L'oralité dans la littérature canadienne-française et québécoise

Abstract

Contrary to the situation in France, French Canadian and Quebec literature lays much greater importance on orality. The effect of the joual in texts and on stage in the period of 1950–1980 as well as the literary experience of writers such as Godbout (vécrire), Gauvreau (langue exploréenne), Ducharme, Tremblay, Renaud, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, Maillet and others reintroduce orality in the modern literary context. The paper attempts to clarify some causes and factors influencing the phenomenon: the linguistic and cultural circumstances during the colonization period, the tendencies towards a baroque expression leading to a scenografy of literary performances, cultural peripherization (19th and 20th century), linguistic and cultural emancipation and the pursuit of a new cultural identity—the québécitude.