A History of Canadian Literature

A history of Canadian literature, looking at the work of individual writers and also at the social and cultural contexts that helped shape their preoccupations and direct their choice of literary form. W.H. New explains how - from early records of oral tales to the writing strategies of the 1980s - writer, reader, literature and society are interrelated. New discusses both Aboriginal and European mythologies, looking at pre-Contact narratives and also at the way Contact experience altered hierarchies of literary value. He then considers representations of the real, whether in documentary, fantasy or satire; the precedence of historical romance and the social construction of Nature and State; and ironic subversions of power, the politics of cultural form, and the relevance of the media to a representation of community standard and individual voice. New suggests some ways in which writers of the later 20th century codified such issues as history, gender, ethnicity and literary technique itself.