Alfred DesRochers

October 5, 1901 (age 77)

Saint-Elie d'Orford, Quebec, Canada

Alfred was obliged to take on a variety of menial jobs, including work as a hardware store clerk, a delivery boy, a bushworker, and a foundry apprentice. In 1925 he started work at the newspaper La Tribune, a local paper based in Sherbrooke, a town near Saint-Elie d'Orford. His time at La Tribune proved to be fruitful, for it was there that he met several young writers, including Jovette- Alice Bernier and Eva Senecal. He also founded at that time the Societe des Ecrivains de l'Est (Society of Writers from the East), thus named because Sherbrooke was located in an area known as the Eastern Townships. This was the genesis of a literary movement that would flourish through the late 1920s and early 30s. DesRochers was the guiding light of this young group. Although they were a local organization, the society attracted writers from Montreal. Quebec, and even New England to its meetings. In 1928, DesRochers self-published his first book, L'Offrande aux vierges folles. in a limited edition. In the following year, he financed a second work titled A l'ombre de l'Orford. It was with this book that DesRochers began to receive critical acclaim. It was enthusiastically republished by Montreal's Librarie d'Action Canadienne-Francaise in 1930, with a preface written by Alphonse Desilets. These first two published works are generally seen to stand apart from the rest of DesRochers's oeuvre because of their clear organization and balanced style. A highly literate writer, DesRochers was able to masterfully handle several poetic forms, and treated various themes with equal merit and conviction. Published in 1929, А l'ombre de l'Orford is a collection of thirty-three poems. Among the various poems are dedicatory verses, a two-part cycle, sonnets, and long Poems. In addition to the formal variety, DesRochers reveals an aptitude for handling several themes as well. In one poem, DesRochers is a sensitive lover lost in Passion, while in another, he is a grounded realist who understands the life of a farmer. The figures from his bucolic and woodsy home become characters in his poetry: woodsmen, lumberjacks, craftsmen, and mill workers. The hard work, epic quality, and daily struggle of these laborers are explored in his poetry. DesRochers published one book in the 1930s, Paragraphes, for the Librairie d'Action Canadienne-Francaise. This edition of critical writing contains thirteen new and previously published articles. As a critical writer, DesRochers was a keen judge of Quebec authors and a defender of traditional verse. Unfortunately, many of his essays and reviews have not been collected in book form. During this time, he began extensive correspondence with several fellow writers, including Robert Choquette, Emile Coderre, Louis Dantin, Claude-Henri Grignon, Germaine Guevremont, Rina Lasnier, and Clement Marchand. DesRochers left LM Tribune to serve as a private in the Canadian army during World War II, and then as a Parliamentary translator in Ottawa. At this time, his literary output began to decline. After the war, he returned to the paper. In 1948, А Г ombre de TOrford was republished by the Montreal publisher Fides in a book that included Cycle du village and the poem "Ma Patrie." Two years later, DesRochers left La Tribune. He spent two years at Claire-Vallee, during which time he published an article for the periodical Les Carnets Viatoriens called "Louis Dantin et la generation perdue,'" about his longtime friend Louis Dantin, who was the dean of French-Canadian criticism at the University of Sherbrooke and who died in 1945. DesRochers then moved to Montreal and settled there, taking a position at the Canadian Press, again as a translator, from 1953 to 1956. After that three-year stint, he went into semiretirement. In 1963, DesRochers resumed his poetic career and published his first book of new poetry in over thirty years, Le Retour de Titus. under the University of Ottawa imprint. This book is a series of fifty "stances royales" inspired by the regal romance of Berenice and the Roman emperor Titus. The next year was cause for joy and sorrow: DesRochers received the Prix Duvernay, but his wife passed away. In 1967, the Montreal publisher Parti Pris issued DesRochers's Elegies pour l'espouse en-allee, a series of forty-nine elegiac sonnets in homage to his beloved Rose-Alma. DesRochers's final publication was the two-volume Oeuvres poetiques (1977), which was comprised of six unfinished series of poems and other unpublished verse brought together and annotated by Romain Legere. He died on October 12, 1978 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Alfred DesRochers

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translator poet

Background

Alfred DesRochers was born on October 5, 1901, to Honorius DesRochers, a farmer, and Zephirine Marcotte DesRochers, in Saint-Elie d'Orford, a small town near Montreal.

Education

As a boy, Alfred found inspiration in the daring lives of the "coureurs de bois" (wood-runners), of which his family had many. However, after his father's death, the young DesRochers had to leave his schooling.

Career

Alfred was obliged to take on a variety of menial jobs, including work as a hardware store clerk, a delivery boy, a bushworker, and a foundry apprentice.

In 1925 he started work at the newspaper La Tribune, a local paper based in Sherbrooke, a town near Saint-Elie d'Orford. His time at La Tribune proved to be fruitful, for it was there that he met several young writers, including Jovette- Alice Bernier and Eva Senecal. He also founded at that time the Societe des Ecrivains de l'Est (Society of Writers from the East), thus named because Sherbrooke was located in an area known as the Eastern Townships. This was the genesis of a literary movement that would flourish through the late 1920s and early 30s. DesRochers was the guiding light of this young group. Although they were a local organization, the society attracted writers from Montreal. Quebec, and even New England to its meetings.

