Atwood, Moisan, and Beyond: The Question of Diversity in Comparative Canadian Literature

• Author / Creator

  McKay, Kristy Lynn

• The following consideration of methodologies in comparative Canadian literary criticism is influenced by Margaret Atwood’s Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, and Clément Moisan’s Poésie des frontières: étude comparée des poésies canadienne et québécoise. An analysis of the advances and pitfalls in Atwood’s and Moisan’s works of thematic criticism sheds light on what stands to be gained from a broader ground for comparison, one that relinquishes the need to capture all Canadian literary expressions under the net of a single study organized around language and culture. Translation emerges as both a model for such change, and a tool that facilitates a more fluid treatment of differences within recent studies. Contemporary comparisons by E.D. Blodgett, Sylvia Söderlind, Peter Dickinson, and Lianne Moyes seek to forge ahead despite the difficulties inherent to the discipline. Their methodologies demonstrate a desire to find new ways of reading Canadian literatures together, while recognizing Canada’s ever-expanding linguistic and cultural literary diversity.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Canadian
  • Comparative
  • Literature

• Graduation date

  Spring 2010

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3FH7Q

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.