Travestissement littéraire et trajectoire intellectuelle d’Henri-Raymond Casgrain

L’anonymat et le pseudonymat, pratiques très courantes au dix-neuvième siècle, obstruent l’accès à l’oeuvre entier d’un écrivain. Les oeuvres complètes créées par l’auteur sont, de surcroît, incomplètes. Ces formes d’autocensure se multiplient jusqu’à la mort. Ensuite, si des archives le permettent, l’oeuvre peut être complété. Des prises de position esthétiques et idéologiques dévoilées confrontent la première décantation de l’Oeuvre. Les albums annotés par Casgrain de coupures de presse des articles anonymes et pseudonymes constituent une source rare en histoire littéraire. Grâce à eux, l’auteur signe et persiste.Anonymity and pseudonymity, commonly practised in the nineteenth century, block access to a writer’s entire output. Furthermore, the complete works created by a writer during his lifetime are incomplete, since they rarely dare to divulge more than what readers already know of the public work. These kinds of self-censorship keep on multiplying until the writer’s death. Once dead, however, the writer is freed from all justification, and if the archives permit, his work can be completed, maybe even rewritten, and certainly reinterpreted. Aesthetic and ideological positions are confirmed or blurred; paradoxes arise, adding depth to the work’s first version. Casgrain’s albums of press clippings of his anonymous and pseudonymous articles, conscientiously ordered and annotated by him, are a rare source in literary history. With them, the writer signs his name and maintains his point of view