Upload
attila-takacs
View
81
Download
6
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
CANADIAN LITERATURE
Fiction and short fiction
Dilemma
Constant needs in national literature Imitation of metropolitan norms Shift toward assimilation
Questions of authenticity (inherited, imported artistic forms in new environment)
Products of the British empire
Frances Brooke
The History of Emily Montague (1769)
Seminal work
Relations between the Native populations and the new settlers
John Richardson: The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas (1832)
Canadian wilderness Indian uprising (violence, savagery)
Old world transplanted into the new world (mixture of genres)
Canada from colonial period to post- Confederation still
model
themselves on European writers
Imperialist point of view
William Kirby: The Golden Dog (1877)
Gilbert Parker: The Seats of the Mighty (1896)
National consciousness
Sara Jeanette Duncan: The Imperialist
Criticizing the English sociopolitical system House of lords Press Education system
Frederic Philip Grove – Germany, France, Poland, US, Canada
Manitoba: pioneer immigrant arriving in unsettled environment, struggling with land
Settlers of the Marsh (1925)
Realism in literature: the representation of world corresponded to an absolute, universal truth.
Modernism
Belated to CanadaDoes not conform to the classical term
Rather monotonySimple spoken EnglishReflects the interest in psychological activities e.g. Mavis Gallant
Open ended constructions Memory Perception Metaphor and irony Clear and sharp language subjectivity
Postmodernism
Continuation of modernism Value forms of diversity and plurality Writer is a storyteller Double discourse of irony
Could not make their living – move
Canadian content – CBC, National Film Board of Canada (1930)
Contesting Master Narratives
Exploitation of historical novels: George Bowering: Burning Water (1980)
Subvert traditional understanding of history
Reexamining of master narratives of western culture
Reexamining New World myth
Issues as territory
Thomas King: Green Grass, Running Water (1993)
Christian Biblical Heritage and Native mythology
Rudy Wiebe: The Temptations of Big Bear
Native point of view: 19th century conquest of the West• Missionaries• Government agent• Buffalo die out
The English Patient: Michael Ondaatje
The realist tradition in contemporary writing
Margaret Laurence: The Stone Angel (1964)
Subvert the dailyness with unreliable narratorsShifting point of viewsDestabilizing manipulation of time
Yann Martel: Life of Pi (2001)Margaret Atwood: The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)Tomson Highway: Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998)Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Losers (1966)Josef Skrovecky: Dvorak in Love (1968) allophones
Short fiction
Robert Weaver encouraged to develop the formPublishers were hesitant
Munro’s work is the embodiment of Canadian Short Stories
Close to US
Short story is more likely to find home in foreign publication
Form that exportable and commercialized (1970)
Canadian writing in the 19th Century
Between Great Britain and the United States
Canadian writing need to conform with practices here or therePublication for sureAudience guaranteed
After 1867 no longer colony – writing define the transformation
Stephen Leacock: Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)
Gentle, ironic humor
Canadian writing in English
• US publications
• Foreign markets
„reflects in part the notorious difficulty of finding enough markets for fiction in Canada”
After 1970
Transformation (Gallant, Munroe)
Gallant – leaving Canada
Selected Stories (1966)
Renaissance – collection after collection
Stories reflect: „ the flesh and blood of the people of this section of the North American Continent
Callaghan: „let America get us: North American, yes, but emphatically not of the united States. Canadian. The Canadian short story.
Meegwetch