Storied Streets: Montreal in the Literary Imagination

A look at how Montreal’s history and growth has been mirrored in literature. The authors point out that the city has had different impacts on writers over the centuries. They wrote: "O God! O Montreal!" was Samuel Butler's frustrated cry in his satiric poem, "A Psalm of Montreal," published in 1878. Charles Dickens called it a "heart-burning place," and Harriet Beecher Stowe declared the city "a mountain of churches." Hugh MacLennan was more affectionate: "If this sprawling half-continent has a heart, here it is." They claim that Montreal is “the only major city in the world with a flourishing literary tradition in English and French. Its landscape, history, and cultures have been immortalized by Hugh MacLennan, Gabrielle Roy, Mordecai Richler, Michel Tremblay, Yves Beauchemin, and scores of others; the characters of Duddy Kravitz, Athanase Tallard, Florent Boissonneault, the Fat Woman Next Door, and Leonard Cohen's Suzanne have rooted themselves in the imagination of countless readers.”

Toronto & Montreal

Macfarlane Walter & Ross

2000

224p.

en

978-1-55199-044-6