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Micheline's Blog

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Tag Archives: François Xavier Garneau

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau & Happiness Unattainable

09 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Canada, Literature

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Anne Hébert, Bob Rae, François Xavier Garneau, French Canadian, Gilles Marcotte, Jean Paul Lemieux, John Glassco, Paul-Émile Borduas, pessimism, Saint-Denys-Garneau

Pavane pour une infante défunte, Jean Paul Lemieux (1924) NGC
 

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912 -1943)

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (June 13, 1912 – October 24, 1943) is a revered French-Canadien poet, a place he shares with Émile Nelligan (December 24, 1879 – November 18, 1941).  He is also an older cousin to acclaimed poet and novelist Anne Hébert (1916-2000).  Both are descendants of historian François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866) and Hector’s father, Alfred Garneau (1836-1904), was also a writer.

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, while canoeing alone near the family manoir at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault.  Garneau suffered from a rheumatic heart condition that had forced him to interrupt his studies.  At the age of 31, he was too young to die, but he left for posterity a large number of poems as well as a Journal he did not intend to publish.  Yet the Journal is in print and it constitutes an exceptionally revealing document.

Two Comments

In this blog I will make only two comments.  First, I would like to point out that, in Garneau’s writings, we have an example of a widely spread feeling, among French-speaking Canadian authors.  For these writers, happiness is unattainable.  Happiness is in fact dangerous.  Moreover, I would also like to draw attention to the pictorial quality of the poems of Saint-Denys Garneau who had studied painting under the tutelage of Jean Paul Lemieux.

happiness is Dangerous

You may remember that in my blog on Maria Chapdelaine (1914) a regionalistic novel, I wrote that Maria could not be expected to marry François Paradis, the man she loves, as this would have brought her happiness, which is deemed a forbidden destination.  This very sentiment is echoed in Saint-Denys Garneau’s posthumously published Journal, prefaced by Gilles Marcotte and including comments by Robert Élie, a friend of Saint-Denys Garneau, and Roger Le Moyne.

The Journal (1954)

Both Saint-Denys Garneau’s Journal and Poésies complètes have been translated into English by John Glassco.[i] I do not own a copy of John Glassco‘s translation of Garneau’s Journal and must therefore play translator.  In his Journal, Saint-Denys Garneau wrote:

Que le bonheur est dangereux, et toute puissance, et toute ivresse ! Il faut par une longue discipline de soumission et d’amour avoir été rendu maître de soi pour résister au danger du bonheur.

“How dangerous are happiness, and all power, and all pleasure!  In order to resist the danger of happiness, one must have become master of oneself by practicing at long length submissiveness and love.” Journal, February 12, 1935.  (p. 54)

The Poésies complètes (1949)

Regards et jeux dans l’espace is a collection of poems published in 1937 by the author himself.  However, Saint-Denys Garneau’s Poésies complètes (1949) contains a second collection of poems entitled Solitudes.   The Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau reveal similar if not more pessimistic sentiments than the Journal.

Regards et jeux dans l’espace[iii]

« Accompagnement » (p. 101)

In « Accompagnement », Saint-Denys Garneau writes that he is walking beside a joy, which suggests that there can be no convergence of the poet and joy.

Je marche à côté d’une joie
D’une joie qui n’est pas à moi
D’une joie à moi que je ne puis prendre [literally: to take]
 
(I walk beside a joy
A joy that is not mine
A joy of mine that is not mine to enjoy) (Glassco, p. 75)
 

« Un mort demande à boire » (p. 63)

In the same collection, Garneau also writes that  “A dead man calls for a drink”  (Glassco, p. 45).  A man cannot be both dead and alive, except, of course, in French-Canadian or Québécois Literature.  So Saint-Denys Garneau paints un mort-vivant, a dead man alive, as if he inhabited a middle-earth or purgatory.  « Un mort demande à boire » is one of two landscapes: Deux paysages.  Saint-Denys Garneau organizes his poems into groups.

