In a paper he wrote in 1968 for the colloquium “Recherche et littérature canadienne-française,” later published in a book of the same title, David M. Hayne traced the beginnings and development of French-Canadian studies at the University of Toronto. His overview covered slightly more than eighty years and began with a reference to the study undertaken by John Squair in 1887 on the French lexicon and pronunciation of the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré area. Hayne referred to Squair’s research as “une des premières enquêtes linguistiques menées au Canada français par un anglophone” and noted that throughout his long career,

Squair “maintint ses contacts avec ses amis québécois et joua un rôle appréciable dans l’organisation de la collection de livres canadiens-français conservés à la Bibliothèque générale de l’Université de Toronto.”

Before Squair’s retirement in 1916, F.C.A. Jeanneret was already on the staff of University College and, according to Hayne, was to do more than anyone else “pour créer à Toronto et partout au Canada anglais un climat de compréhension pour tout ce qui se rattachait à la vie et à la culture canadiennes-françaises.” On Professor Jeanneret’s initiative, French-Canadian texts were first included in 1932, in the course treating French literature since 1915. The earliest course exclusively dedicated to French-Canadian letters was established in 1938 as an option for

fourth-year students in the Honours programme. In 1965, a banner year for Quebec letters in the midst of the Quiet Revolution, the number of hours allotted to this course would more than double (from twelve to twenty-five), and it would be offered to third-year students.

The first graduate course on French-Canadian literature, centred on the novel, was initiated by Jeanneret in 1949. This single course, taught by Hayne after Jeanneret’s retirement, multiplied into several literature courses during the turbulent sixties, when the Canadian constitutional crisis came into sharper focus. The presence in the University College Department of French, first as visiting professor, then as a regular staff member, of Réjean Robidoux, a leading specialist in what was beginning to be called Québécois literature, helped expand the number of offerings.

Another former professor of the Université d’Ottawa and a prominent poet, Cécile Cloutier also joined the University College staff in the mid 1960s and began giving courses on Quebec poetry.

At the same time, under the leadership of Pierre Léon, founder of the Experimental Phonetics Laboratory, linguistic courses turned some of their attention to aspects of Canadian French, and eventually a number of doctoral theses in this area would be produced. The first six doctoral theses in the area of French-Canadian literature and linguistics were completed at the University of Toronto in the years 1953-68. The students were able to benefit from the vast holdings in these areas of the University of Toronto Library, especially with regard to the French regime and the period since 1920. The library’s periodical holdings were also considerable.

Staff at the University of Toronto made other important contributions. An annual review of major French-language literary publications in Canada had been launched in 1937 by Felix Walter in the University of Toronto Quarterly. Indeed, that journal has presented, in its “Letters in Canada” issue, the longest continuous annual review of francophone letters in the country. Since 1972 it has had exemplary parallel sections dealing with anglophone and francophone fiction, poetry, and drama, and some of Quebec’s best-known, as well as developing, critics have contributed to these columns. Professors Jeanneret and Hayne were named to the newly established Honorary Advisory Board of the Quarterly in 1955, and the latter became associate editor in 1965, thus signalling the increased importance of Quebec letters in the journal and beginning a practice that has continued until the present of having a member of the Department of French as associate editor, the

editor being traditionally chosen from the English Department.

Among other contributions made by the University of Toronto to Quebec studies cited in Hayne’s 1968 overview were a number of important books on Quebec letters published by the University of Toronto Press; the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, to which a number of members of the French Department have contributed; public lectures at the university touching on the Quebec field, beginning with that of critic Camille Roy in the 1920s; honorary doctorates given to Gratien Gélinas and Anne Hébert; and the involvement of members of the department in television and radio programmes.

During the last twenty-five years, there has been a significant expansion in the treatment of Quebec literature and French-Canadian linguistics at the university. In

the early 1970s an introductory course for all literature specialists was created: Studies in French-Canadian Literature. Also during the seventies, seminars were launched in faculty members’ areas of interest, and a number of these were in the Quebec field and dealt with such themes as the role of women in French-Canadian literature, nationalism and revolution in the literature of Quebec, and autobiographical works. Graduate courses presented in the seventies included the poetry of Nelligan, Saint-Denys Garneau, and Anne Hébert, the novels of Gabrielle Roy, the literature of New France, and literature and ideology. Soon after Pierre Léon arrived at the University of Toronto in 1964, he launched a course, Phonétique et Phonologie, with some attention to French-Canadian speech patterns. This interest was also reflected in other graduate courses, his own research and publications, and the work of the Experimental Phonetics Laboratory,

which he directed for most of its existence. It would not be until 1980-81, however, that a graduate course would be devoted exclusively to Canadian French.

Members of the Department of French have been involved in the creation of interdisciplinary courses on Quebec offered by extra-departmental programmes. Understanding Quebec, a full-year course on socio-historical, literary, and cultural aspects of the province, began in 1971, one year after the traumatic October Crisis. Initiated by B.-Z. Shek, it eventually became an integral part of the Canadian Studies Programme at University College. Courses on Quebec cinema and the French-language unit of the National Film Board were established within the University College Canadian Studies Programme or as part of the Cinema Studies Programme centred at Innis College.

