"Quebec Miron is incurable its language," Edouard Glissant.
When you start reading Rights Rapaillé Gaston Miron, the language sounds familiar, almost simple and natural. When you advance in reading, you doubt that more and more familiarity with the French language, the words collide, phrases grate, flay. And for good reason, Gaston Miron, born in Quebec, always seems torn between two languages, or at least struggling with a French language does not just happen because it faces the other, English and Quebecois. Miron's word is built on a lack of linguistic evidence and therein lies the strength of his poetry.
Miron is considered the national poet of Quebec, and we understand why: he questioned the words of its land, the place he always tried to live better. This place in which he refused to be foreign to itself.
In 1939, Miron discovers that her grandfather was illiterate. Then there is the own Bilingualism in Quebec, where English is the dominant language, and even the language of the ruler would Miron. "Which is my language, what is my place?" These two questions are one in Miron. One of the finest Quebec poems, "For my return, contains the basic question that runs through all his poetry in the place, here in Quebec. This poem appears in the section "Life agonal.
When you start reading Rights Rapaillé Gaston Miron, the language sounds familiar, almost simple and natural. When you advance in reading, you doubt that more and more familiarity with the French language, the words collide, phrases grate, flay. And for good reason, Gaston Miron, born in Quebec, always seems torn between two languages, or at least struggling with a French language does not just happen because it faces the other, English and Quebecois. Miron's word is built on a lack of linguistic evidence and therein lies the strength of his poetry.
Miron is considered the national poet of Quebec, and we understand why: he questioned the words of its land, the place he always tried to live better. This place in which he refused to be foreign to itself.
In 1939, Miron discovers that her grandfather was illiterate. Then there is the own Bilingualism in Quebec, where English is the dominant language, and even the language of the ruler would Miron. "Which is my language, what is my place?" These two questions are one in Miron. One of the finest Quebec poems, "For my return, contains the basic question that runs through all his poetry in the place, here in Quebec. This poem appears in the section "Life agonal.
To my repatriation
Man plowing burns from exile
by your love with your hands full of tough conquests
according your eyes rainbow sky buttressed in the winds
for cities and a land which you are native
I've never traveled
to another country my country you
one day I said yes to my birth
I wheat in the eyes
I speculate on your soil, moved, dazzled
by the purity of the snow beast raised
a man returns
from outside the world.
The section where it appears poem begins with two quotations, one of François Villon "In my country'm in a distant land" and one of Louis Aragon "In strange countries my country itself. " This makes sense if you think for Miron, Quebec will not be granted. It says so in a radio broadcast that the problem of Quebec is that they are "bilingual with themselves." The poem cited is remarkable in that it describes a man in exile in the place where he was born, a man who tries to find his homeland to meet her again even though he lives there. But living does not happen by itself. Precisely because the country where he lives has no language except English communication on one side, and the Quebec regionalist other. The only possible resolution to the poet c is poetry. It alone can make bearable the linguistic tension. "Rapaillé" in Quebec is a colloquial term meaning "gather scattered cases. The collection is thus built on a patchwork of art. The poet brings language, a mixture of slang words, terms and botanical words of love. Gather tones, mixes lyricism tone protest, call for insurrection and celebration.
The mixture of lyric and epic in tone ; this poem, but the formulations used, a close Miron Césaire singing the "return home". Like him, Miron plays on occasions, anaphora, choruses, the power of the prophetic future. Like him, he builds his poem on long breaths. We find similar images: that of the burn, the conquest of countries at once pure and land, much land as evidenced by the beautiful images of " wheat in the eyes "or " pure fool ". "I would have said yes to my birth" Miron writes, as Césaire who, in the Notebook of a return home , acquiesces to his blackness. This Quebec soil, often compared to a woman, who suffered, like the Caribbean. It is so called the "Mother Courage [...] big dreams of anthrax painful."
