William Chapman
William Chapman was a Canadian poet and writer born on December 13, 1850, in Beauceville, Quebec. He pursued his initial education in business at the Collège de Lévis but later became captivated by poetry, particularly in the French language. His literary career began in earnest with the publication of his first poem in a Canadian journal in 1870. Chapman briefly studied law at Université Laval, where he gained recognition for his poetry, but he did not complete his degree.
Throughout his life, he contributed to various newspapers, including La Patrie and La Minerve, where he published numerous poems and essays. His poetry collections, such as Les Feuilles d'érable and Les aspirations: Poésies canadiennes, received critical acclaim and earned him several awards, including recognition from the French Academy. Chapman was also involved in literary criticism and published works that critiqued fellow writers. He married Emma Gingras in 1909 and continued to write until his death on February 23, 1917, in Ottawa. His contributions to Canadian literature remain significant within the context of the Francophone literary tradition.
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Subject Terms
William Chapman
Writer
- Born: December 14, 1850
- Birthplace: Saint-François de Beauceville, Quebec, Canada
- Died: February 23, 1917
- Place of death: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Biography
William Chapman was born on December 13, 1850, in Saint-François parish in Beauceville, Quebec, Canada. His parents were George William Chapman and Caroline Angers. From 1862 to 1867, Chapman studied business at the Collège de Lévis, but he was driven to distraction by his interest in poetry, particular French verse. It was during these years that he decided that he would become a poet. After his graduation, he worked as a notary’s clerk and served briefly in the Canadian militia during the time of the Fenian raids in 1870.
Chapman published his first poem, “Reste toujours petit,” within the pages of La Revue canadienne in 1870. He studied law at the Université Laval from 1873 to 1874, but he did not finish the course. He did, however, enter a poetry competition at the university, and his poem “L’Algonquine” received a mention. Les Québecquoises, his first collection of poetry, was published in Quebec in 1876.
In 1881, Chapman wrote a pamphlet on mining for the government, titled Mines d’or de la Beauce. He worked as a writer and translator for the Montreal newspaper La Patrie from 1883 to 1884. The position offered him a forum in which to publish several poems and columns. After leaving La Patrie, he spent a brief period of time in the United States. Upon Chapman’s return to Montreal, he worked from 1884 to 1889 at La Minerve, a daily newspaper in which he published poetry and essays.
In 1890, Chapman published a second collection of poetry, titled Les Feuilles d’érable, which won a medal of honor in a competition at the Académie des Palmiers in Paris. In 1894, he published two books of literary criticism, Le Lauréat: Critique des œuvres de M. Louis Fréchette and Deux copains, in which he criticized the poetry of Fréchette.
He continued to write verse and in 1904 published the poetry collection Les aspirations: Poésies canadiennes, which garnered him the award of the Prix Archon- Despérouses by the French Academy in that same year. His collection Les rayons du nord was published in 1909 in Paris, where Chapman’s work proved to be most popular. Chapman also married Emma Gingras on September 28, 1909. He published his final collection of poetry, Les fleurs de givre, in Paris in 1912, and he received two medals and three certificates of honor from the literary society Académie des Jeux Floraux in France. He died in Ottawa on February 23, 1917.