Est-ce un royaume paisible? : image du pays a travers les contes choisis

Abstract

The purpose of this analysis is to discuss the panorama of stories in Quebec, having a strong cultural background and dialoguing with different traditions. The authors of the article first outline the past of the story, originally oral, but enriched in the nineteenth century by a written version thanks to many writers. Thereafter, they make an inventory of the most common characters and motifs of traditional storytelling. However, even if the story is undoubtedly an integral part of the literary and cultural heritage of Quebec as evidenced by a long tradition of storytelling, it is definitely not homogeneous as among Quebec stories one can find particularly those classified as historical, anecdotal and supernatural. On top of this, stories change considerably with transformations in the Quebec society in the first half of the twentieth century. Even today, stories and storytellers are a major element in the cultural landscape of Canada, whether in literature or in the mass media, including television and the internet. Throughout the last century the story had moments of glory and decline, with a real revival in the 1990s. In order to illustrate new trends in the story that overlap with the old tradition, the authors focus on the creation of Fred Pellerin, a young artist, author of several collections of written and oral stories, who uses patterns and characters of ancient stories by giving them quite modern accents.