How to describe the literature of a nation is often debatable, and is also in natural flux throughout the nation's history, so this beginner's guide to Canadian literature will offer links to as many actual Canadian authors as possible so the reader can weigh what is being said with first-hand research of his or her own.
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2 Traits of Canadian Literature 3 French-Canadian Literature 4 Notable Figures 5 Awards 6 See also |
Canadian literature may be more difficult to discuss than most because of Canada's unique geographical and historical situation. It is a country larger and younger than most, is peopled with a widely diverse array of races, religions, and backgrounds, and is generally committed to multiculturalism. Therefore, just as one piece of the Canadian social puzzle has often been, "is there a Canadian identity?," one recurrently important piece of the Canadian literature puzzle has been the question, "Is there a Canadian literature at all?"
This has been an ongoing point of debate since the mid-1800s, and is still being discussed in literary circles today. For example, a quick Internet search for university syllabi on Canadian literature courses will offer an overwhelming majority of professors who still discuss whether or not "Canadian" literature exists. For instance, one postmodern Can. lit. course offered as recently as 2002 at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, includes this in the course syllabus:
At the end of the debates, the verdict almost always returned is that there is a literature and an "identity" distinctly Canadian. However, because of its size and breadth, Canadian literature is often broken into sub-categories.
There are at least three ways that, traditionally, critics and scholars have chosen to deal with the geographic size and cultural breadth of Canadian literature. The most common, by far, is to divide it by region or province. There are anthologies of "Eastern Canadian literature" or "Prairie literature," for example. Another way has been to divide it by categorising the authors. For instance, the literature of Canadian women, Acadians, aboriginal Canadians, and Irish-Canadians have been anthologised as bodies of work. A third way has been to divide it by literary period, such as "Canadian postmoderns" or "Canadian Poets Between the Wars."
Of course, as usual, Canadian literature is often studied in genre divisions as well, such as "poetry," "prose," "drama," and "criticism."
The findings of those who believe that there is a distinctly Canadian body of literature include a prevalence of the following traits, in no particular order.
French-Canadian literature followed a very different evolutionary path than English literature. French-Canadian literature was in no way an appendage to the literature of France and English Canada's was to Great Britain. Rather the struggle of French Canada was to create a literature whole cloth. From the early settlements until the 1820s Quebec had virtually no literature to speak of. There were a few historians, journalist, and learned priests who published but overall output was very low.
It was the rise of Quebec patriotism and the 1837 Patriotes Rebellion, combined with a modern system of primary school education that lead to the first surge in French-Canadian fiction. The first genres to become popular were the rural novel and the historical novel. Influences from France began to be felt, especially such authors as Balzac.
In 1866 Father Henri-Raymond Casgrain became one of Quebec's first literary theorists. he argued that literature goal should be to project an image of proper Catholic morality. This view was accepted by most Québécois authors and much of what was written is generally considered bland and tedious. A few authors such as Louis-Honoré Fréchette and Arthur Buies did break accepted conventions and write engaging works.
This pattern continued until the 1930s when a new group of authors educated at the Université de Laval and the Université de Montréal. Novels with psychological and sociological foundations began to become the norm. Authors such as Gabrielle Roy and Anne Hébert for the first time began to earn international acclaim. During this period Quebec theater, which had previously been melodramas and comedies became far more involved.
French-Canadian literature began to greatly expand with the turmoil of the Second World War the beginnings of industrialization in the 1950s, and most especially the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. French-Canadian literature also began to attract a great deal of attention globally, with Acadian novelist Antonine Maillet winning the Prix Goncourt. An experimental branch of Quebecois literature also developed, such as formalist poet Nicole Brossard.
See also: List of French-Canadian writers
Canada only officially became a country on July 1, 1867, so some have argued that what was written there before that time was really the literature of British citizens living away from Britain, French citizens away from France, etc.
However, one of the earliest "Canadian" writers virtually always included in Canadian literary anthologies is Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865), who died just two years before Canada's official birth. He is remembered for his comic character, Sam Slick, who appeared in The Clockmaker and other humourous works throughout the Haliburton's life.
Arguably, the best-internationally-known living Canadian writer (especially after the recent passing of Canadian greats, Robertson Davies and Timothy Findley) is Margaret Atwood, a prolific novelist, poet, and literary critic. This group, along with Alice Munro were the first to elevate Canadian Literature to the world stage. During the post-war decades only a handful of books of any literary merit would be published each year in Canada and Canadian literature was viewed as an appendage to British and American writing. Much of what was produced dealt with extremely typical Canadiana such as the outdoors and animals, or events in Canadian history. Most of what Canadians read was written in the United States or Great Britain. Most of what was studied in Canadian schools and universities was also foreign.
In the 1980s Canadian literature began to be noticed around the world. By the 1990s Canadian literature was viewed as some of the world's best and Canadian authors began to accumulate international awards. In 1992 Michael Ondaatje became the first Canadian to win the Booker Prize for The English Patient, Atwood would also win it in 2000 for The Blind Assassin while Yann Martel would win in 2002 for The Life of Pi. Alistair Macleod won the 2001 IMPAC Award for No Great Mischief. Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction while in 1998 her novel Larry's Party won the Orange Prize.
Today Canadians still read much by foreign authors, but many Canadian books have been runaway best sellers.
There are a number of notable Canadian awards for literature:
The Problem of Canadian Literature
In fact, it has frequently been suggested that the question, "what is a Canadian?" is entangled very intricately with the question "what is Canadian literature?" in a way that does not happen to so great an extent with other literatures. Leon Surette writes, "a disproportionate amount of commentary on Canadian writing has been cultural history (or prophecy) rather than truly literary commentary."Traits of Canadian Literature
French-Canadian Literature
Notable Figures
Awards
See also
