his attitudes toward "American culture" compare to the works of Dantin. -
Franco-American Literature Today
Brief review of some resources in Franco-American literature available at the beginning of the 1980s. Specifically mentions collections, works, and writers in Maine, Massachusetts, and Louisiana. -
Jewett and the Incorporation of New England : "The Gray Mills of Farley"
Critical and historical reading of Sarah Orne Jewett's 1898 short story, "The Gray Mills of Farley," about textile mill workers, an agent, and mill directors around the time of a New England mill's cut-back and shut-down. Place and character descriptions in this story, according to the author, give us entry into the social make-up, living conditions, and manufactory settings found at the Salmon Falls Mills at the turn of the century in Rollinsford, New Hampshire - near to Jewett's own hometown in South Berwick, Maine. Author's comparisons between Salmon Falls Mills and the Amoskeag Mills of Manchester, New Hampshire. Reference to Tamara Hareven and Ralph Langenbach's book, "Amoskeag."Tags Brunswick ME, Business and Economics, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Fiction and Literature, Irish Americans, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, New Hampshire, Religion, Rollinsford NH, South Berwick ME -
A Border Like No Other
Book section exploring how the Canada/US border is used by some Canadian and American fiction writers to examine personal, ethnic, and national identities in comparative or dual contexts. Examines the work of Clark Blaise, Guillermo Verdecchia, Janette Turner Hospital, and Kelly Rebar, among others. Featured in a book that analyzes the thematic roles of the borders between Mexico, the United States, and Canada in contemporary fiction, and what these expressions teach us about transnationalism, globalization, and ethnicity. -
The Several Lives of Joan the Spinner : Honoré Beaugrand’s Jeanne la fileuse : épisode de l’émigration franco-canadienne aux États-Unis and the Making and Remaking of a French Canadian/Franco-American Novel
Critical and historical analysis of of Honoré Beaugrand's 1877-1878 serialized novel, Jeanne la fileuse. Speculation on the author's political, social, and artistic motives for writing about nineteenth-century French Canadian emigration to New England, and the uniqueness of his liberal perspective at that time. Some thoughts on the novel's serialized publication in multiple newspapers, its soon-after publication as a single volume, and its twentieth-century re-publication in France and the United States. Differences among the published versions, varying intentions of the publishers, and consideration for each version's distinct audience. -
La langue est gardienne : Language and Identity in Franco-American Literature
Article exploring critically how contemporary Franco American authors use the French language in their works to signify Franco American ethnicity. Discussion and comparison of two works and their creators: Normand Beaupré's coming of age novel set in Biddeford, Maine, Le petit mangeur des fleurs; David Plante's recent memoir, American Ghosts, featuring prominently the parish of his hometown, Providence, Rhode Island. -
Fatherless and Dispossessed : Grace Metalious as a French‐Canadian Writer
Article profiling Manchester, New Hampshire native writer, Grace (de Repentigny) Metalious. Summary and analysis of her best-selling scandalous novel, "Peyton Place," her reportedly favorite novel, "The Tight White Collar," and her final work, "No Adam in Eden." The autobiographical turn of Metalious's writing and the elements of her personal and family lives that shaped her fiction. Featured in an edition of the Journal of Popular Culture entitled, "Canadian Women Writers." -
Accenting the French in Comparative American Studies
Critical essay on the inclusion of Francophone peoples and regions in the broadening scope of American Studies. Brief survey on certain literary works and literary criticism that illustrate how cultural identity gets articulated in terms of the wide geography, multiple languages, and human migrations of the Americas. The ways in which regional writers "remap" their region's identity and build specific international relationships, with examples from Haiti, Québec, and other Francophone areas in the western hemisphere. Particular emphasis on the peoples and literatures of Latin America and the Caribbean, Québec and French Canada, with some comments on Cajuns and Creoles in Louisiana and Franco Americans New England. -
The French-Canadian Heritage of Jack Kerouac as Seen in His Autobiographical Works
Critical essay exploring some of the cultural values and worldviews perceived in the contexts and characters of Jack Kerouac's autobiographical fiction. Considers concepts of work, sin, individualism, and time, in particular, as supported in cultural research on certain aspects of French Canadian heritage. <br /><br /> From the author: "The purpose of this paper is to examine the biographically oriented works of Jean Louis Lebris de Kerouac, particularly those centered around his early years at home." -
Roots Always Precede Routes : On the Road, through a Glass Darkly
Critical reading of Jack Kerouac's most famous novel, "On the Road," through the lens of French mobility in America and Kerouac's Franco American cultural identity. How Kerouac's traveling characters signify and explore the "homelessness" that the article's author associates with the French Canadian and Franco American in the United States.
