Arthur de Bussières, poète, et l’Ecole littéraire de Montréal, suivi by Wilfrid Paquin, IC (review)

178 LETTERS IN CANADA 1986 Wilfrid Paquin, Ie. Arthur de BU5sieres, poete, et ['Ecole litteraire de Montreal, suivi des poemes d'Arlhur de Bussieres pub!i"s dans Les Bengalis el de quinze aulres poemes, retrollves par l'auteur Fides. 117. $15·95 This is both the latest and the earliest study in the collection issued by Fides in a 9- by 6-inch sideways format. The latest, being preceded by two other volumes devoted to writers of the same turn-of-the-century period, Louis-Joseph Beliveau (Paul Wyczynski) and Rodolphe Girard (Madeleine Dirschauer); the earliest, because it is drawn from the author 's 1958 PH D thesis with little updating. Arthur Bussiere, de Bussiere, or de Bussieres (all three forms are found in signatures and contemporary documents, although the nobiliary particle seems to have been added to create a pen name) was bam in Montreal in 1877 of a poor family. His father frequently changed jobs and addresses , and despite Brother Leon-Victor Paqttin's laborious searches, our knowledge of de Bussieres's youth and schooling remains spotty; the decade of his life between 1900 and 1910 is furthermore a complete blank. De Bussieres began publishing poems in newspapers in September 1896 and joined the Ecole litteraire de Montreal the following month. His friends included the poets Emile Nelligan, Charles Gill, Henry Desjardins , and Albert Lozeau. Working as a house- and sign-painter, and increasingly dependent upon alcohol, de Bussieres never managed to publish a volume of his verse, despite the offer of a subsidy from the Ecole litteraire. Almost unknown, he died of appendicitis at the age of thirtyfive . Eighteen years after de Bussieres's death, Casimir Hebert collected sixty-one of his poems, which he published as Les Bengalis (1931), a title found in one of the poet's notebooks. Later editors added inedits, notes and variants, but de Bussieres's production totals only seventy-six poems, more than two-thirds of them pamassian sonnets. Possessing a romantic sensibility that attracted him to themes of death, ephemeral beauty, nature, and love, de Bussieres reveals the influence of his French masters Baudelaire, Heredia, and Leconte de Lisle in his use of exotic settings, his recherche vocabulary, and his elaborate rhymes. A talented self-taught writer who has left some remarkable verse, he nevertheless remains a secondary and derivative poet. Paquin's book is a useful introduction to Arthur de Bussieres, his family and friends, and his work. It includes almost all that is known of the poet's life, although a few biographical statements appear to be made on the assumption that hearsay testimony from a religious or from living friends and relatives is beyond question. A genealogy of the family prepared by Jean-Paul Bussieres is reproduced on pp 8- 9; information aboutthe poet's friends is limited to what was known ofthem in 1958.The HUMANITIES '79 text of all the poems is reproduced, normally from the 1931 edition. Newspaper references for individual poems are given, but no variants: fortunately, the latter are provided in Robert Giroux's annotated edition of the poet's work (Sherbrooke: Editions Cosmos 1975). Finally, Paquin's bibliography (pp 109-15) lists no publications after 1958, thus omitting important recent articles by Paul Wyczynski and Odette Condemine, subsequently published documents like the correspondence of Charles Gill (edited by Reginald Hamel in 1969), and even Giroux's edition. In short, Paquin's work, although impressive as a pioneering study in its time, reminds us of the advances made in Quebec literary studies over the past thirty years. (DAVID M. HAYNE) Louis Hernon, Itineraire de Liverpool d Quebec Quimper, Cercle culturel quimp~rois ('Calligrammes') 1<)85. 9). $1).00 Colloque Louis Hernon. Quimper Quimper, Fondation Louis Hernon ('Calligrammes'). 2)0. $10.00 The celebration of the centenary of the birth of Louis Heman in 1980 stimulated much critical and literary activity on both sides of the Atlantic, such as the publication of Nicole Deschamps and Ghislaine Legendre's edition of Maria Chapdelaine, recit du Canada frant,ais, the first to follow the original typescript, as well as Deschamps's and her colleagues' essential LeMythe de Maria Chapdelaine. In France, there was a colloquium dedicated to Heman in his birthplace, Brest. The Quimper colloquium of 1985 was a follow-up, with stress on Heman's writings other than the seminal work set in Quebec. Another offshoot of these events is the publication of Heman's diary of his crossing of the Atlantic on his way to Canada in October 1911. In her 'Avant-Propos' to this latter text, the author's daugher, Lydia Kathleen, refers to an earlier private printing of the travelogue, and therefore characterizes it as 'quasiment un inedit: She also notes that the original ofthis journal has been lost, and that the text has been established from a photocopy which was provided to her by an unnamed 'quebecois bibliophile.' This underlines that we do not as yet have a critical edition of the Itineraire ... , the present one lacking totally in explanatory notes as to sources, time of writing and/or editing, place of same, etc. Some years ago, when perusing Alfred Ayotte and Victor Tremblay's L'Aventure Lnuis Hernon (1974), in which numerous quotes from the diary were included, I was struck by the relevance of many of these for an understanding of the structure and thrust of Maria Chapdelaine. Now, after reading the entire text, this first impression has been fully confirmed. What is fascinating is that Heman already anticipated the ...