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E-book Writing Alberta : Building on a Literary Identity

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Penilaian

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In 2005, art critic Mary-Beth Laviolette published An Alberta Art Chroni-cle covering the post-1970 art history of Alberta. Its length of five hundred pages suggested that there was something to say about the province’s art scene. To talk about an Alberta art identity within the context of Canadian art does not seem strange or unusual. So, too, it should not seem strange to talk about an Alberta literary identity. The conversation started sixty years ago with the publication of the Alberta Golden Jubilee Anthology in 1955. It offered Albertans their first collection of Alberta writers and was followed in 1967 with Chinook Arch and The Alberta Diamond Jubilee An-thology in 1979. In 1986, Fred Stenson edited Alberta Bound: Thirty Stories by Alberta Writers, followed by Aritha van Herk’s 1990 volume, Alberta Rebound: Thirty More Stories by Alberta Writers, and then Boundless Al-berta in 1993. Clearly, at least as far as fiction was concerned, there was an acknowledgement that Alberta writers were producing valuable work and making a statement about the province. In 1999 a new anthology, Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing from Alberta, edited by Srjda Pavlovic, which included poetry, was published. Pavlovic was not afraid to use the term “Alberta literature” in his introduction. All seven volumes were statements of creativity, not critical studies. Then came George Mel-nyk’s two-volume Literary History of Alberta, published in 1998-99, which argued for the distinct nature of Alberta’s literary identity. It was followed by the four-hundred-page Wild Rose Anthology of Alberta Prose (20 03), edited by George Melnyk and Tamara Palmer Seiler and, most recently, Wild Words: Essays on Alberta Literature (2009), edited by Donna Coates and George Melnyk, which was the first collection of scholarly essays deal-ing specifically with Alberta writing.Alberta writing has a distinctive literary identity, but there has been a pushback from traditional quarters tied to previous categories—Canadian Literature (1960s) and Prairie Literature (1970s). In Quebec, literature was viewed as independent of Canadian literature because of the post-1960 sovereignty movement and its distinctness within the context of a bi-national and bilingual literary identity. But what could justify a province like Alberta seeing its literary heritage as identifiable and distinct? If we examine how national literatures come to be defined, we can see that Alberta literature shares characteristics with the terms used to define a national literature without being a nation. First, Alberta literature has a history that is iden-tifiable, traceable, and acknowledged. Second, its literature shares certain thematic concerns that link its writers. Third, its literature has a specific hierarchy of important writers and works. In short, it has a canon. Fourth, Alberta literature shares the limits placed on national literatures by hav-ing a political boundary. While these are categories normally applied to a national literature, a provincial literature can be studied much in the same way through history, authorship, literary styles, thematic concerns, and cultural identity.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

809 BAL w

Penerbit

Canada : University of Calgary Press., 2017

Deskripsi Fisik

273 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781552388921

Klasifikasi

809

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Critical Appraisal of More Than Two Literatures

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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