Over the next few years, alternating between teaching and studying, she obtained a B.A. (1950) and M.A. (1959) from the Collège Saint-Joseph de Memramcook. Her master's thesis was on Gabrielle Roy. While she was at the university, her early plays,
Entr'Acte and
Poire-Acre (which remain unpublished), were performed locally in Moncton; the latter went on to win first prize in the Dominion Drama Festival. In 1962 Maillet earned a
licence ès lettres from the University of Montreal and spent several years doing research in Paris, working for Radio-Canada, and teaching at various universities. In 1970 she was granted a doctorate from Laval University; her dissertation entitled
Rabelais et les traditions populaires en Acadia was published in 1971 after Maillet had studied with the distinguished folklorist Luc Lacourcière. While the influence of Rabelais shows up most directly in her 1983 play
Les Drolatiques, Horrifiques et Epouvantables Aventures de Panurge, ami de Pantagruel, d'après Rabelais, her fiction and drama have continually employed an earthy Rabelaisian humor to expose the dimensions of exploitation in Acadia. Always the earthy, ordinary characters, for all their apparent powerlessness, are the embodiments of folk wisdom.
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