From the author: "This article explores the subterranean layers of 'On the Road,' firstly, approaching them from three perspectives (the dyad routes-roots, ethnogenesis and cultural geography), and secondly, considering the novel within a larger project, the 'Road' project, which allows further insight into the genesis of the 1957 edition and of the original scroll published fifty years later. This article focuses on the relationship between space, identity, travel and nation, and attempts to offer a reading of the author’s French-Canadian and Franco-American invisible ethnicity as a guiding line to the 'On the Road' proto-versions and to the themes developed (travel, mapping the land and the quest for the father[land])." -
The Immigrant Experience in American Fiction : An Annotated Bibliography
Bibliography of novels and some non-fiction authored by, concerning, and engaging a diversity of immigrant experiences in the United States. Important text for literary studies and American Studies. -
Essai bibliographique : sur l’apport franco-américain à la littérature des États-Unis
Un revue de la Nouvelle Angleterre sur une collection des littératures franco-américaines jusqu'au présent (1949). Contiens une bibliographie d'oeuvres publiés.Tags Bibliography, Connecticut, Criticism and Review, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Fiction and Literature, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Maine, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, New England, New Hampshire, Québec, Rhode Island, Sports and Leisure, Vermont, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
French-Canadian Literature: An Introductory Bibliography
From Chartier: "The following bibliography is a personal response to a growing number of demands from colleagues wishing to become acquainted with the rapidly expanding field of French-Canadian literature. This bibliography lays no claim whatever to completeness...only a multi-volumed effort could make such a claim, given the vastness of the subject-matter. The items listed here represent only a fraction of the very best work published in the fairly recent past. The general works are the most reliable source for readers interested in the literature of the earlier period." -
Performances of Franco-American Identity in Mirbah : A Portrait of Precious Blood Parish
Article exploring the French language novel, "Mirbah," written by Emma Dumas in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1910. How the words and actions of the novel's characters can be read as various performances of Franco-American identity. A portrait of Holyoke's Precious Blood Roman Catholic Parish. A particular focus on religious practice and theatrical performance in Holyoke around 1910, and their occurrence within the text, . Thoughts on Dumas's personal commitment to "la survivance," and the writerly activities of her journalistic cultural contemporaries in the early 20th century. -
Literatures of Exile and Return : Jack Kerouac and Quebec
Critical article exploring two of Jack Kerouac's novels - "Doctor Sax" and "Satori in Paris" - in a way that emphasizes the importance of Kerouac's "translingual" identity, cultural heritage, and his relationship to the diasporic history of the people of Québec and French Canada. How Québec literary scholarship has elevated Kerouac's prose to a level unmatched in the United States, where the author argues little attention has been paid to the influence of Kerouac's cultural and linguistic identity on his American writing. A comparative close-reading of Québec writer Jacques Poulin's novel, "Volkswagen Blues," and the various debts it owes to Kerouac. -
The Erasure of Grace : Reconnecting Peyton Place to its Author
Critical article on the connection between the public reception of the 1950s breakout novel, "Peyton Place," and the attitudes and public persona of its author, Grace Metalious. How Metalious' life might be read in the depictions and trials of her novel's female characters. How the fictional town of Peyton Place - based on Metalious' New Hampshire home - resonated with readers across the United States. -
Nationalism, Feminism, Cultural Pluralism : American Interest in Quebec Literature and Culture
Article describing the recent attraction of USA scholarship to French Canadian literature. The integration of this literature within academic French programs, and the various practical and theoretical challenges it poses to the broader canon of Francophone Studies. The unique tie between Quebec literature and the growth of feminist, postcolonialist, and cultural minority literary critiques in Canada and the USA. The impact of Quebec nationalism - as well as multiculturalism - on its provincial literatures, and vice versa. -
We Too Are Sons of Liberty : Franco-American Ethnic Advocacy in Joseph P. Choquet's Under Canadian Skies, a Historical Novel of the Rebellion of 1837
Article describing the early twentieth-century English-language novel, "Under Canadian Skies," as unique to the canon of francophone Franco American novels of the same historical period. How author Joseph Choquet's form of literary ethnic advocacy differs from a more popular notion of "la survivance" apparent in the works of writers Jules Verne and Ernest D. Choquette. Thoughts on the novel's depiction of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837. -
A Picaresque Revenant
