This dissertation examines nineteenth-century Canadian fiction in relation to the cultural context from which it emerged. The first three chapters present the difficulties which undermined the development of the novel in a conservative colonial community. Chapter I surveys the literary nationalists who called for the establishment of a distinctive Canadian literature and deplored the apathy of the Canadian public; chapter II documents Victorian Canada's suspicion of the novel as a valid literary form; chapter III looks at the problem of finding valid material for fiction in a recently settled land which appeared to lack the historical and cultural associations presumed necessary for literature. The fourth and fifth chapters provide the critical focus of this dissertation by analyzing nineteenth-century Canadian discussions of the theory of the novel. Sara Jeannette Duncan, post-Confederation Canada's most radical literary critic, argued consistently that the romantic novel was obsolete. Despite Duncan's vigorous promotion of Howellsian realism, most Canadians remained faithful to the standard of Sir Walter Scott, and read and wrote romantic fiction conforming to the moral and aesthetic principles outlined by Goldwin Smith in his 1871 address on "The Lamps of Fiction." The opposition between Duncan's realism and Smith's romanticism provides an indigenous critical framework in which to evaluate the work of nineteenth-century Canadian novelists. The last four chapters examine the efforts of Canadian writers to fit Canadian materials to the forms and conventions of popular romance. Chapter VI shows how John Richardson's search for exciting Canadian subjects suitable for the romance of high adventure was repeated by other writers throughout the century. Chapter VII discusses Victorian Canada's taste for historical romance as part of a movement to discover and recover Canadian history, and analyzes An Algonquin Maiden (1887) by G.M. Adam and E.A. Wetherald as a deliberate effort to prescribe historical romance as the proper mode for Canadian fiction. Most novelists interested in history abandoned English Canada for Acadia and Quebec, however, and their work is the subject of Chapter VIII. William Kirby's The Golden Dog (1877) provided a prototype for historical fiction about Quebec; the work of Susan Frances Harrison and Duncan Campbell Scott epitomizes the imaginative importance French Canada held for English Canada. Even when nineteenth-century writers turned to everyday experience their treatment of ordinary life was tinged by their taste for romance and didacticism, as Chapter IX shows. With a few exceptions, Canadian writers refrained from realism until many years after the route to modernism was indicated by Duncan Campbell Scott's stories of the North and Sara Jeannette Duncan's novel, The Imperialist (1904). / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Since 1960, the first-person narrative form has dominated the Quebec novel. As first-person novels often imitate non-fiction forms (autobiographies, diaries, etc.), it follows that this narrative choice would involve a certain degree of self-revelation. We will see though that this is not the case in the "nouveau roman" of Quebec. In fact, the Quebec narrator employs a number of techniques to distance him or herself from the "I" that is the object of the narrative. / In this work, we will attempt to identify some of the main characteristics of this new face of the Quebec novel. We will start with an exploration of two novels from the pre-1960 period: Maria Chapdelaine and Poussiere sur la ville. We will then study the contemporary era through our choice of four of Quebec's most famous novels: Le Libraire, Prochain episode, Kamouraska and L'Hiver de force. We will see that the "nouveau roman" is not as "personal" as its form suggests and that the distance between the narrator and his or her "self" is not only a constant but is also an evolving characteristic of the Quebec novel. / This work is therefore a study of the contemporary Quebec novel and its narrative properties, and of the distance that the narrator imposes between his or her present and past self.

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This thesis examines the role of Canadian women as presented in English language novels of the 1930s written by women authors. Within the context of the Great Depression it focuses on issues that are central to women's daily lives such as work, love, marriage and motherhood. It also isolates recurring themes in the novels and attempts to understand the authors' messages within their social context. Social reform, politics and gender relationships are among the subjects explored.

According to Francois Ricard in La generation lyrique: essai sur la vie at l'oeuvre des premiers-nes du baby-boom , the group born in Quebec during the decade immediately following the Second World War is primarily characterized by "[...] un amour eperdu de soi-meme, une confiance categorique en ses propres desirs et ses propres actions, et le sentiment d'un pouvoir illimite sur le monde [...]" (p. 8). / The objective of the present research was to determine more precisely whether the first novel of writers of the lyric generation reflected the spirit particular to that generation, in what way and to what extent. In other words, the present work consisted of either confirming or invalidating Ricard's hypothesis by analysing it in the light of the literary works themselves. / Twenty-three novels were chosen according to the year of their publication (1967--1975) and the age of the authors at the time of publication (between 21 and 31 years). / An analysis of the works clearly confirmed Ricard's intuition: egocentricity and introspection, revolution and reinvention of literary style and narcissism were consistently present in the novels studied. These characteristics stem from a clear dominance of the autodiegetic narration style, the control of elements of time and space by the narrator, who is often personally identifiable with the author and finally from an upheaval of scriptural standards. The thematic of the style of writing as an outlet, a pleasure or an experimentation is ever present. The narrators themselves dominate the stage and their narcissistic personalities are evident throughout.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke, 1996. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université d'Ottawa, 1997. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Thèse (Ph.D.)--Université Laval, 2001. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Thèse (Ph.D.)--Université de Sherbrooke, 1999. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.