SEERS, EUGNE

born 1865, Beauharnois, Que. died Jan. 17, 1945, Boston, Mass., U.S. pseudonym Louis Dantin French-Canadian poet and critic who is regarded as the first major literary critic of Quebec. While a member of the religious order Congrgation de Trs Saint-Sacrement, he wrote religious poetry, short stories, and critical articles, especially on the poetry of the French-Canadian mile Nelligan. He left the order in 1903 and became a typographer in Boston and later worked for the Harvard University Press. His criticism, at first in the form of correspondence with French-Canadian authors, achieved recognition in Montreal in the 1920s. In his Potes de l'Amrique franaise (1928; Poets of French America) and Gloses critiques (2 series, 1931 and 1935; Critical Comments), Seers insisted on judging a work solely on artistic merit. He was also the author of Le Coffret de Cruso (1932; Crusoe's Chest), a volume of poems dealing with his loss of faith, and Les Enfances de Fanny (1951), a semiautobiographical novel.