Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

Books in Review
the first group around La Relève and La
Nouvelle Relève, the second around Liberté
and Les Éditions de l'Hexagone, and the
third around Parti Pris, La Barre du jour,
and La Nouvelle barre du jour. This grouping
of poets into "schools," while useful for
Dumont's framework, tends to reduce the
diversity of individual poets' positions by
focusing on the shared elements of their
discourse. As a result, writers' comments
are chosen as much for their ability to
demonstrate adherence to a larger current
of thought as to represent the position of
their author. In addition, in the interest of
clarifying his argument, Dumont ends up
being redundant: the three topoï that he
identifies are underlined again and again in
the introductory and concluding sections
of each chapter. Although the body of his
essay is limited to the discourse of poets in
Quebec, Dumont opens and closes his
study with references to European-based
debates; he opens with Sartre's view of the
role of poetry during the Resistance and
closes by discussing the concepts of modernity
and postmodernity. He concludes that
the advent of modernity in Québec signified
a change from the idea of unity to a
valorisation of conflict and rupture, but
this statement may well be too sweeping
given the initial definition of his topic.
The notion of unity also underlies Paul
Chanel Malenfant's study of Fernand
Ouellette and Roland Giguère. This unity
can be found in each poem: "le poème
recrée le monde en un monde unifié... ."
The title of his book, La partie et le tout,
sums up the approach he takes to the work
of both poets: by analysing two representative
poems in great detail, he proposes to
establish thematic links to the entirety of
their work. For Malenfant, "Le poème se
présente alors comme une oeuvre unique,
l'oeuvre comme un poème multiple."
Unlike some of the poets surveyed by
Dumont, Malenfant rejects the possibility
of poetry representing life, favouring
instead the idea that each poem and the
larger work to which it contributes possesses
an internal cohesion and unity with
only a weak relation to the referential society.
Ironically, this view is far removed
from the notion of "engagement" that
Dumont emphasizes as having variously
influenced the poetry of Quebec.
Malenfant, a prolific poet himself, takes a
thematic approach to the study of the two
poems in question, "Et nous aimions" by
Fernand Ouellette and "Roses et ronces" by
Roland Giguère. At the end of each analysis,
he establishes a repertory of themes
identified over the course of his reading.
The recurring themes of "profondeur" and
"abîme" which link the work of both poets
are borrowed directly from Jean-Pierre
Richard's Poésie et Profondeur, an analysis
of Baudelaire, Nerval, Rimbaud and
Verlaine. Indeed, Malenfant openly
embraces Richard's approach to reading
poetry, an approach which is subjective and
personal, a sensitive reaction to a poet with
whom the critic necessarily feels a certain
affinity. No "grille de lecture" is applied, no
critical stance is taken; the critic does not
pretend to come to any conclusions about
the work in question. The reader attempts
instead to enter into the text, to get "underneath"
the words. For Malenfant, "tout l'effort
de cette lecture consiste à rapprocher la
conscience critique du sujet écrit, du sens
lu." More questions are raised by reading
the poetry than are answered, and thematic
fields are identified as global aspects of the
work in question. Although he occasionally
lapses into subjective readings influenced
by his own work as a poet, Malenfant does
use structuralist theory and relies on the
work of Bachelard to support his interpretations.
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