Charles Doutrelepont

Biography

I taught my first course in Fall 1981, as Contract Instructor, at the Université du Québec à Montréal (the title of the course was «Terminologie, informatique et documentation»). While working on my Ph.D., between 1981 and 1989, I taught more than 50 half-credit courses, either introductory courses to word-processors ( word-processing (at the Direction de l’enseignement de service en informatique of the Université de Montréal) or language courses (from beginner to advanced, at the École Polytechnique de Montréal). In 1988, I completed my Ph.D. on the phonetics of rhymes in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes ( Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes d’après la copie Guiot. Rime et raison phonétique ), and I was very happy to be hired at Carleton the following year. I have published several articles on French verse and on the history of versification. I am currently working on the Chanson de Roland , the most famous text in Medieval French literature. Why is this text considered to be so important? How can this old epic text be seen as an essential document for the understanding of early French literature? Is this text a truly «French» document, when most historians consider that France did not exist when it was composed? Did politics and secondary school teaching play a role in establishing the Song of Roland as a canonic text of French literature? These are some of the questions I am currently working on. I have been Supervisor of Honors and of Graduate Studies from 1997 to 2001. I was Chair of the Department, from 1992 to 1995, and I have been keeping myself busy in the same position since 2002.

Research Interest

Medievalism,medieval texts Poetry and Poetics (Theory of Verse and Rime, History of Versification, Rhetoric) XIXth Century Poetry Poetry of war Computing in the Humanities (Lexicology)