L'Acadie littéraire d'Antonine Maillet : représentation permanente de l'Acadie imaginaire et populaire.

Abstract

This thesis explores the question of the territoriality of Acadie and tries to put forward its imaginary and popular character and representation, through the work of the Acadian author Antonine Maillet, as a symbol of recuperation of the lost territory of the Acadians. ince the Deportation of 1755, the Acadians have been deprived of a territory and they had to recreate an imaginary Acadie from the familiar images contained in their collective memories and their culture, and by using the images and the landscapes of the places they now occupy. Since the turn of the century, this imaginary and popular image of Acadie acquired a permanent status through the emerging Acadian literature. Antonine Maillet, a major figure of that literature, recreated, in her work, that image of Acadie. Her literary Acadie is now the permanent expression of the imaginary and popular Acadie of the Maritimes. She brought an end to the quest for the lost territory of the Acadians. The literary analysis and interview presented here seems to confirm that the literary Acadie of Antonine Maillet: (1) is shown to us as the permanent expression of the imaginary and popular representation of Acadie; (2) contributes to the revival and the recreation of that Acadie by bringing to it new images; (3) symbolises the territorial reappropriation of the lost Acadie.