The purpose of this thesis is to examine those works of Maurice Constantin-Weyer and of Georges Bugnet set in the Canadian West. Because both writers were fascinated by the exotic challenge of the western wilderness, it seems appropriate to apply to their works the myth of Antaeus, this giant representing, in his apparent invulnerability, the primeval forest and, by extension, the aborigine who inhabits it; the intruder who learns to master them both is therefore Hercules. The main theme of the novels is thus seen as one of struggle. Historically, we are also concerned with delimiting the Canadian West and explaining the rise of the Metis, a people whose very existence created problems which both authors set out to interpret. Constantin-Weyer’s avowed purpose in the Epopée canadienne is to paint a vast fresco of the Canadian West. The works of the series falls into two categories: novels allegedly based on history and novels of adventure, his essays being classified with the latter. In the first chapter his two historical novels are examined and evaluated. Vers l'Ouest meets with Walter Scott's standards for the historical novel, but it might also be classified as a roman de moeurs because of the predominance of exotic -description. La Bourrasque, on the other hand, is an anomaly in the ensemble of the Epopée canadienne. Louis Riel, its chief protagonist, had been dead only thirty-nine years when the book was published, yet Constantin-Weyer did not hesitate to present the participants in the Rebellion in an outrageous and shocking fashion, naming them by name. Hence, chapter two is devoted to an investigation of the problem of the author's misanthropy. In the light of historical scrutiny, the outrageous portraits are indeed found to be defamatory. Moreover, the novel often twists or suppresses the facts for sensational effect -- a clear violation of the basic rule governing the historical novel. Nor can the work be justified as a roman de moeurs, since descriptive passages and local color are almost totally absent. The novel's violence of tone can, in some measure, be traced to the influence of Naturalism, and its misanthropy to the hardships of the author's ten years in Canada. We contend that the hatred and bitterness of this novel was a catharsis for the writer, a conclusion supported by the fact that no subsequent work of his displays the vindictive tone of La Bourrasque. In chapter three, Constantin-Weyer’s novels of adventure are examined with particular attention given to the exoticism of his teeming and colorful panorama of the Canadian West, and to the Life-Love-Death theme which unifies the Epopée. Perusal of these novels uncovers two main facts: that Constantin-Weyer was an incorrigible braggart and that an aura of eroticism permeates his writing. His perception of the hundred intimate dramas of the forest and his flair for depicting the wild animal in its daily Life-Love-Death struggle make him one of the best animaliers in Canadian letters. His anthropomorphism transfigures not only the animals of the forest but inanimate natural forces as well, and it is this capacity for erotic empathy which constitutes a novel and heretofore unknown quantity in the Canadian literature of French expression. Georges Bugnet is in many ways the antithesis of Constantin-Weyer. Though a teacher and journalist, he shunned the more populated areas of his adopted country to settle in the very heart of the forest. To him, nature in Canada was a goddess to whom sacrifice was due. Chapter four explores his literary and philosophical views, especially his concept, --amounting to an original myth in Malinowski's sense, -- of nature in Western Canada. Bugnet was in temperament a classicist, by design a realist, and an avowed anti-romantic, yet elements of Romanticism pervade his verse which is essentially a vehicle for his metaphysical ideas. The latter part of this chapter assesses his prose poem Le Pin du maskeg, a synthesis of his literary and metaphysical creeds. Chapter five evaluates his two chief novels. Nipsya, an early work on the problem of the Metis and the relationship of man with Nature, is essentially à roman à thèse, the life of its characters being continually sacrificed to an abstract scheme. His last novel, La Forêt, one of the four or five best French-Canadian novels, triumphs over his earlier didactic tendencies. Its characters spring to life and dictate their own destiny, portraying the presumptuous Europeans who try to master an impassive land by brute strength rather than awe and understanding. Within this struggle, a lesser takes place: that between man and wife as they become aware of their innate incompatibility. To these and others of Bugnet's characters, Antaeus' flaw remains hidden. Constantin-Weyer and Bugnet are alike in their strong attraction to a pristine land, their predilection for Naturalism and their preoccupation with the theme of struggle -- that of man with nature and of man within himself. But the similarities are far outweighed by their differences. Constantin-Weyer, following in Cooper's tradition of exoticism, adds to it verve, humor, color and passion, qualities which won for Canada an enthusiastic audience in France. The underlying eroticism we detect is his original contribution to French-Canadian literature. Bugnet, on the other hand, deficient in these qualities, more than redeems himself by an uncompromising discipline, a sincerity and a certain mystic perception which brought forth a work of lasting value — La Forêt. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

