CHAPTER 12 - Literature

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Canadian literature. Because well-prepared surveys to the whole of Canadian literary output are available, very little mention of individual authors will be made in this chapter. In a country that has two official languages, there can be no lack of Canadian writing. If anything, Canada suffers from the production of too many ephemeral books and periodicals and too few of originality. Any brief review of Canadian literature can only list the standard guides to Canadian literary criticism without attempting to enumerate the works of Canadian writers themselves. The highest standards of imaginative writing in Canada have been reached in French, although the total number of works has not been great. This has occurred because in this part of Canada there has been greater need for the cultivation of a national literature than in English-speaking Canada. This is particularly apparent in poetry, theatre, and essays and less true in the novel. English-Canadian writers, on the other hand, have had the advantage of a steady market in the United States of America and Great Britain. This has meant that they wrote in terms of a foreign market rather than for Canadian readers.