Bref récit

Bref récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en MDXXXV et MDXXXVI was a literary work published in 1545, which recounted Jacques Cartier’s second voyage to the St. Lawrence Valley region of North America and detailed his interactions with the local St. Lawrence Iroquoian peoples. The book was more than likely written by Cartier’s secretary, Jehan Poullet.

Reingard Nischik's History of Literature in Canada is an excellent source on Cartier's work and explains the importance of the Bref récit as follows:

"The work documents Cartier’s voyage from the Strait of Belle Isle all the way to Hochelaga (the site of present day Montreal), followed by a hard winter in Stadacona (present-day Quebec City). The main importance of the accounts of Cartier’s voyages lay primarily in their political consequences and only secondarily in the value of the scientific or geographical information they contained. They were originally written as exploration reports for the French king François I. The Bref récit gained much popular appeal to due the extraordinary adventure it portrayed as it was a direct account of the discovery and exploration of a new continent and its peoples."^[1]

In 2005, the Literary Review of Canada named Bref récit as one of the 100 most important books in the history of Canadian literature.^[2]

References

1. Nischik, Reingard M.. History of literature in Canada: English-Canadian and French-Canadian. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2008. 48-49.
2. "What Howie Meeker and Atwood have in common". The Globe and Mail, November 18, 2005.