Why Anglo fans argue poet Émile Nelligan deserves iconic status beyond Quebec
The 19th century francophone poet is best known for his poem, ‘Soir d’Hiver’
*Originally published on Jan. 9, 2024.
It's arguably Canada's saddest poem about the snow.
Ah ! comme la neige a neigé
Ma vitre est un jardin de givre.
So begins the most famous work by Quebec's best-known francophone poet, Émile Nelligan. The teenager wrote it in his bedroom in February 1899.
At the time, Nelligan's arrival in the Montreal literary scene marked a leap into modernity. He abandoned the traditional role carved out for poets in Quebec — namely, expressing patriotic sentiments.
Still, he became a figure of pride for Quebecers. Now some English-speaking Canadians think the rest of the country should seek out his poetry.
"I think [Nelligan] should be known from coast to coast," said Ian Allaby. His book of translations, Selected Verse of Émile Nelligan: Quebec's great lyric poet, came out in 2023.
Allaby told CBC's IDEAS that it would be great to see a regrowth of love for Quebec's literary culture among English-speaking Canadians.
A tragic life
That said, if Canada finds itself in need of unifying figures — at a time of protests against language policies in Montreal and a resurgent separatist party leading the polls — the iconic teenage Nelligan could make a good candidate.
"There's no figure like him in Canadian letters anywhere," said Montreal publisher Carmine Starnino.
He's sort of like the bastard child of Canadian poetry.- Carmine Starnino, Montreal publisher
Nelligan's father was an anglophone who insisted on speaking only English in the home. Nelligan's mother was a francophone who loved music and inspired her son's love of pianos, sombre romantic tunes, and the French language.
"He's sort of like the bastard child of Canadian poetry," Starnino said. "Two solitudes fuse into one."
Starnino describes Nelligan as an adolescent genius whose talents were tragically cut short after three years of intense production. Six months after composing Soir d'Hiver (Winter Evening), the young writer suffered a mental breakdown.
Nelligan's father sent his son away to live in a church-run hospital. Émile spent the next 42 years in psychiatric institutions. His father never visited him. His mother visited only once.
Shifting villains
With his public voice silenced, Nelligan became a near-mythic figure in Quebec culture, according to Pascal Brissette, a professor of literature at McGill University.
Often, his tragic life story has fed feelings of resentment against English-speaking Canada.
For instance, in playwright Michel Tremblay's storyline for the opera, Nelligan, the anglophone father comes across as something of a villain.
Brissette has seen the blame for Nelligan's downfall land in different places, depending on who is telling the tale.
"We re-tell Nelligan's story, but we tell it a little differently, changing the role of the bad guy to this or that person," said Brissette.
"So you can read the dominant ideology of an era into how it speaks about Nelligan."
For some, the villain was Nelligan's English-speaking father. For others, the Catholic church is to blame. Nelligan was writing at a time when Montreal's clergy wanted to clamp down on literary life, particularly printed material espousing liberal ideas.
Nelligan embedded in Quebec culture
After Nelligan entered an asylum, a supportive priest worked with Nelligan's mother to gather and publish the young genius' work. Even though the priest, Eugène Seers, used a fake name to do this work, his involvement in the new Montreal poetry movement ended his own association with the church.
"This is a Catholic priest who takes on this pseudonym, becomes a mentor to Nelligan, but then had to leave the church because his superiors were really upset that he was handling this heretical work," explained Starnino.
"It's fantastic," added Starnino. "It's like a movie. It's two movies!"
Hamilton poet Marc Di Saverio is one of a new generation of Canadian anglophones who have found kinship with Émile Nelligan. Di Saverio is the author of another recent book of translations, Ship of Gold: the Essential Poems of Émile Nelligan.
It includes a rendition of Nelligan's Soir d'Hiver:
O how the snow has snowed
My windowpane's a yard of frost
O how the snow has snowed
What is this will to live my most, despite this pain in me, in me?
– Excerpt from Winter Evening, by Marc Di Saverio (translating Émile Nelligan's Soir d'Hiver)
For Geneviève Breton, host of the YouTube channel Ma Prof de Français, getting to know Soir d'Hiver is an important part of Quebec culture.
Her site provides materials on the language and heritage of Quebec to immigrants to the province.
Breton says that among her francophone social circle, even people who are not fans of poetry have heard of Nelligan.
"When I ask them to give me one line Nelligan wrote, they all say, 'Ah comme la neige a neigé!" said Breton. "It seems to me it's the most known Quebec poem, and Émile Nelligan is without a doubt the best-known Quebecois poet."
She points to the poem's appearance in stand-up comedy routines as further evidence of how it has entered Quebec's pop culture and sense of identity.
'Exploring the inner landscape of the mind'
Nelligan's style in 1899 seemed modern because it largely eschewed patriotic sentiments, instead delving into the poet's own mental crises.
Nelligan and his friends mark a breaking point in Montreal literary culture, as poets rejected the role expected of them, especially by Catholic authorities at the time, according to Andrea Cabajsky, professor of comparative literature at the University of Moncton.
"Nelligan, along with other members of the so-called Literary School of Montreal, broke new ground precisely by exploring the inner landscape of the mind," Cabajsky told IDEAS.
"They were going against the grain of more orthodox views of what poetry should look like, should sound like, and what poetry's social role should be," said Cabajsky.
Download the IDEAS podcast to listen to this episode.
*This episode was produced by Tom Howell.
Guests in this episode:
Andrea Cabajsky is a professor of comparative literature at the University of Moncton.
Ian Allaby is the author of Selected Verse of Émile Nelligan, Quebec's great lyric poet, available from Petra Books.
Carmine Starnino is a poet and publisher in Montreal.
Marc Di Saverio is a poet in Hamilton. His books include Ship of Gold: The Essential Poems of Émile Nelligan.
Geneviève Breton is the creator of Ma Prof de Français, and its associated YouTube channel.
Pascal Brissette is a professor in the department of French language and literature at McGill University. His books include Nelligan dans tous ses états: un mythe national (Nelligan in all his states: the story of a myth.)