Solitudes

« Après les plus vieux vertiges » (p. 139) 

Embedded in a group of six poems collectively entitled La Parole de la Chair (The Word of the Flesh), Saint-Denys Garneau expresses his inability to engage in sexual intercourse (“After the oldest of the vertigoes,” [Glassco, p. 107]).  It brings death, not la petite mort (an orgasm), nor death as in the cycle of birth and rebirth, i.e. l’amour, la mort, but death: Ton lit certain comme la tombe (“Your bed as certain as the tomb,” [Glassco, p. 107]).

La Pointe de l’Islet, 1964
Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)
La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)
 

Ut pictura poesis

After reading Sub Rosa’s Ut pictura poesis[iv], I thought of Saint-Denys Garneau who viewed poetry as pictorial.  As I have already written, Saint-Denys Garneau was a trained artist, a student and friend of Jean Paul Lemieux and Paul-Émile Borduas.  For instance, as noted above, he uses the word paysage, or landscape, to denote poems.  Moreover, in Regards et jeux dans l’espace, the poet looks at (regards) and plays with (jeux) space (l’espace).  He is therefore giving shape to space: As is painting, so is poetry.  Sub Rosa’s literal translation sits well with me.  All poetry is pictorial and good portraits are more than a record of physical features.

« Le Jeu » (p. 35)

In « Le Jeu » (The Game), one of five poems constituting Les Jeux, Garneau writes:

Ne me dérangez pas je suis profondément occupé
 
Un enfant est en train de bâtir un village
C’est une ville, un comté
Et qui sait
Tantôt l’univers
 
(Don’t bother me I’m terribly busy
 
A child is busy building a village
It’s a town, a county
And who knows
By and by the universe) (Glassco, p. 21)
 

Musicologists have investigated the relationship between music and poetry.  For instance, there is a great deal of musicality in the poetry of Verlaine, musicality achieved by traditional devices: the number of pieds, or syllables, in a line of poetry; alliteration: the repetition of similar consonants (b, c, d, f, etc.) and assonance, the repetition of the same vowel  (a, e, i, o, u).

In French poetry, a comparison with pictures is not a frequent conscious occurrence, but Rimbaud wrote « Voyelles », a poem in which letters are given a colour and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918 [Spanish flu]) gives a shape to some of his poems.[v]  And let us not forget synesthesia, all senses compelled.

Breakfast, 1965     
Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)
La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)

______________________________

[i] John Glassco started to translate Garneau’s Journal in 1958, perhaps a little earlier.  Glassco’s translation of the Journal was published in 1962 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart), but he did not publish his outstanding translation of the Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau until 1975 (Ottawa: Oberon Press).

[ii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Journal (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1963 [1954]), p. 54.

[iii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Introduction de Robert Élie, Poésies complètes, Regards et Jeux dans l’espace et Les Solitudes (Montréal: Fides, 1970[1949]).

[iv] Sub Rosa, Ut pictura poesis, (WordPress, June 7, 2012)http://theme.wordpress.com/credits/omstreifer.wordpress.com/

[v] See the Wikipedia entry on Guillaume Apollinaire.

* * *

Micheline Walker©
June 9, 2012
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Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin

05 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Charles Guérin, François Xavier Garneau, France, lack of professions, New France, Octave Crémazie, Patrice Lacombe, Quebec literature

Boutique à Crémazie

Boutique à Crémazie (Crémazie’s Bookstore)

Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin 


RELATED ARTICLES

Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau: Biographical Notes
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Patrice Lacombe
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier
Maria Chapdelaine
The Canadian & his Terroir                      
 

This blog is a continuation of my blog on Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle. It also deals with regionalism in Quebec literature. However, the author of the novel we will peruse, Charles Guérin (online text, in French) was is a prominent Canadian who helped lead Canada into confederation and was Quebec’s first Premier, among other achievements listed in Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau: Biographical Notes. His novel is well written, but it reflects a facet of its author’s imagination that suggests a divided man. This novel is the expression of the subconcious mind. In other words, there was a public Pierre-Joseph-Oliver Chauveau, but Charles Guérin is the portrait of the very private author of Charles Guérin.