Taking advantage of the facilities of the university’s Media Centre (first located at Scarborough College, then on the main campus), Shek produced sixteen televised programmes between 1969 and 1976 featuring interviews with major writers and round-table discussions on Quebec literature. This series, entitled “Visages des lettres canadiennes-françaises,” in which department members and visiting professors took part, has been used for classroom instruction and sold to other universities. The Media Centre has an important library of Quebec films of literary interest that were originally bought by University College and later by the University Department of French. In the 1970s University College also ran Ciné Cent-Six (later called Ciné Cent-Soixante-Dix-Neuf), a Friday film night that sometimes featured Quebec films and was eventually taken over by the combined department of French, before budget cuts forced it to close.

The publication French-Canadian Studies and Their Place in University French Departments: A Critique, by Donald Smith of Carleton University and colleagues, caused considerable discussion and debate across Canada when it appeared in 1972. Pierre Robert was asked by Principal A.C.H. Hallett of University College to draw up a reply to the criticisms made of the University of Toronto, with specific reference to courses and other activities in the college pertaining to French Canada. The University College Committee on Departmental Affairs felt that the Carleton publication limited itself unfairly to undergraduate courses and made no mention of the graduate area. Nevertheless, the Course Committee of the combined department of French gave careful consideration to this document in the fall of 1972 “with a view to further improvement” of the situation vis-à-vis Quebec studies.

Since 1978-79 every student specializing in French language and literature has had to complete at least one full-course equivalent in the area of French-Canadian literature. Also since that year, the Third Year Elsewhere programme has stressed study in France and Quebec equally; the departmental brochure has had a special section dealing with study at the Université Laval. The increased importance of French-Canadian studies has been highlighted symbolically in some departmental brochure covers in recent years; for example, in 1990-91, drawings by Suzor-Coté and Clarence Gagnon were used, to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Maria Chapdelaine.

In addition to the wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses that have been introduced, a number of ancillary activities have been organized by the college departments and the University Department of French. University College, for example, sponsored annual plays in French by the Cercle Français from the 1920s until well into the 1960s. But it was not until 1965 that a Québécois play, Marcel Dubé’s Le Temps des lilas, was staged. It was then taken on tour to Carleton and Queen’s universities. (This production, incidentally, included Paul Thompson, future director of the Tarragon Theatre and the National Theatre School, in a major role.) There were a number of semaines québécoises through the 1970s and 1980s, some mounted by Victoria and Scarborough colleges, and these have continued, although on a more modest scale, into the 1990s. The “Rencontres québécoises” in November 1992, for example, featured poet Gaston Miron and short-story writer

and novelist Marie José Thériault. Roch Carrier, Michel Tremblay, Jacques Godbout, Michèle Lalonde, Madeleine Gagnon, Louky Bersianik, Michel van Schendel, Gilles Vigneault, and others have appeared on campus to read from or perform their works and exchange views with students and faculty.

Members of the department helped organize two important cultural events featuring Quebec artists, musicians, actors, and writers sponsored by Hart House in collaboration with the Université de Montréal, which attracted thousands. Professors B.-Z. Shek, Cécile Cloutier-Wojciechowska, and Christina Roberts were members of the organizing committee of the “Festival québécois,” held in November 1971. Shek and Cloutier also helped plan the “Festival Toké” (Toronto-Québec) in October 1976. Since 1982-83, the department has organized mini-colloquia twice yearly with the Département d’Études Littéraires of the

Université du Québec à Montréal on a variety of topics, at which papers on Quebec literature have been read. Also, graduate student exchanges with uqam have taken place, and faculty members from each of the universities have taught in the other.

In 1992-93 new undergraduate programmes and programme requirements came into effect. A multi-disciplinary course, with emphasis on literature, An Introduction to Quebec Literature and Culture, was created. The basic introductory course for French specialists, An Introduction to Literary Methodology, has for some years included Québécois texts. Instruction on the Quebec novel courses has been divided into three half-courses with the designations “from the land to the city,” “the Quiet Revolution,” and “contemporary directions.” Half-courses on Quebec drama were similarly divided between “Gélinas, Dubé, Tremblay” and “contemporary

directions.” Other half-courses have treated Quebec poetry, Franco-Ontarian literature, the literature of New France, and French as a Second Language (fsl), with reference to la francophonie of North America.

In the linguistics area, the programme in the 1990s has included some stress in the General History of the French Language on “the spread of the language to other parts of the world through conquest and colonization and the evolution of the language thus transplanted (as in Canada).” In addition, there have been 400-level half-courses specifically dealing with French-Canadian language and the teaching of French as a second language, with emphasis on the “analysis of the most recent pedagogical materials published in France and North America,” and “various contemporary approaches to the teaching of French as a second language with reference to the theoretical issues and historical background” (this writer’s

emphasis). There have also been a full fsl course and two half-courses – on the language of business and the language of law – that gave some attention to French-Canadian usage. The new programme has allowed fourth-year students who enrolled in an independent study course the option of taking one or two graduate half-courses for fulfilment of their requirements. In both 1992-93 and 1993-94, one of the two courses permitted under this arrangement came from the area of Quebec literature. Since 1988-89, too, the Graduate Department of French has insisted that incoming ma students specializing in literature will have taken at least one full course in Quebec literature.