Canadian Literature & Poetry
in English
Fiction
Literary Interpretation & Criticism
Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature
Margaret Atwood’s major contribution to Canadian literary
criticism, intended as a handbook for secondary school teachers, was according recognized as
the most influential work of Canadian criticism in the 1970s.
It examines the themes of literary alienation from the
environment, and the notion of a national obsession with Canadian “self-victimization.”
PR9189.6 .A8
2012
Stacks
Revolutions: Essays on Contemporary Canadian Fiction
A close analysis of the changes in Canadian fiction since the
early twentieth century.
Good examines the importance of Canadian literary prizes,
government funding, and how specific authors (such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and
Mordecai Richler) have influenced the concept of what a “Canadian novel” is or
should be.
PR 9192.2 .G663
2017
Stacks
Inhabiting Memory in Canadian Literature
Examines the cultural work of space and memory in Canada and
Canadian literature, and encourages readers to investigate Canada within its regional,
national, and global contexts.
Refuse: CanLit in Ruins
Critical examination of English Canadian literature as a
cultural formation and industry.
The book provides a critical and historical context to help
readers understand conversations happening about CanLit in the year 2018. Topics such as
literary celebrity, white power, appropriation, class, rape culture, and the ongoing impact of
settler colonialism are addressed by a diverse gathering of writers from across Canada.
PR 9184.3 .R33
2018
Stacks
The Bush Garden
The collection of essays by Northrop Frye may be read as a
record of poetic production in English Canada during one of its crucial periods. He discusses
the imaginative legacy bequeathed to present and future Canadian writers by the earlier
novelists and poets.
PR 9184.6 .F79
1995
Stacks
Mythologizing Canada: Essays on the Canadian Literary Imagination
Eleven essays and addresses written by Northrop Frye between
1943 and 1989 that address the topic of the Canadian literary imagination.
The essays are intended to illustrate Frye’s insights
into Canadian literature and reflect how his views changed over the course of his life.
PR 9184.6 .F795
1997
Stacks
Northrop Frye’s Canadian Literary Criticism and Its
Influence
Examines the impact of Frye’s criticism on Canadian
literary scholarship as well as the response of Frye’s peers to his articulation of a
“Canadian” criticism.
PN 75 .F7 N74
2009
Stacks
Luminous Ink: Writers on Writing in Canada
A collection of original pieces by some of Canada’s best
known writers. The essays ask, and attempt to answer, what it means
to be a writer in Canada, what the literature of today can tell us about Canada’s social
arrangements, its political and aesthetic shapes, and its preoccupations.
Contributors include Margaret Atwood, George Elliott Clarke,
Camilla Gibb, Rawi Hage, Lawrence Hill, Greg Hollingshead, Lee Maracle, Lisa Moore, Michael
Ondaatje, Marie-Helaine Poitras, Pascale Quiviger, Nino Ricci, Eden Robinson, Madeleine
Thien, Judith Thompson, M.G. Vassanji, Rita Wong, and others.
PR 9184.6 .L86
2018
Stacks
Re: Reading the Postmodern: Canadian Literature and Criticism
After Modernism
From Cohen to Carson: The Poet’s Novel in Canada
Argues that Canadian poets have turned to the novel because of
the limitations of the lyric, but have used lyric methods—puns, symbolism, repetition,
juxtaposition—to create a mode of narrative that contrasts sharply with the descriptive
conventions of realist and plot-driven novels.
Detailed case studies of novels by Leonard Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, George Bowering, Daphne
Marlatt, and Anne Carson, as well as sections on A.M. Klein and Anne Michaels.
Canadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives
A collection of critical essays on contemporary Canadian
cartoonists working in various forms of graphic life narrative, from confession to memoir to
biography.
Divided Highways: Road Narrative and Nationhood in Canada
Establishes the existence of a road trip genre in the
literatures of Canada, examining works by a variety of Anglophone, Québécois and Indigenous
writers, including Gilles Archambault, Jeannette Armstrong, Jill Frayne, Tomson Highway,
Linda Hogan, Scott Gardiner, Claude Jasmin, Robert Kroetsch, Lee Maracle, Jacques Poulin,
Aritha van Herk and Paul Villeneuve.
PR 9185.5
.T73 M33 2019
Stacks
New Contexts of Canadian Criticism
Following Eli Mandel’s important collection of essays
Contexts of Canadian Criticism (1971), this work examines the major themes of
Canadian literary criticism in the 1990s.
The contributors are a mix of well-known writers, poets and
academics whose reprinted articles are assembled here from a wide variety of sources.
PR 9184.3 .N482
1997
Stacks
The Canadian Imagination: Dimensions of a Literary Culture
Discusses French-Canadian literature, surveys of Canadian
fiction, poetry and drama, as well as individual authors such as Atwood, Laurence, Leacock,
Pratt and more.
Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian
Literature
Analyzes archetypal, nationalist themes across Canadian
literature, in the tradition of Northrop Frye.
Cultural Identities in Canadian Literature
A bilingual collection of essays on the themes of cultural
identities and immigrant writing in Canada. The emphasis is upon diversity as essays range in
subject matter from Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, and Marie-Claire Blais to Danny
Laferrière, Ukranian-Canadian plays, “Franglo-théâtre,” contemporary Acadian and
Africadian poetry and the Ontario Protestant novel.
PR 9185.2 .C85
1998
Stacks
The World of Canadian Writing: Critiques and Recollections
A collection of essays on contemporary Canadian fiction, poetry
and criticism.
PR 9189.6 .W66
Stacks
Kicking Against the Pricks
Prominent and contentious criticism of the “literary
nationalism” conceptualized in the previous decade, characterized by quest for distinct
Canadian themes and traditions in literature and poetry.
PR 9199.3 .M47
Z466 1982
Stacks
Volleys
Discussion of several highly controversial issues in criticism
of the Canadian tradition in literature.
PR 9184.6 .S64
1990
Stacks
Major Journal Indexes
Canadian Literary Centre
A collection of reference books and journals with a focus on
Canadian fiction and poetry. This database contains full text content from individual
monographs, biographies, essays and literary fiction. Especially useful for work on lesser
known or recently published writers.
Canadian Periodical Index (CPI.Q)
A major periodical database for researching Canadian topics,
including literature. The content consists of both scholarly journals and popular sources,
such as magazines and newspapers, published between 1980 to present.
Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA) Complete
Indexes scholarly journals as well as popular magazines and
newspapers on numerous topics and disciplines, including literature. The majority of the
included publications are Canadian.
MLA International Bibliography
The index is compiled by the Modern Language Association (MLA),
an organization dedicated to the study and teaching of language and literature.
Includes book chapters, journal articles, and Web sites related
to literature from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. Publications
on literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theatre), and
folklore can also be found in the index.
Annual Bibliography of English Language Literature (
ABELL)
Includes Canadian authors and poets.
reviewed & updated 20 May 2021 | compiled by Agatha Barc, MI