The Honourable Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau

Charles Guérin is a roman du terroir, a regionalistic novel, published the same year as Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle. However, with Chauveau, the plot of our story of regionalism takes on new dimensions. Although it is a roman du terroir, Charles Guérin is nevertheless the work of a major public figure and a leader. However, the subconscious has its dictates that may be at odds with the dictates of the conscious self and I doubt very much that we can draw too wide a line between our public self and our innermost private self. We are the sum total of our private and public selves.

Charles Guérin (French entry for Chauveau) was first published, in 1846 in L’Album littéraire et musical de la Revue canadienne, a periodical. Its first venue is therefore the same as Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle except that it was published as a book in 1853, sooner than Lacombe’s Terre paternelle.

Summary of the plot

We are in the 1830s. Charles Guérin is the story of two brothers, Charles and Pierre, who, having completed their études classiques, realize that there are very few careers French-Canadians can enter. Students pursued their études  classiques in a Petit Séminaire, a private teaching establishment. Only the études classiques gave access to University studies. The études classiques have now been replaced by a two-year tuition-free programme taught in a CEGEP (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel). Students enter a Cegep after grade eleven and upon completion of the two-year programme, they can then enroll in a university.

Two Brothers: a Dilemma 

Realizing that their choices are the priesthood (le Grand Séminaire), law, and medicine, one brother, Pierre Guérin, who has thought of becoming a businessman leaves for France. As for Charles, he decides to study Law. In Quebec City, Charles falls in love with Marichette,[i] a peasant’s daughter. However, during a study break he goes home and meets Clorinde, an Englishman’s daughter and his mother’s tenant, Mr Wagnaër. Madame Guérin is a widow who needs to rent part of her SEIGNEURIE in order to pay for her son’s education.

Charles meets Clorinde 

During a break, Charles meets Clorinde and is smitten. He falls in love with her and acts as though he does not already have a lady friend, Marichette. Wagnaër would like to own the SEIGNEURIE, located on the south side of the St Lawrence river. At first, he hopes to woo Madame Guerin, but she will not marry him.

Charles loses the ancestral Seigneurie

However, given that Charles is in love with his daughter, Wagnaër sees and seizes the opportunity he needed. He has an accomplice in Henri Voisin, a disloyal friend. A plot is hatched. Wagnaër manages to make our love-stricken Charles sign lettres de créance (letters of credit), making Charles his debtor. Charles loses the ancestral SEIGNEURIE, his inheritance.

Charles’s salvation: Agriculture

As in La Terre Paternelle, the second son returns. Pierre has become a priest and cannot help his brother financially, but they are at least reunited. Charles is also reunited with Marichette. They inherit land from Charles’ employer, Monsieur Dumont, and live there with friends who do not want to leave Canada. So, once again, all is well that ends well. A farmer is not a SEIGNEUR but, in the Quebec of Chauveau’s youth, or the Bas-Canada of the 1830s, one could not do better than till the land, as had been Richelieu‘s wish. Québécois are depicted as hereditary cultivateurs: farmers.

“Agriculture : Cette grande et noble occupation, seule base de la prospérité des peuples, est suivie par la très grande majorité des habitants du Canada.” (p. 676) (Farming: this grand and noble occupation, on which is altogether founded the prosperity of nations, is the one the majority of the inhabitants of Canada [Quebec] choose.)

The Shrinking 30 Acres

However, the habitant’s 30 acres are shrinking, so the time has come for the habitant‘s son to move to the city. That was nightmarish for the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec. The Canadien was unskilled and those who tried to become businessmen usually lost their business. Moreover, there were very few factories in Quebec.

