Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau was a significant Canadian poet born in 1912 in Québec City, known for his unique blend of modern themes and classic poetic styles. With aristocratic roots and a fragile health condition, he often drew comparisons to 19th-century English Romantics and French Symbolists due to his use of symbolism and metaphor. Garneau initially pursued painting at the École des Beaux-Arts but shifted to writing in the late 1920s, achieving recognition with his poem "Dinosaurus." His notable 1937 poetry collection, *Regards et jeux dans l'espace*, is now considered a cornerstone of modern Canadian poetry, although it faced criticism upon release for its unconventional style and lack of punctuation. This distinctive approach aimed to convey immediacy in thought and emotion. Despite his talent, Garneau struggled with depression, reflecting themes of mortality in his work. He passed away at the young age of thirty-one in 1943 during a boating accident. His posthumously published journal, *The Journal of Saint-Denys Garneau*, provides insight into his personal struggles and artistic journey, further establishing his legacy in Canadian literature.
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Subject Terms
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
Poet
- Born: June 13, 1912
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Died: October 24, 1943
- Place of death: Ste-Catherine-de-Fossambault, Quèbec, Canada
Biography
While the poet Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau may be regarded as one of the most important Canadian poets of the first half of the twentieth century, in truth he seems more a man out of his time. With his aristocratic ancestry, his use of symbolism and metaphor to convey a hermetic, intensely private sensibility, and his delicate health, he might be more at home with the nineteen century English Romantics, or with the later French Symbolists, such as Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, or Paul Valéry. However, his material and thematic interests are at once modern and revelatory. Born in Québec in 1912, he lived in Québec City until he engaged in classical studies at Collège Sainte-Marie. In the mid-1920’s, he studied painting at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, a career that gave way to writing by the end of the decade, when his poem “Dinosaurus” won a poetry prize. His first essays appeared in Science and Art Review; in them, he writes about the similarities of the art forms. His paintings were exhibited at the Montreal Art Gallery in 1934, when a heart condition forced him to reevaluate both his health and the labor put into his art. Depression became an ever-present problem for Garneau, so that his poetry muses on death and its attendant insecurities.
His 1937 collection of poems Regards et jeux dans l’espace now finds acceptance as the best and most influential of modern Canadian poetry; however, when the volume first appeared, critics took a harsh view of the work, commenting on not only the intelligibility of the metaphors and symbols, the inconsistency of the poetic lines (which were written in free verse), but also remarking that its author knew nothing of punctuation. Garneau’s poetical works omit such structural “hinderances” for the impact of immediacy and the identification with one’s immediate thought and feeling, and the result is that punctuation does not always appear. Nonetheless, Garneau removed the work from circulation, an action that created more depression and despondency. In 1943, he died while boating on a lake; Garneau was thirty-one. Following his death, his journal, The Journal of Saint-Denys Garneau (1962), appeared; it is a fascinating work that explores the author’s confessions, fears, and daily life.