La verve Rabelaisienne dans un corpus de romans Québecois et Antillais contemporains

Abstract

This thesis investigates a corpus of contemporary Quebec and French West Indian novels using a mainly formal approach, based on the concepts of stylistics as a deviation from the norm, and to a lesser extent, of magical realism. Both of these - along with reference to additional tools such as literary play - combine to shape our concept of 'Rabelaisian Verve'. The idea stems from the fact that much contemporary Quebec and French West Indian prose fiction displays exuberance of language and imagination, which are to be found in Rabelais' own oeuvre. Therefore, a seemingly heterogeneous corpus conceals substantial analogies. These stem, amongst others, from the shared origins of the first settlers, distance from the normative pressure of France and a multilingual context. Even though the Renaissance writer has been the subject of numerous analyses, none of these could be sourced to the French expression 'Rabelaisian verve'. This thesis represents an attempt to address this gap.