De French Town Au Testament Du Couturier: La Critique Face a Elle-Meme (Analysis of Works of Canadian Playwright Michel Ouellette) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Les litteratures minoritaires, telle la litterature franco-ontarienne, sont souvent lues et interpretees en fonction d'une grille de lecture identitaire qui etablit une correlation entre l'oeuvre lue et le contexte socioculturel d'ou elle emane. Ce fut le cas des premieres oeuvres de Michel Ouellette, dont sa piece French Town. Or, certains theoriciens et critiques des ecritures minoritaires ont denonce cet etat de fait. Cet article cherche a determiner si la critique a effectivement delaisse une telle grille de lecture. Pour ce faire, les auteures analysent et comparent la reception critique de French Town a celle du Testament du couturier. Minority literatures, such as Franco-Ontarian literature, have often been read and analyzed from the identity perspective as it relates to the socio-cultural context from which it originates. As a result, aesthetics and formal considerations were generally neglected by both critics and interpreters. Such was the case with Michel Ouellette's early work particularly his play French Town. However, in the mid 1990's, several critics and theoreticians, specializing in minority writings, have questioned this simplistic perspective, thus advocating a more literary approach. Hence, this article aims to verify the extent at which critics have truly abandoned their traditional method of reading minority literatures. In order to do so, the authors propose an analysis of the critical reception of French Town--between 1993 and 2003--and Le Testament du couturier--produced and published 10 years later.