French Canada's Search for a Homeland : A Literary Perspective

French Canada's Search for a Homeland : A Literary Perspective

Gill explores French Canadian societies through the lens of its literatures, particularly those coming from Quebec. He introduces his efforts with a brief illustration of the rise and fall of New France, where he claims that French Canadians have been left in a position of political defeat (whether or not they choose to accept it as such) for almost two centuries, and thus in a constant struggle for survival through the establishment of a political homeland. Up until recently, says Gill, the French Canadian search for such a home has been bolstered by the linguistic, religious, and otherwise cultural principles of "la survivance," and has been crucial to the persistence of Francophone Quebec. Oftentimes, as Gill will also point out, "la survivance" has been trumped more confidently by a "rayonnement," or a principal desire to spread one's own culture. We these ideas in mind, Gill traces the French Canadian experiences of political defeat and cultural persistence - the search for and development of a "homeland" - through their telling literatures. We see a fallen New France and a rising Quebec through images in fiction.

Gill, Robert M.

1978 Autumn

Journal Article

1600-1970, Quebec in literature

No

1943-9954

#2

102-115

American Review of Canadian Studies

8