As a politician, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau sold farming land at very low prices because French-Canadians had started moving to the United States, where there were factories. Consequently, nearly a million French-Canadians and Acadians left the Dominion of Canada. They could not find work.

Those among you who have read Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine or my post on Maria Chapdelaine,[ii] know that Maria makes the “patriotic” choice, although unknowingly, when she chooses to marry Eutrope Gagnon, who is a “cultivateur.”  She could have married Lorenzo Surprenant and lived an easier life in the United States. 

Quebec is a large province, but only part of its vast territory can be used as farmland. Making land (faire de la terre), as the Curé Labelle advocated, was to a large extent an unrealistic proposition. How does one turn rock into arable land, which is what Maria Chapdelaine’s father has chosen to do?

At that time in history, the birthrate in Quebec was very high, but as soon as they had reached adulthood, men had to go where they could make a living: the United States, even if this choice was deemed unpatriotic.

Let us listen to Charles Guérin. Just outside the Church, where parishioners gather, Charles preaches to those who will not hear that there is cowardice (lâcheté) in leaving one’s country, that one may lose one’s faith (perdre sa foi) and traditional values [moral values and customs, or les mœurs] in a foreign land (à l’étranger).

Charles rassembla à la porte de l’église tous les fugitifs et il leur fit un magnifique sermon en trois points sur la lâcheté qu’il y avait  d’abandonner son pays, sur les dangers que l’on courait de perdre sa foi et ses mœurs à l’étranger, sur l’avantage et le patriotisme de fonder de nouveaux établissements sur les terres fertiles de notre propre pays. (pp. 608-609)

Comments

Here again, as in La Terre Paternelle, farming is the preferred occupation for patriotic Québécois. So, despite losing the ancestral SEIGNEURIE, Charles and Marichette are fortunate. They inherit land and Marichette is an early portrait of Maria Chapdelaine. The dominant ideology is one occupation: farming; one language: French; and one religion: Catholicism. It resembles French absolute monarchy: one language, one religion, except that the monarch is a farmer.

However, the cast of this novel includes an Englishman to whom Charles loses the ancestral land. So, although there was only a treaty, the Treaty of Paris (1763), not altogether a “conquest,” Charles reenacts the loss of his land to the British and the Englishman happens to be an “ugly” Englishman. Losing one’s land becomes the national plight and in Chauveau’s Charles Guérin the land is lost to a conniving Englishman. They therefore re-lives the Battle of the Plains of Abraham down to the ethnicity of the “conqueror.” 

In a letter his mother does not read until after he has left, Pierre Guérin writes that he would like to be a businessman, but not a Wagnaër, as Mr Wagnaër and people of his ilk destroy the forests as though there were no tomorrow. The forest is the land. Once the foreigner conquers the land, he destroys it.  

Moreover, Charles Guérin, in discussions with his friends, says that he fears the Canadien will lose his language, a language he cannot dissociate from the Canadien‘s religion.  

Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau was a brilliant and enormously successful man. He was as accomplished as an individual can be. So I will end by saying that the author of Charles Guérin is and is not Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau. Chauveau’s novel reveals a dispossessed innermost self: the fictitious Charles. Yet, the author or public Charles was the Honourable Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, the first premier of the Province of Quebec.   

Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify the artist whose art work I have used. These are lovely works of art. Chauveau was a member of the École littéraire de Québec and members, including historian François-Xavier Garneau, a close friend, met at Crémazie’s Bookstore, la Boutique à Crémazie Chauveau was born in Charlesbourg near Quebec City. There were years he had to spend in Ottawa, but he lived in Quebec City and Quebec City is where he died.

________________________
 
[i] Not to be confused with Marichette, the pen name for Acadian author Émilie C. LeBlanc (1863-1935).
[ii] Maria Chapdelaine can be read online in either English or French: 
Maria Chapdelaine  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4383/4383-h/4383-h.htm EN
Maria Chapdelaine  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13525/13525-h/13525-h.htm
 

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