Article on Québec emigrant writer, Rémi Tremblay, and the serialized novel based on his time as a Union soldier in the United States Civil War, "Un Revenant: épisode de la guerre de Sécession." Textual interpretations of Tremblay's perceptions of war, and insights to his fiction based on information gleaned from his autobiography, "Pierre qui roule: souvenirs d'un journaliste." Explorations of Tremblay's portrayal of French Canadian emigration to the US at the turn of the century, and his literary representation of what the author calls "a new Francophone vernacular" (380). -
Les fictions de la franco-américanité
L'introduction au numero 53 de la revue "Québec Studies," dont les auteurs décrivent le contenu comme projet dans la littérature de la franco-américanité: canadienne-française, acadienne, franco-américaine. Discussion des textes majeures dans ce canon littéraire, et de les essais qui explorent sa nature. -
Canuck, nomade franco-américaine : persistence et transformation de l'imaginaire canadien-français
Une étude sur le roman feuilleton "Canuck," par Camille Lessard-Bissonnette, comme example de la continuité des thèmes littéraires - et d'une imagination - canadiens-français dans la littérature aux États-Unis. Des transformations subtiles de ces thèmes dans un nouveau milieu américain. Une discussion d'un nouveau "nomadisme" nord-américain dans le texte : un histoire d'une famille émigrante à Lowell, Massachusetts. -
Jack Kerouac : une conscience de la mort
Une article qui décrit la rôle de la mort dans deux des oeuvres de Jack Kerouac: Visions de Gérard et Tristessa. L'auteur suggére que la préoccupation ou "l'obsession" de Kerouac avec la mort dans ces textes est son certain type d'engagement avec la vie. Quelques comparaisons avec les écrits en prose de Rainer Maria Rilke. -
Maria Chapdelaine : A Controversial Text
Critical analysis of Louis Hémon's novel, <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i>, sparked by the recent centennial of Hémon's birth (1880). Some descriptions of the novel's main character, Maria, and her choice between two suitors - one to remain in Canada, or one to leave for Massachusetts. Arguments in favor of a certain type of reading the novel, as well as of the character Maria's eventual choice, her reasoning, and what the author believes to be her self-empowerment. Contrasting interpretations from other literary scholars. Assumes some familiarity with the novel. -
The Economic and Political Ideas of Honoré Beaugrand in Jeanne la fileuse
Brief article placing Honoré Beaugrand and his single novel, Jeanne la fileuse, in the French, French Canadian, and American socioeconomic and political contexts on which the novel clearly comments. An exploration of Beaugrand's ideological positioning, and the ways in which the author is both a product and a producer of a liberal sociopolitical consciousness at the end of the 19th century. A brief historical background of Beaugrand in North America and abroad, as well as a brief synopsis of the novel in question. -
"You're Putting Me on": Jack Kerouac and the Postmodern Emergence
Article exploring the self-referential literature of Jack Kerouac as cause, commentary, and resistance to his "Beat Movement" celebrity in the 1950s and 1960s. How Jack's engagement with fame is exercised in his literature, or in other public appearances, and signals a literary ground on which American letters can begin to see characteristics of what would become known as "postmodern." Analysis of Kerouac's television appearance on The Steve Allen Show; emphasis on his novels "Vanity of Dulouz," "Visions of Cody," and "The Subterraneans," with constant reference to the success and interpretation of "On the Road." Explorations of critical thinker Michel Foucault's ideas on the concepts of "guilt" and "punishment," and of Jean Beaudrillard's notion of the "simulacrum." -
Negotiating Foreignness Across the U.S.-Canadian Border : Narrating the Francoeur Family's Everyday Life in David Plante's The Family and The Native
Article exploring the Providence, Rhode Island Francoeur family featured in David Plante's novels. The significance that the Canadian-American border plays for this family in shaping the cultural identities of its provincial characters, as well as the French cultural markers that grow out of its Catholic parish Providence locale. Some historical and theoretical discussion of the concept of the "borderland," particularly as it has been considered for Franco Americans within the contexts of Québec, Atlantic Canada, and the US Northeast. The convergence of the Francoeur family's identities as they extend across national borders with those that negotiate the borders of their ethnic neighborhood. -
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Echoes of Antiquity in Maria Chapdelaine
Article exploring Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, "Maria Chapdelaine" (1913), in light of criticism that has considered it in terms of Québec agrarian and religious mythology. The ways in which the novel employs mythological themes that have "roots in classical antiquity"(62). How the novel can be measured by critical insights into the concept of mythology more generally. Specific comparisons of Hémon's work and characters with "The Odyssey," Greek architecture, and some of the temporal and cosmological concerns of literary antiquity as explored by modern critics. -
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The Voice Is All : The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
