Paul Morin is mostly remembered as the proponent in French Canada of the Parnassian literary creed of art for art's sake and for his association with the Nigog (January-December 1918), an art review which, in a crusade against the regionalist writers, the "terroiristes," promulgated a new aesthetics. The main tenets were the precedence of form over content and the artist's freedom to choose his subject.

Paul Morin was born on 6 April 1889 in Montreal, the son of Henri E. Morin and Antonia Marchand Morin, the daughter of Médéric Marchand, whose wife founded a famous music school: l'Académie Marchand. Paul was educated at St. Mary's College in Montreal, the Lycée Saint-Louis de Gonzague in Paris, and the universities of Montreal and Paris. He was called to the Quebec bar in 1910 but in the fall of the same year went back to Paris to...