Writing Herself into Being: Quebec Women's Autobiographical Writings from Marie de l'Incarnation to Nelly Arcan

by Patricia Smart

Overview

WINNER - Prix du livre d’Ottawa 2016 WINNER - Prix Jean-Éthier-Blais 2015 WINNER - Prix Gabrielle-Roy 2014 FINALIST - Prix littéraire Trillium 2015 From the founding of New France to the present day, Quebec women have had to negotiate societal expectations placed on their gender. Tracing the evolution of life writing by Quebec women, Patricia Smart presents a feminist analysis of women’s struggles for autonomy and agency in a society that has continually emphasized the traditional roles of wife and mother. Writing Herself into Being examines published autobiographies and autobiographical fiction, as well as the annals of religious communities, letters, and a number of published and unpublished diaries by girls and women, to reveal a greater range of women’s experiences than proscribed, generalized roles. Through close readings of these texts Smart uncovers the authors’ perspectives on events such as the 1837 Rebellion, the Montreal cholera epidemic of 1848, convent school education, the struggle for women’s rights in the early twentieth century, and the Quiet Revolution. Drawing attention to the individuality of each writer while situating her within the social and ideological context of her era, this book further explores the ways women and girls reacted to, and often rebelled against, the constraints imposed on them by both Church and state. Written in a clear and compelling narrative style that brings women’s voices to life, Writing Herself into Being – the author’s own translation of her award-winning French-language book De Marie de l’Incarnation à Nelly Arcan: Se dire, se faire par l’écriture intime (Boréal, 2014) – offers a new and gendered view of various periods in Quebec history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773552661
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	11/10/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	565 KB

About the Author

Patricia Smart is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita of French and Canadian studies at Carleton University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Author's Note on the English Translation xi

Introduction 3

Part 1 Living And Writing For God: The Mystical Era 13

1 A Place for the Spirit: Canada as Dream and Reality in the Autobiographical Writings of the Women of New France 17

2 Writing the Annihilation of Self: Marie de l'Incarnation 33

Part 2 Writing For The Other: Correspondences, 1748-1862 67

3 Writing "To Tell You I'm Here": The Correspondence of Élisabeth Bégon 70

4 One Is Not Born a Mother, One Becomes One: Julie Papineau's Journey 88

Part 3 Writing For Oneself: The Private Diary, 1843-1964 115

5 Girls' Diaries: Steps towards an Autonomous Self 121

6 Two Nineteenth-Century Rebels: Henriette Dessaulles and Joséphine Marchand 146

7 Diaries of "Queens of the Hearth" 165

Part 4 Writing Oneself Into History: The Age Of Autoriography, 1965-2012 189

8 Claire Martin: The Courage of the Autobiographical "I" 193

9 Growing Up Poor in Montreal, 1930-1960: Lise Payette, France Théoret, Denise Bombardier, Marcelle Brisson, and Adèle Lauzon 210

10 Giving Birth to Oneself in Writing: The Struggle with the Mother 229

11 Trapped in the Image: Nelly Arcan's Autofictions 256

Conclusion 276

Notes 281

Bibliography 297

Index 311

Editorial Reviews

?Having been the only woman in a men?s world for much of my life, I found this marvellously written book an enchantment. Thanks to Patricia Smart?s perceptive readings of their letters, diaries, and autobiographies, Marie de l?Incarnation and the other foundresses of New France, as well as the women who followed them, come to life for the reader. This powerful and deeply moving book gave me a new perspective on the history of our country.? The Hon. Monique Bégin, PC, OC, FRSC


?A remarkable study that will remain a reference point. The research is colossal, the writing fluid ? The book of a lifetime, to be read and reread.? Jury, Ottawa Book Award


"Writing Herself into Being provides fascinating insight into the ways that women?s writing has changed?and remained painfully similar?over the past three and a half centuries." Literary Review of Canada

From the Publisher