Canadian Literature and Poetry in English

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Fiction: History

History of Canadian Literature

The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature
Howells, Coral Ann and Eva-Marie Kröller, editors

A complete English-language history of Canadian writing in English and French from its beginnings, with an emphasis on literary, poetic, and dramatic works published since the 1960s.

Analyzes the emergence of multicultural and Indigenous writing, popular literature, nature-writing, life-writing, and the interaction of anglophone and francophone cultures throughout Canadian history.

Available Online

PR9184.6 .C26 2009
Stacks

Creative Writing in Canada: A Short History of English-Canadian Literature
Pacey, Desmond

A classic scholarly book on the history of Canadian literature and poetry, analyzing their development from the Colonial period through to 1950. Chapters 4, 5, 7 deal with modern Canadian fiction, and Chapter 8 discusses, in particular, the literature of the 1950s.

Stephen Leacock and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town are analyzed in depth in Chapter 4; Robertson Davies, Mordecai Richler and Brian Moore in Chapter 8. There is a bibliography at the end of the volume of books and articles about Canadian literature.

PR9184.3 .P3 1961
Reference
Arrival: The Story of CanLit
Mount, Nick

In the mid-twentieth century, Canadian literature developed as a cultural phenomenon that produced Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, and many others.

Arrival examines the origins of the catalyst across the many provinces and regions of the country, analyzing local developments, literary scenes, and the role of the publishers, libraries, and booksellers in supporting the development of Canadian prose and poetry in the mid-century.

PR9189.6 .M68 2017
Stacks
Canadian Literature
Hammill, Faye

Critical study of Canadian literature, placing internationally successful Canadian authors in the context of their national literary history.

While the focus of the book is on twentieth-century and contemporary writing, it also charts the historical development of Canadian literature and discusses important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors.

The chapters focus on four central topics in Canadian culture: colonization, race, ethnicity; wildernesses, cities, regions; desire; and histories and stories. Authors chosen for close analysis include Thomas King, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen, and Carol Shields.

PR9189.6 .H36 2007
Stacks
When Canadian Literature Moved to New York
Mount, Nick

An anthology of critical articles from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reflecting the major issues in the search for a distinctive literature in Canada.

Available Online

PR9189.5 .M68 2005
Stacks

Canadian Authors: Can-Core Academic Video
 

A collection of interviews, documentaries, readings and performancess by Canadian authors (including Mordecai Richler, Christian Bök, George Elliott Clarke, and many others).

Under Keyword Search, enter “Authors, Canadian” to see the list of the titles.

Available Online
Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis
Leith, Linda

Traces the history of Montreal as the literary centre of Quebec and Toronto as the literary centre of English Canada.

PR9189.6 .L45 2010
Stacks
Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada
Blodgett, E.D.

Composed of five parts: immigrant communities, English Canada, French Canada, First-Nations communities, and Inuit communities.

Available Online
Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English
Klinck, Carl F. et al., editors

A comprehensive reference work on the English literary history of Canada in four volumes. Includes a bibliography.

PR9184.3 .L5 1976
Reference
History of Canadian Literature
New, W.H.

A comprehensive survey beginning with the myths of the New World, describing the background against which to read the emerging English and French language literatures of Canada and progressing through to the present-day writers

Takes into account historical events such as Confederation, the Canada First Movement, and two World Wars, as well as the main critical movements of each period.

Available Online
Between Europe and America: The Canadian Tradition in Fiction
MacLulich, T.D.

Illustrates the difficulties early Canadian writers encountered in trying to adapt the European literary tradition to a New World social environment. Traces how they eventually created identifiably North American characters and settings.

PR9190.5 .M29 1988
Stacks
Novels and the Nation: Essays in Canadian Literature
Birbalsingh, Frank

Essays that discuss the evolution of Canadian identity and nationhood as reflected, predominantly, in the English fiction of this country.

Explores the writings of the first British expatriates; the colonial, empire-conscious writers of the nineteenth century; the strong, nationalistic literary consciousness of the mid-twentieth century and, finally, the contemporary writers of a multicultural country continually transforming itself.

PR9192.2 .B57 1995
Stacks
Beyond the Provinces: Literary Canada at Century’s End
Staines, David

The published edition of David Staines’s F.E.L. Priestly Lectures in the History of Ideas at University College, University of Toronto, 1994.

The chapters trace Canada’s literary “coming of age” as it moves away from a colonialist mentality to a distinctive, literary “selfhood.”

Available Online

PR9189.6 .S37 1995
Stacks

reviewed & updated 4 June 2021 | compiled by Agatha Barc

Last updated: October 26, 2023