The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More Information
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Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature This book offers a comprehensive and lively introduction to major writers, genres, and topics in Canadian literature. Addressing traditional assumptions and current issues, contributors pay attention to the social, political, and eco- nomic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fic- tion, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing in a country historically defined by its regions. Also discussed are genres that have a special place in Canadian literature, such as nature-writing, exploration- and travel-writing, and short fiction. Although the emphasis is on literature in English, a substantial chapter on francophone writing is included. Eva-Marie Kroller¨ is Professor at the Department of English, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Her books include Canadian Travellers in Europe (1987), George Bowering: Bright Circles of Colour (1992), the only book on Canada’s first poet laureate currently available, and Pacific Encoun- ters: The Production of Self and Other (coedited, 1997). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO CANADIAN LITERATURE EDITED BY EVA-MARIE KROLLER¨ University of British Columbia, Vancouver © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521891318 © Cambridge University Press 2004 Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2004 Reprinted 2005 Dedicated to the memory of Gabriele Helms A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Th e Cambridge Companion to Canadian literature / edited by Eva-Marie Kröller. p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0 521 81441 3 – isbn 0 521 89131 0 (pbk.) 1. Canadian literature – History and criticism – Handbooks, manuals, etc. i. Kröller, Eva-Marie. ii. Series. pr9184.3.c34 2003 810.9´971–dc21 2003055128 isbn 978-0-521-81441-6 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-89131-8 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information CONTENTS List of plates page vii List of maps viii Notes on contributors ix Acknowledgments xii Note on poetry xiii Chronology xv Introduction 1 eva-marie kroller¨ 1 Aboriginal writing 22 penny van toorn 2 Francophone writing 49 e. d. blodgett 3 Exploration and travel 70 eva-marie kroller¨ 4 Nature-writing 94 christoph irmscher 5 Drama 115 ric knowles 6 Poetry 135 david staines 7 Fiction 155 marta dvorak v © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information contents 8 Short fiction 177 robert thacker 9 Writing by women 194 coral ann howells 10 Life writing 216 susanna egan and gabriele helms 11 Regionalism and urbanism 241 janice fiamengo 12 Canadian literary criticism and the idea of a national literature 263 magdalene redekop Further reading 276 Index 284 vi © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information PLATES 1 Samuel Hearne, “A Winter View in the Athapuscow Lake,” from Hearne, Journey fromPrince of Wales’s Fort (1795). Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University. page 97 2 “A Camp on the Boundary Line,” frontispiece to vol. II of John Keast Lord, The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia (1866). Author’s collection. Photograph: Tim Ford. 99 3 Agnes Fitzgibbon, Plate VI, facing p. 48, in Catharine Parr Traill, Canadian Wild Flowers (1868). Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature. Photograph: Anne Botman. 102 4 From Delos White Beadle, Canadian Fruit, Flower, and Kitchen Gardener (1872). Author’s collection. Photograph: Tim Ford. 104 5 “E. E. T.” (Ernest E. Thompson [Seton]), Wood Ducks, from Thomas McIlwraith, Birds of Ontario, 2nd edn. (1894). Author’s collection. Photograph: Tim Ford. 107 6 Illustration by Alistair Anderson, from River of the Angry Moon by Mark Hume with Harvey Thommasen. Copyright C 1998 by Mark Hume. Published in Canada by Greystone Books, a division of Douglas and McIntyre. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 112 vii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information MAPS 1 Canada page xxx 2 Tribal distributions in and near Canada at time of contact 23 viii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS e. d. blodgett is University Professor Emeritus of Comparative Litera- ture at the University of Alberta. He has published widely on comparative Canadian literature. He received the 1996 Governor-General’s Award and the 1997 Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Apostrophes, a volume of poetry. A renga with Jacques Brault entitled Transfiguration (1998) also received the Governor-General’s Award. Recent publications include Five- Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada (2003). marta dvorak is a professor of Canadian and Commonwealth literatures at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. She is the author of Ernest Buckler: Rediscovery and Reassessment (2001) and has edited numerous books on Canadian writ- ing and culture; three of her articles have received international awards. A book on Nancy Huston is forthcoming. She is currently an associate editor of the International Journal of Canadian Studies. susanna egan teaches in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia, as did the late gabriele helms. Egan and Helms collaborated as editors on the special issue of biography, “Autobiography and Changing Identities” (2001) and on the special issue of Canadian Litera- ture, “Auto/biography” (2002). Egan’s books include Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography (1999) and Helms was the author of Challenging Canada: Dialogismand Narrative Techniques in Canadian Novels (2003). janice fiamengo, after spending a number of years at the University of Saskatchewan, teaches in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. She has broad interests in Canadian literature and feminist the- ory, with publications on Margaret Atwood, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Linda Svendsen, and Nellie McClung. Recently published work on L. M. Montgomery examines the politics of the regional landscape. Fiamengo is ix © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89131-8 - The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More information notes on contributors completing a book on early Canadian women’s strategies of rhetoric and self-presentation. coral ann howells is a professor of English and Canadian Literature at the University of Reading. She has been associate editor of the Inter- national Journal of Canadian Studies. Her publications include Private and Fictional Worlds: Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970s and 80s (1987), Margaret Atwood (1996, Margaret Atwood Society Best Book Award), Alice Munro (1998), and Contemporary Canadian Women’s Fiction: Refiguring Identities (2003). christoph irmscher teaches in the Department of English at the Uni- versity of Maryland Baltimore County. He is the author of The Poetics of Natural History (1999; 1999 Language and Literature Award of the Asso- ciation of American Publishers, Scholarly Division; 2000 American Stud- ies Network Prize)