The mixture of lyric and epic in tone ; this poem, but the formulations used, a close Miron Césaire singing the "return home". Like him, Miron plays on occasions, anaphora, choruses, the power of the prophetic future. Like him, he builds his poem on long breaths. We find similar images: that of the burn, the conquest of countries at once pure and land, much land as evidenced by the beautiful images of " wheat in the eyes "or " pure fool ". "I would have said yes to my birth" Miron writes, as Césaire who, in the Notebook of a return home , acquiesces to his blackness. This Quebec soil, often compared to a woman, who suffered, like the Caribbean. It is so called the "Mother Courage [...] big dreams of anthrax painful."
terms specific to Quebec are becoming more important in the poems of Miron. The tension linguistics, the question about minority status are particularly striking in the texts, notably in Monologues disposition delusional. " In this text, Miron closer again Césaire by his rebellion, the power of his poetic inspiration and the assertion of an identity assumed:
[...]
here is my real life - prepared as a shed -
storage of History - I claim
I refuse a personal hello and defector
since I identify my condition humiliated
This determination comes as the desire to make Quebec actor its history. This desire is not much different from that Césaire. "The tornado Miron," according to the expression Edouard Glissant asserts in "The October":
we will make thee, Land of Quebec
bed resurrections
and miles of our dazzling metamorphoses
up where our starters the future
of our wills without concessions
men will hear your pulse beat in the history
's us waving in the fall of October
is the sound of red deer in the light
reached the future
and the future commitment.
Miron's poetry is an oral poetry, powerful, forcing the reader to read aloud. Beyond love poems, intimate questions, it is also with him a kind of collective destiny. So no regionalism in this work. It is also no coincidence that the preface to the book is written by Edouard Glissant who faced the same political and linguistic tensions. To meet
Miron, I advise listening to the show "Man rapaillé " at the end which means Gaston Miron read the poem "For a repatriation". This reading is particularly important because it has nothing to do with the reader's language. We hear the true language of Miron, one of the "r" rolled. So the authentic poetic material that is given to us to listen here: voice, tone, breath.
I also recommend listening to various interviews with the poet. Quebec language, so often mocked by the French, it takes a strange turn, we are invited to listen differently. Miron suggests a major problem when a language enriched it? At what time it is impoverished? Miron responds radically alienates English Quebecers. Because according to him, language is enriched when it produces new words, with shades of meaning when it is creative. The danger is great when served disappears Miron. "Tornado" protests against the language layer that will exercise more than empty shells and loses the true meaning of words. But beware the danger lies for him, not in a language other inputs, but in the use of a language in a formal way, which results in loss of meaning. language becomes sound and not of thinking.
Miron denounced the "colonial bilingualism", in other words the obligation to speak the same second language. About her seem surely be a bottle into the sea but it is nonetheless very relevant and very disturbing at a time when no one asks why we speak more English. This became a necessity. Miron's poetry responds to my opinion a very problem current as it conquers the freedom of language: "fly off the mouth of the English" . In this he proves that the strong response to the recess of thought and language is creation, it proves that the issue's linguistic can find a solution, not a political but poetic. Going even further: it shows that poetry and language are political.
I also recommend listening to various interviews with the poet. Quebec language, so often mocked by the French, it takes a strange turn, we are invited to listen differently. Miron suggests a major problem when a language enriched it? At what time it is impoverished? Miron responds radically alienates English Quebecers. Because according to him, language is enriched when it produces new words, with shades of meaning when it is creative. The danger is great when served disappears Miron. "Tornado" protests against the language layer that will exercise more than empty shells and loses the true meaning of words. But beware the danger lies for him, not in a language other inputs, but in the use of a language in a formal way, which results in loss of meaning. language becomes sound and not of thinking.
Miron denounced the "colonial bilingualism", in other words the obligation to speak the same second language. About her seem surely be a bottle into the sea but it is nonetheless very relevant and very disturbing at a time when no one asks why we speak more English. This became a necessity. Miron's poetry responds to my opinion a very problem current as it conquers the freedom of language: "fly off the mouth of the English" . In this he proves that the strong response to the recess of thought and language is creation, it proves that the issue's linguistic can find a solution, not a political but poetic. Going even further: it shows that poetry and language are political.
References:
Man rapaillé , Gaston Miron, preface by Edouard Glissant, Poetry Gallimard, 1999 (1970)
"Miron the rapailleur" Jean-Michel Maulpoix
CBC Archives Canada on Gaston Miron
A good article on "French pen"
CBC Archives Canada on Gaston Miron
A good article on "French pen"