Gérard Bessette

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Gérard Bessette

Gérard Bessette FRSC (born February 25, 1920 in Sainte-Anne-de-Sabrevois , Québec , † February 21, 2005 in Kingston , Ontario ) was a French-Canadian writer , literary critic and university professor .

Life

Studies, literary debut and first novels

After attending school, Bessette graduated from the school for primary school teachers École normal Jacques-Cartier , which he graduated in 1944. He was then a teacher at the University of Saskatchewan between 1946 and 1949 and already wrote his first poems such as Le Coureur , with which he won second prize at the literary competition Concours littéraires du Québec . At the Olympic Summer Games in London in 1948 , he took part in the last art competitions held as a representative of Canada , in the literary discipline "Lyrical Works", which, however, was written by the Finnish poet Aale Tynni with the work "Hellaan laakeri" ("Hellas' fame") was won.

In the meantime, Bessette completed a postgraduate course at the University of Montreal , where he obtained a doctorate in French literature in 1950 . He then took over a professorship at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh , where he taught until 1958, before returning to Canada in 1958 and teaching at the Collège militaire royal du Canada in Kingston until 1960 . During this period he began publishing novels about Québec and Montreal society such as La Bagarre (1958), Le Libraire (1960) and Les Pédagogues (1961), in which he denounced the stifling influence of tradition on social and aesthetic standards .

Professor in Kingston, distinction and pioneer in psychoanalytic literary studies

In 1961 he accepted a professorship at Queen's University in Kingston and taught there until his retirement in 1979. After the publication of his novel L'Incubation (1965), which won both the Prix ​​du Québec and the Governor General's Prize ( Prix ​​du Gouverneur général ), literary critics have fully recognized the richness and originality of his writing as he ironically experimented with intimistic and contemporary forms of expressionism. In 1966 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

During this time, the anthology De Québec à Saint-Boniface: récits et nouvelles du Canada français (1968) and the co-author Histoire de la littérature canadienne-française (1968), two works that were directly linked to his teaching activities . During this time he also established his reputation as a pioneer of psychoanalytic literary studies in Canada with works such as Une Littérature en ébullition (1968), Trois Romanciers québécois (1973) and Mes Romans et moi (1979), although the development in this field of work was essentially the same was due to his previous teaching activity. In 1984 he was a guest writer at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) for some time .

The experimental forms begun in L'Incubation can also be found in his later works, such as Le Cycle (1971), Les Anthropoïdes (1977), Le Semestre (1979) and Les Dires d'Omar , which were also awarded the Governor General's Prize in 1971 Marin (1985). In 1980 he was awarded the prestigious Prix ​​Athanase-David for his oeuvre .

In 1988 he finally became a member of the Academy of Literature of Québec ( Académie des lettres du Québec ).

Publications

  • Poèmes temporels , 1954
  • La bagarre , 1958
  • Le libraire , 1960
  • Les images en poésie canadienne-française , 1960
  • Les pedagogues , 1961
  • L'emplâtre. Narrative. In: Les écrits. Revue littéraire, no 12, 1962
    • Übers. Walter E. Riedel: The plaster. in Canadian Contemporary Narrators. Ed. Armin Arnold, Riedel. Manesse, Zurich 1967, 1986, pp. 181-198
  • L'incubation , 1965
  • Une littérature en ébullition , 1968
  • De Québec à Saint-Boniface , 1968
  • Histoire de la litterature canadienne-francais par les textes. Des origines a nos jours , 1968
  • Le cycle , 1971
  • Trois romanciers québécois , 1973
  • La commensale , 1975
  • Les anthropoides , 1977
  • Le semestre , 1979
  • Mes romans et moi , 1979
  • Les dires d'Omer Marin , 1985
  • Préface pour la radio: 18 mars 1985 , 1985
  • Correspondance , 1994

literature

  • Glen Shortliffe: Gérard Bessette, l'homme et l'écrivain , 1965
  • Julia Agnes Berry: Le theme de l'étranger dans les oeuvres de Thériault, de Langevin et de Bessette , 1969
  • Alain Piette: Gérard Bessette. L'incubation et ses figures , 1983
  • Réjean Robidoux: La création de Gérard Bessette. Essai , 1987
  • Laur-Ann Hindy: La voi (e) (x) de l'espace. Gérard Bessette re-framing marginality , 1988

Web links

notes

  1. ↑ Les écrits
personal data
SURNAME Bessette, Gerard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French-Canadian writer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Sainte-Anne-de-Sabrevois , Québec
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 2005
Place of death Kingston , Ontario