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Car Iii aussi, l'auteur rejette les idees re~ues pour privilegier la plus grande et la plus libre alterite. Visiblement iI I'aise dans des domaines varies, Fran~ois Ricard nous propose dans ce rectleil d'articles une reflexion stimulante et originale sur maints aspects de l'ecriture, de la lecture et de leur espace commun: la culture. (JANET M. PATERSON) Paul Wyczynski. Louis-Joseph Bt!liveau et la vie litteraire de son temps, suivi d'un Album-Souvenir par l'Ecole litteraire de Montreal Fides 1984. 189· $14·95 For the past quarter of a century, the dean of Quebec's literary historians, Paul Wyczynski, has been collecting, interpreting, and disseminating information about the Ecole litteraire de Montreal (1895-1935) and its most gifted poet, Emile Nelligan. Wyczynski's latest contribution to this continuing investigation is an illustrated biography ofa minor member of the movement and its sometime treasurer, Louis-Joseph Beliveau. The volume is in three parts, the brief biography (pp 11-43) being followed by a selection of Beliveau's poems and by a poetic album prepared by his colleagues in the Ecole litteraire. 'La vie de Louis-Joseph Beliveau: his biographer admits (p 15) 'n'est pas marquee d'evenements extraordinaires.' Born in Montreal ofAcadian stock in 1874, Beliveau took a commercial course at the new Mount Saint-Louis academy of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, was for a time abookseller and small publisher, and then settled down to a career in journalism, largely in Montreal and Quebec City, but also in the New England States. An aspiring poet in his youth, he moved naturally into the Ecole litteraire, becoming its treasurer in 1898, and reading six of his compositions at its meetings. His fifty poems, written for the most part during the 1890S, are undistinguished; Beliveau's literary activity is significant chiefly as an illustration of the intellectual revival that characterized turn-of-the-century Montreal. Wyczynski nevertheless reproduces more than half the poems, along with a selection of poetic prose passages in the second section of the book (pp 45-88), and points out that at least one of the proses, 'Si j'etais poete: deserves a place in anthologies of Quebec literature. In purely literary terms, however, the principal interest of the volume lies in its third part (pp 89-181), the Album-Souvenir presented to Beliveau by ten of his friends in the Ecole litteraire on the occasion of his marriage in September 1897. The album is minutely described and reproduced in facsimile with a concise introduction and biographies of the ten contributors . Each of the latter has written his contribution by hand, usually in the elegant copperplate script of the period, making of the album both a HUMANITIES 223 calligraphic collection and a poetic anthology. The most interesting page for the modern reader is that signed by 'Emil Nelighan: who had known Beliveau at Mont Saint-Louis and who offered his sonnet 'Salons allemands: The album, photographs, and other documents reproduced in the book have been made available by M. Jean Beliveau, son of Louis-Joseph. With this handsomely illustrated and scrupulously annotated volume, Fides appears to be inaugurating a new collection devoted to little-known Quebec authors of an earlier period. Wyczynski, for his part, has once again provided students and specialists with a unique document from Quebec's literary past, presented with his unequalled erudition. (OAYID M. HAYNE) Donald Smith, avec la collaboration de Gilles Dorion, R~jean Robidoux et Andr~ Vanasse. Gilbert In Rocque: !'Ecriture du r&ie QuebedAm~rique. '42· $9·95 11 est bon que ce premier ouvrage consacre aG. La Rocque depuis son deces soit Ie fruit d'une collaboration et revete ainsi des allures d'hommage collectif ii un grand romancier trop tot disparu, tout en offrant une introduction aux divers aspects thematiques et stylistiques de son ceuvre. Ce double but a pour consequence que Gilbert La Rocque: l'Ecriture du rtve s'adresse plutot au grand public cultive qu'aux specialistes ii qui il sera neanmoins utile aussi. La Rocque deplorait Ie peu de gout du public pour une litterature exigeante envers elle-meme comme envers ses lecteurs: on en saura d'autant...

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