Speculative fiction is a genre that is gaining urgency in the contemporary Canadian literary scene as authors and readers become increasingly concerned with what it means to live in a nation implicated in globalization. This genre is useful because with it, authors can extrapolate from the present to explore what some of the long-term effects of globalization might be. This thesis specifically considers the long-term effects of globalization on communities, a theme that speculative fictions return to frequently. The selected speculative fictions engage with current theory on globalization and community in their explorations of how globalization might affect the types of communities that can be enacted. This thesis argues that these texts demonstrate how Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s notion of “cooperative autonomy” can be uniquely cultivated in the conditions of globalization – despite the fact that those conditions are characterized by the fragmentation of traditional forms of community (Empire 392).

A two-way bond between translation and migration has appeared in the most recent texts in the social sciences and humanities: this connection between the two is exemplified by the mobility metaphor, which considers both practices as journeys across cultural, linguistic and geographical borders. Among the different ways this mobility metaphor can be studied, two particular areas of investigation are of interest for this research: firstly, migrant writing, a literary genre shaped from the increasing migratory movements worldwide; the second area of interest is literary translation, the activity that shapes the way these narratives are disseminated beyond the linguistic borders they were produced in. My investigation into the role of literary translation in the construction and circulation of a migrant discourse starts with the claim that writing and translation in itinerant contexts are driven by, and participate in, the idea of the journey: an interlingual and intercultural flow regulated by social/economic/artistic constraints, a movement in which the migrant experience is ‘translated’ in writing and then ‘migrated’ across languages and spaces. The present analysis focuses on the representative case study of migrant narratives by Canadian writers of Italian descent: their shared reflections on the themes of nostalgia and the mythical search for roots, together with a set of specific linguistic devices – hybridity, juxtaposition of languages, idiolects and registers – create a distinctive literary migrant discourse, that of the return to the land of origin. Guided primarily by the theoretical framework of Cultural Studies, the first part of this work seeks to illustrate how thematic and linguistic elements contribute to the construction of a homecoming discourse in original migrant narratives, and how this relates to the translation practice. Subsequently, the analysis moves to the examination of how these motives are reproduced in the translated texts, and what is/are the key rationale/s behind the translation of this type of works. Ultimately, my research takes a sociologically informed interest in the influence of translation and its agents in endorsing and/or manipulating this rationale in the receiving culture. In fact, this research aims to represent equally the human and cultural-linguistic aspects that affect these translational journeys, concentrating, firstly, on the actors (authors and literary translators) and the social and artistic environments that surround the production of both the source and target texts and, subsequently, on the texts themselves.

La literature de la Côte ouest demeure peu traduite en français. Son caractère unique et les difficultés posées par sa traduction expliquent en partie cet etat de fait regrettable. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'analyser les particularités de cette littérature régionale afin de la rendre plus accessible au traducteur et, par la-meme, au lecteur français. Pour illustrer chacun des problèmes soulevés, des exemples concrets sont utilisés. lis sont tirés de deux nouvelles de Jack Hodgins, "Every Day of His Life" et "By the River", toutes deux publiées dans Spit Delaney's Island (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976). Ces oeuvres, profondément régionalistes, fournissent une excellente source de thèmes propres à la littérature de la Côte ouest et de problèmes particuliers pour le traducteur. Chaque question traitée est accompagnée de l'étude d'un cas de traduction offrant diverses solutions possibles et expliquant leur pertinence dans le cadre d'une oeuvre de la Côte ouest. Cette analyse pratique est suivie d'un dialogue avec Jack Hodgins, visant à préciser et, dans certains cas, rectifier l'approche du traducteur et son interprétation de l'oeuvre à traduire. Des exemples de modifications qu'il est possible d'apporter àune traduction, grâce au dialogue avec l'auteur, sont proposés et discutés. Pour conclure, il sera débattu des avantages et des inconvénients d'une telle collaboration. Cette thèse met en évidence la richesse de la littérature de la Côte ouest et offre un certain nombre d'outils indispensables a sa traduction. Les caractéristiques de cette littérature régionale, une fois reconnues et comprises par le traducteur, ne forment plus un obstacle à sa lisibilité pour le lecteur françis. Elles lui ouvrent au contraire tout un univers jusqu'alors insoupçonné. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