Biographical portrait of Jack Kerouac, with uniquely heavy emphasis on the suggested influence of his French Canadian heritage - and the French language - on the style and content of his creative works. Written by a Kerouac contemporary and former friend. Covers from Kerouac's early life and those of his parents, to 1951, shortly after the publication of his first novel, The Town and the City. -
The Catholicism of Jack Kerouac
Observations of Jack Kerouac's ethnoreligious background - Franco American and Roman Catholic - and what the author describes as one of three "panels of the survivance triptych" : Catholicism. Historical descriptions of the role and actions of the Roman Catholic Church in historic New France, French Canada, Québec, and later in Franco American communities like Kerouac's Lowell, Massachusetts. Franco Catholicism's Jansenist and Manichean tendencies as rooted in early French North American history. Kerouac's early devotion and later rebellion from Catholic practice, with an ever persistent reflection of and fascincation with select observably Catholic conditions and attitudes, including the themes of guilt and suffering apparent in his recorded life and works. Shades of Catholicism in "Beat Movement" mystical and anti-material mores, and intersections with Kerouac's attentions to Buddhism. Selected revelations of Kerouac's interior life, sexual life, and moral concerns as found in his literature and in select quotation. -
From Little French Mary to Cuzak's Boys : Aspects of the Immigrant Experience in the Work of Sarah Orne Jewett and Willa Cather
Descriptions of immigrant Americans in the literary works of Sarah Orne Jewett and Willa Cather. What immigrant experiences lend to each author's thematic details. Jewett's characterizations of French Canadian and Irish characters in New England towns in the nineteenth century; Cather's twentieth century depictions of more diverse European and North American immigrant groups. Allusions to the two authors' brief friendship. Suggestions of Jewett's potential influence on Cather's style and content. -
The Corpse in the Stone Wall : Annie Proulx's Ironic New England
Essay describing Annie Proulx's critical treatment of New England - in particular, Vermont - in her works of fiction, "Postcards" and "Heart Songs." Tenuous and tenacious relationships of characters to their rural New England landscapes at once idyllic and ruinous. The failures of fictional New England locals and tourists alike, and the "cultural politics" that pit outside economic influence and quaint projections of regional identity against the provincial knowledge afforded in home spaces and local tradition. Comparisons of Proulx's "New England fiction" to her later works set in and about Wyoming. -
Postnational United States Regional Hinterlands : Proulx's Ethnic Working-Class Communities in Accordion Crimes
Essay analyzing Annie Proulx's novel, "Accordion Crimes," according to the ethnic groups, working-classes, and cultural identities its characters simultaneously challenge and represent. A mid-1990s United States commentary on assimilation, acculturation, race, and place-identity in which this article's author situates the novel. The symbol of the accordion across cultural and geographic lines, within and across certain immigrant communities in the United States, in environments that temper American myths of upward mobility, and within musical communities of diverse qualities.Tags African Americans, Basque, Cajuns, Chicago IL, Creoles, German Americans, Immigration, Iowa, Italian Americans, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, Maine, Mexican Americans, Minnesota, Montana, Music, Polish Americans, Québec, Sicilian Americans, Viennese Americans, Violence -
Kerouac : l'écriture comme errance
Oeuvre critique biographique et littéraire sur le style d'écriture de Jack Kerouac. En deux parties: "VIVRE," ou les espaces de la vie physicale, personelle, solitaire, etc., dont les oeuvres Kerouackians sont nées; et "ÉCRIRE," ou Kérouac comme personnage, auteur, figure littéraire américain au milieu d'une culture littéraire nationale, marginale, et nord-américaine. -
Frost's Way of Speaking
Article exploring tone in Robert Frost's poetry, as well as the poet's emphasis on the ranges of northern New England colloquial language. Thoughts on Frost's use of colloquialisms in the early 20th century. Influences on Frost. Frost's quoted attitudes toward tone. Select close readings of tonal expressions - expecially of Frost's "self-regard" - in "The Onset," "The Mountain," "The Ax-Helve," "The Road Not Taken," and other poems. Remarks on French-Canadian character and English vernacular as featured in "The Ax-Helve." -
Love, Loss, and the Sacred in Maria Chapdelaine
Article discussing the role of the sacred in Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, Maria Chapdelaine. Textual evidence of transcedence in Hémon's language and narrative, perhaps "markings" of a traditioned religious sensibility. A reading of the novel that traces sacredness as a sub-theme, and attends to character spirituality in the recurrence and development of religious - namely Roman Catholic - imagery, attachment, and detachment. How a religious narrative compounds the author's novel of loss and tradition in rural Québec. -
Normand Beaupré, militant de la résistance canadienne-française aux États-Unis
Un portrait autobiographique raconté par l'auteur franco-américain, Normand Beaupré, de Biddeford, Maine, sur sa profession, sa vie academique, et sa vocation comme écrivain de la langue française dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre.