two solitudes

noun

1. a term for the situation of English and French Canada, considered as socially and culturally isolated from each other

Word History and Origins

Origin of two solitudes¹

C20: from Two Solitudes , a novel by Canadian writer Hugh MacLennan (1907–90)

Example Sentences

More than anything, Britain and its monarchy are flashpoints in the enduring Canadian national debate between two groups that the novelist Hugh MacLennan in 1945 called the “two solitudes,” the French-speaking Canadians who settled Quebec and various Francophone enclaves across the country and the British who took possession of the colony after the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763.

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Who better to offer up an olive branch that can ease the hitherto irreconcilable tensions between Canada’s two solitudes?

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That is to say, if you are to avoid repeating the mistakes you made the last time, you must learn how to live by yourself, to like your own company, and to stand on your own two feet, so that when you finally choose a mate, you will be “two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other,” in Rilke’s lofty phrase, rather than a co-dependent mess.

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Brian Myles, editor of Le Devoir, the influential left-leaning Quebecois daily, argued that the “two solitudes” were a thing of the past.

Read more on Seattle Times

The sculptures are a powerful metaphor for this city, which has long been polarized by what celebrated Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan called the “Two Solitudes” — the perception, fairly or not, that French- and English-speaking Quebecers coexist uneasily.

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