In 1928, DesRochers self-published his first book, L'Offrande aux vierges folles. in a limited edition. In the following year, he financed a second work titled A l'ombre de l'Orford. It was with this book that DesRochers began to receive critical acclaim. It was enthusiastically republished by Montreal's Librarie d'Action Canadienne-Francaise in 1930, with a preface written by Alphonse Desilets. These first two published works are generally seen to stand apart from the rest of DesRochers's oeuvre because of their clear organization and balanced style.

A highly literate writer, DesRochers was able to masterfully handle several poetic forms, and treated various themes with equal merit and conviction.

Published in 1929, А l'ombre de l'Orford is a collection of thirty-three poems. Among the various poems are dedicatory verses, a two-part cycle, sonnets, and long Poems. In addition to the formal variety, DesRochers reveals an aptitude for handling several themes as well. In one poem, DesRochers is a sensitive lover lost in Passion, while in another, he is a grounded realist who understands the life of a farmer. The figures from his bucolic and woodsy home become characters in his poetry: woodsmen, lumberjacks, craftsmen, and mill workers. The hard work, epic quality, and daily struggle of these laborers are explored in his poetry.

DesRochers published one book in the 1930s, Paragraphes, for the Librairie d'Action Canadienne-Francaise. This edition of critical writing contains thirteen new and previously published articles.

As a critical writer, DesRochers was a keen judge of Quebec authors and a defender of traditional verse. Unfortunately, many of his essays and reviews have not been collected in book form. During this time, he began extensive correspondence with several fellow writers, including Robert Choquette, Emile Coderre, Louis Dantin, Claude-Henri Grignon, Germaine Guevremont, Rina Lasnier, and Clement Marchand.

DesRochers left LM Tribune to serve as a private in the Canadian army during World War II, and then as a Parliamentary translator in Ottawa. At this time, his literary output began to decline. After the war, he returned to the paper.

In 1948, А Г ombre de TOrford was republished by the Montreal publisher Fides in a book that included Cycle du village and the poem "Ma Patrie." Two years later, DesRochers left La Tribune. He spent two years at Claire-Vallee, during which time he published an article for the periodical Les Carnets Viatoriens called "Louis Dantin et la generation perdue,'" about his longtime friend Louis Dantin, who was the dean of French-Canadian criticism at the University of Sherbrooke and who died in 1945. DesRochers then moved to Montreal and settled there, taking a position at the Canadian Press, again as a translator, from 1953 to 1956. After that three-year stint, he went into semiretirement.

In 1963, DesRochers resumed his poetic career and published his first book of new poetry in over thirty years, Le Retour de Titus. under the University of Ottawa imprint. This book is a series of fifty "stances royales" inspired by the regal romance of Berenice and the Roman emperor Titus. The next year was cause for joy and sorrow: DesRochers received the Prix Duvernay, but his wife passed away. In 1967, the Montreal publisher Parti Pris issued DesRochers's Elegies pour l'espouse en-allee, a series of forty-nine elegiac sonnets in homage to his beloved Rose-Alma. DesRochers's final publication was the two-volume Oeuvres poetiques (1977), which was comprised of six unfinished series of poems and other unpublished verse brought together and annotated by Romain Legere.

He died on October 12, 1978 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Achievements

Considered one of the most important Quebec writers of the years between world wars, Alfred DesRochers's long literary career spanned over forty years and some eight thousand verses. In addition to writing poetry, he worked as a journalist and a literary critic and had an extensive correspondence with several writers of the 1930s and '40s. He published poems and articles of literary criticism in various periodicals, including Idees, Culture, Camets Viatoriens, and Liberte, and was an ardent supporter of traditional poetry.

DeRochers's accomplishment as a thoughtful, versatile, and well-versed writer was recognized during his lifetime. He received numerous prizes and was accorded distinctions that firmly established his reputation as one of the principal Quebec writers between the wars. In 1976, the University of Sherbrooke gave him an honorary doctorate, and in 1978, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the highest honors that can be awarded to a citizen of Canada.

Works

book
- Le Retour De Titus
- A l'ombre de l'Orford

Personality

Though DesRochers respected the Parnassian school of writing, which valued form over emotion, he was able to maintain a balance between a high poetic structure and a loose, realistic, and vernacular style. Whether he wrote a hymn, a sonnet or a rondeau, form was of utmost importance to DesRochers. However, his acute sense of form did not impinge on his ability to develop tone and sounds. He made good use of the language, and was often stylistically elaborate. His woodland upbringing and a family history steeped in the great outdoors and the rugged exploration of the "coureurs de bois" gave DesRochers a strong understanding and respect for the real lives of the laboring class, while his interest in the academic, formal qualities of poetry led him to explore the opulence of literary French.

Quotes from others about the person

"DesRochers was equally at home in celebrating the north wind in an epic hymn as he was in composing sonnets or rondeaux to praise the joys of the heart and of the flesh," said Giguere.

Connections

In 1925, DesRochers married Rose-Alma Brault, with whom he would father six children.

Father:: Honorius DesRochers
Mother:: Zephirine Marcotte DesRochers
Spouse:: Rose-Alma Brault
colleague:: Jovette-Alice Bernier
colleague:: Eva Senecal

References

Contemporary Authors New Revision: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields: 178

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