The Novel in English as Paradigm of Canadian Literary Identity: From Frances Brooke to Sara Jeannette Duncan

This book focuses on the novel in English as paradigm of Canadian literary identity as means to challenge its monolithic construction by bringing into light the contributions of early female and ethnic authors to the genre which have frequently been either dismissed or undervalued as relevant literary agents. With that aim, the present research covers the period from the publication of Canada’s first novel in English, The History of Emily Montague by Frances Brooke in 1769 to 1904 when Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist saw the light, that is, from the first steps of the genre to Canada’s first modernist novel. Part I deals with the general theoretical framework that has Historicist, Feminist and Ethnic literary approaches as axis. They raise the crucial role of the historization of literature in the establishment of literary traditions and identities and foster the rethinking of historical discourses insofar they have promoted the founding, support and perpetuation of certain assumptions which have affected female and ethnic literary production and consideration. Part II concentrates on English Canadian literary history, tradition and identity. By focusing on the novel genre, the anthologization of English Canadian literature is approached in a detailed study about the presence/absence in mainstream anthologies from 1920 to 2004 of the alternating voices of women and ethnic novelists. In order to voice them, attention is paid to ethnic and feminist critical contributions since they question established axioms of Canada's literary history, tradition and identity and offer access to women and ethnic authors’ writing so that their diverse senses of identity, otherwise silenced, are voiced. These different senses of identity are precisely the focus of Part III. From 1769 to 1904, there is a first frequently disregarded novel by a woman, Frances Brooke; almost totally dismissed novels by acclaimed authors as Susanna (Strickland) Moodie; female authors who succeeded in juvenile fiction such as Agnes Maule Machar, Margaret Murray Robertson and Margaret Marshall Saunders; early ethnic contributions to the novel genre as those by the Black male author Martin Robinson Delany and the English Chinese Canadian woman writer Winnifred Eaton; and successful women novelists as May Agnes Early Fleming, Lily Dougall, Susan Frances Harrison and Sara Jeannette Duncan. By unsilencing them and bringing into light their significance, this dissertation demonstrates that early Canadian English literature is riddled with successful, intelligent and powerful female and ethnic authors whose contributions need to be re-considered if generally accepted ideas on the non-patriarchal and multicultural character of Canadian letters is to be claimed. These novels by a temporary Black resident in Canada, an English Asian Canadian woman, and plenty of English immigrant and Canadian-born females demonstrate that Canada’s early literary heritage is solid and shaped by diversity but also bring into question that it is still to be re-covered.

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