Writing herself into being : Quebec women's autobiographical writings from Marie de l'Incarnation to Nelly Arcan / Patricia Smart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smart, Patricia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French-Canadian literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

French-Canadian literature.

French-Canadian diaries--Québec (Province)--History and criticism.

French-Canadian diaries.

Intimacy (Psychology) in literature.

Québec (Province)--Biography--History and criticism.

Québec (Province).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (322 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal, [Quebec] : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.

Summary:

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and autobiographical fiction, as well as the annals of religious communities, letters, and a number of published and unpublished diaries by girls and women, to reveal a greater range of women’s experiences than proscribed, generalized roles.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.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author's Note on the English Translation

Introduction

Living and Writing for God: The Mystical Era

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

Writing the Annihilation of Self: Marie de l'Incarnation

Writing for the Other: Correspondences, 1748–1862

Writing “To Tell You I'm Here”: The Correspondence of Élisabeth Bégon

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

Writing for Oneself: The Private Diary, 1843–1964

Girls' Diaries: Steps towards an Autonomous Self

Two Nineteenth-Century Rebels: Henriette Dessaulles and Joséphine Marchand

Diaries of “Queens of the Hearth”

Writing Oneself into History: The Age of Autobiography, 1965–2012

Claire Martin: The Courage of the Autobiographical “I”

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

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

Trapped in the Image: Nelly Arcan's Autofictions

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed November 17, 2017).

ISBN:

9780773552654

0773552650

9780773552661

0773552669

OCLC:

1007071760