Autopsie d'une oeuvre exquise : palimpsestes et réécritures chez Claude Mathieu
Claude Mathieu’s literary production, spanning from 1957 to 1965, differs quite a lot from the work of his contemporaries. Most often, they defend a modern nationalism and bring to the forefront Quebec’s society and territory. For his part, Mathieu discusses more general topics, such as time, art or erotism, inspired by French and foreign literature. This is rather original among Quebec writers of the 1960s. With this intertextual analysis, we seek to show the singularity of Claude Mathieu’s writing. We outline its main literary sources and influences in order to understand how he is inspired and how they guide his poetics. The analysis consists of two chapters. The first is devoted to the collection Vingt petits écrits ou le mirliton rococo. The texts studied are grouped into three sections, depending on the time of the references that support them, either Hellenic, classical or modern literature. The second chapter deals with La mort exquise, the most important work of Claude Mathieu. By analyzing the main pieces of this collection, we show how the influence of André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Jorge Luis Borges became larger than all the various references convened in the first collection of Mathieu’s short stories. We also show how these influences are absorbed and transformed to create an original writing.
Claude Mathieu Quebec literature intertextuality source criticism fantasy literature short stories