Auguste Dupouy ou la formation d’un « écrivain breton » de la première moitié du xxe siècle : écarts et passerelles

Abstract

The case of Auguste Dupouy (1872–1967) illustrates the inherent contradiction of the ‘écrivains bretons’ in the first half of the 20th century. While they were closely connected through their social backgrounds to the working classes of a Brittany that was still endowed with a strong cultural originality, they had also been trained in French intellectual codes through school and university. This article charts Dupouy’s formative development. Initiated (in the ethnographic sense) in the cultures both of the Pays Bigouden fishers through his childhood friendships and of classical literature through his father, who was inspired by the spirit of the Enlightenment, a chasm opened up between the two facets of his identity. The contradiction between the two was to be resolved in his writing, which established Breton material as a popular theme and exalted it with a lyricism founded in the classical and romantic traditions.

Keywords

• Breton literature
• sociopoetics
• Pays Bigouden
• lyricism