Amérindiens – figures identitaires de la littérature canadienne-française et québécoise

Title in English Aboriginal Identity Figures in French Canadian and Quebec Literature
Authors

KYLOUŠEK Petr

Year of publication 2025
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Romanica Silesiana
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
web https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RS/article/view/18647
Doi https://doi.org/10.31261/RS.2025.27.03
Keywords Quebec literature; identity discourse; identity models; aboriginal characters; ensauvagement
Description The “ensauvagement” – a term coined by Voldřichová Beránková (2021) – that characterizes the ongoing transformation of Quebec literature due to both the intense interest of certain authors in Amerindian topics and the gradual assertiveness of Amerindian authors themselves can be traced back as far as the earliest writings of the Nouvelle-France period (Marc Lescarbot, Relations des jésuites, etc.). “Savage” characters were appropriated by 19th- and 20th-century literature as identity figures, authenticating Quebec’s identity. Works by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (Le Jeune Latour, 1844), Louis-Honoré Fréchette(Papineau, 1880), Jacques Ferron (Les Grands Soleils, 1958; Le Ciel de Québec, 1969), and Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers, 1967) follow this increasingly important thematic thread. The paper attempts to link this progression of Aboriginal resurgences to the activation of identity models (Bouchard, 2001) over the history of literature, and to the transformation of poetics that converts Amerindians from secondary and minor figures into complex characters on the way to “ensauvagement” of Quebec literature.
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