What makes literature ‘truly Canadian’? | The Journal

As a followup to my blog post on changing ideas about Canadian Literature, I happened across an article that articulates the same problematic questions I encountered when questioning a nationalized view of what constitutes ‘Canadian’ identity:

“What’s the novel all Canadians should read? That’s the question at the core of CBC’s Canada Reads competition.”

The problem with choosing one text to encompass a multitude of perspectives is that we limit our understanding of what it means to be ‘Canadian’ or to have a ‘Canadian’ experience. While a nationalistic view is unifying for citizens, it also overlooks the specific regional qualities that define the varying aspects of Canadian culture across the country. While Canadian authors should be celebrated and commended, the notion that one perspective or narrative is more ‘Canadian’ than another reinforces and privileges the problematic stereotypes.

Check out the article here: What makes literature ‘truly Canadian’? | The Journal

The Difference in Studying the Humanities: Then and Now

“A watery lexicon and syntax, a hydro logical approach could cultivate our capacity to scale down to the level of molecules and up to the level of oceans. It could also better attune our senses to the range of languages that traverse the human and nonhuman realms, enabling us to transition between the dialects of the domesticated, the wild, the feral. If I can learn to parse a salmon’s journey or a human sentence, then hopefully, I might be able to speak nearby a river, if I keenly listen to its shape shifting grammar, it’s stubborn flow despite human obstacles and impositions. These are the fluid literatures I believe we need to relearn and adapt for the future.”
(Rita Wong, “Untapping Watershed Mind”)

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One of the requirements in graduate school is to complete at least one course in each time period. Although this is sometimes a hindrance to others, I call it a blessing in disguise.

Last term, I spent four months learning about the humanist education system in Renaissance England. I more or less delved deep into the source texts of Shakespeare’s plays, and the contemporary plays to the Shakespearean canon, which tends to be our only general exposure to the Renaissance outside of English literary studies. My historical research thus involved learning about discipline in the grammar schools, such as physical beatings to enforce Latin recitations, in addition to consulting the humanist texts and pedagogy.

Traditionally, humanists look to the past for examples (as do most people since examples, well, come from… the past). Not only did they draw on classical texts and ideals, but they based their entire learning system on mimicking it. The Renaissance, after all, is a rebirth of the Classical time period. Humanist learning today, also looks to the past. Whether it is philosophy, classics, history, languages, etc., humanities students also study everything from “the greats,” however controversial that term may be (and I’m rolling my eyes at you if you’re glaring at my colloquial and likely offensive generalizing and prioritizing use of the term), to the contemporary works. But after eavesdropping on invigoratingly heated but professional conversations, as one does while casually sitting in a common room, I realized just how much the humanities values the historical past.

And now I switch to “humanities” in terms of English Literature.

English students are increasingly more interested in post-modern and contemporary literature and are foregoing the, shall we say, “traditional” canon. Though I’m sure we all love Beowulf, claim our favourite Shakespeare play is one that isn’t covered in high schools, can breakdown Robinson Crusoe in a few minutes, dream of or despise dancing daffodils (ALERT: I’M A WORDSWORTH FAN), and sing praises of T.S. Eliot, we can’t deny that it seems like the secret to luring students is expanding beyond the traditional canon and allowing ourselves to be intrigued by contemporary literature.

Looking forward or placing “too much” importance on the contemporary world in this way is so often condemned. While I’m not disregarding the importance of a sound foundation built from the traditional literary canon, I am arguing for the respect of contemporary issues embodied in contemporary literature. We are not in the Renaissance anymore. We can and should look to past texts the way humanists looked to classical texts, but we should not limit ourselves to them. There is undeniable value in making relevant contemporary conversations through literature and literary analysis.

This term, I’m studying permaculture and ecocriticism – not just in literature, but in visual arts, activism like guerrilla gardening, film, etc. Even if I’m not reading a “book” I’m reading criticism, and I’m applying literary analysis tools to these other forms of expression. I would not have the confidence or skills to do so without my strong literary background in, YES, THE TRADITIONAL CANON, but I am more intrigued by applying a humanist’s perspective to the world in which I currently live.

In the true humanities fashion, I look to the past for examples as the past drives my love of literature, but I look to the past, to the present and to the future, for the inspiration to drive my curiosity. Stop studying the humanities then; start studying the humanities now.

A little critical thinking, but it works (out).

Choosing courses seemed to be one of the most stressful periods of my undergraduate experience. Since I am completing a course-based Master’s program, I had the opportunity to… choose… courses… again.

However, unlike undergrad, I wasn’t choosing between American or Canadian Literature Survey courses, but between poetry of a small, regional area, or an ecocritical and national, fiction course. Having no experience studying Canadian Literature, this presented a dilemma with the standard questions: “How do I know if I’m going to be interested in something that specific at this early point in time?” Cue: Flashbacks to Grade Ten when we had to choose a university path at the tender, young age of 15 years old.

Well, I am here to tell you that it works out. I think that’s my current mantra, and I’m sure I will change my mind and panic another day, but so far, it works out. I never thought that I had an interest in Canadian Literature, for the sole fact that mainstream Canadian literature just doesn’t seem to align with my literary interests. However, in my fourth year of undergrad, I studied Canadian poetry and fiction of the Great War for a seminar class and boy, did that change my mind!

I ended up writing my graduate school thesis proposal about Canadian and children’s literature, and although I am not pursuing the thesis project in favour of taking more courses before I focus my research on one area, I remain fascinated by the intersections of K-12 pedagogy and Canadian children’s literature. After the seminar course on literature of the Great War, I also became interested in the construction of a national Canadian identity and how immigrant perspectives play into this identity. What I did not realize about this proposal was how narrow and optimistic my ideas of the “national Canadian identity” really were.

In a way, the propaganda literature convinced me, despite retrospectively reading the works 100 years later.

And my ideas of constructing a wonderful national identity- well, they lacked the voice of someone who was not afraid to challenge the optimistic ideal. I am confident these issues would have arisen early enough in my project to correct and modify the thesis of course, but I am happy I was able to gain perspective on these ideas simply by taking a course on regional Canadian poetry.

The first couple of weeks of my new Canadian poetry course consisted of studying Al Purdy, who was a poet that, to this day, is consistently used as an anthologized example of the Canadian national voice. Our discussions in class, informed by Mark Silverberg’s “The Can(adi)onization of Al Purdy,” revealed the limitations of considering a work through the checklist definitions of “Canadian” literature. By reading Purdy’s poetry through the lens of a nationalist perspective, nuances and subtleties of his poetry become lost in the midst of the wilderness landscape, survival, and self-deprecating voice (to name a few of Silverberg’s examples). We were rejecting the singularly traditional readings of Purdy as a nationalist example. That is to say, we were not rejecting Purdy as a Canadian poet, but table-fipping the elements of “Canadian identity” and pressing them against the regional and other aspects of the poetry.

With this renewed perspective, I was able to question what is it about national identity that is so appealing to me when in fact, it might not truly exist in a country so varied and dynamic. Sorry, I don’t have the answer. But it’s an interesting direction that I cannot ignore, especially considering my would-be research interests are sitting on the floor, having just been flipped off of a table.

What in the world does this have to do with choosing courses? It works out. I was hesitant to take this course, but after this feeling of excitement and enlightenment (I’m on my way to being the next Dalai Lama), I know things work out. Had I not taken this course, I never would have gained perspective in the exact opposite way my argument would have gone. *dramatic pause* Thanks, life.

It works out.