ABSTRACT This dissertation, “The Past is Perfect”: Leonard Cohen’s Philosophy of Time, analyzes the concept of time and aspects of temporality in Leonard Cohen’s poetry and prose, both published and unpublished. Through imagination and memory, Cohen continuously explores his past as a man, a member of a family, and a representative of a culture. The complex interconnection of individual and collective pasts constitutes the core of Cohen’s philosophy informed by his Jewish heritage, while its artistic expression is indebted to the literary past. The poet/novelist/songwriter was famously designated as “the father of melancholy”; it is his focus on the past that makes his works appear pessimistic. Cohen pays less attention to the other two temporal aspects, present and future, which are seen in a generally negative light until his most recent publication. The study suggests that although Cohen’s attitude to the past has not changed radically from Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) to Book of Longing (2006), his views have changed from bitterness prompted by time’s destructive force to acceptance of its work and the assertion of the power of poetry/art to withstand it; there is neither discontent with the present nor prediction of a catastrophic future. Time remains a metaphysical category and subject to mythologizing, temporal linearity often being disregarded. Although Cohen’s spiritual search has extended throughout his life, his essential outlook on time and the past is already expressed in the early books; his latest publications combine new pieces and selections from previous books of poetry and prose works, confirming the continuity of ideas and general consistency of his vision.

For 141 years, The Ryerson Press was both a cultural engine for and a reflection of Canadian society. Founded in 1829 as the Methodist Book Room, it was Canada’s first English-language book publisher and became the largest textbook publisher in Canada. Its contributions to Canadian literature, particularly under long-time editor Lorne Pierce, were considerable. In 1970, however, the press was sold to American branch plant McGraw-Hill, causing a cultural and nationalist crisis in the publishing community. The purpose of this thesis is to explanation many of the factors causing the United Church to sell the House. The purchase of an expensive and outdated printing press in 1962 has been blamed for the sale, as has the general state of Canadian publishing at the time. However, the whole story is much more complex and includes publication choices, personnel shifts, management failures, financial ruin, organizational politics, inflation, and the massive cultural shift of the late 1960s. Specifically, the thesis looks at the succession crisis that followed Lorne Pierce’s retirement, the Woods, Gordon Management Report, the New Curriculum, The United Church Observer, the practice of hiring ministers as managers, the formation of the Division of Communication, the proposed merger of the United Church of Canada with the Anglican Church of Canada, and falling church membership.

This dissertation explores the relationship between the regulatory discourses of nationalism and sexuality as they operate in the cultural production and textual dissemination of contemporary Canadian literatures. Applying recent studies in postcolonial and queer theory to a number of works by gay and lesbian authors written across a broad spectrum of years, political perspectives, and genres, I seek to formulate a critical methodology which allows me to situate these works within the trajectory of Canadian canon-formation from the 1940s to the present. In so doing, I argue that the historical construction of Canadian literature and Canadian literary criticism upon an apparent absence of national identity—us encapsulated most tellingly in the "Where is here?" of Frye's "Conclusion"—masks nothing so much as the presence of a subversive and destabilizing sexual identity—"queer." The dissertation is made up of eight chapters: the first opens with a Sedgwickian survey of the "homosocial" underpinnings of several foundational texts of Canadian literature, before providing an overview—via George Mosse, Benedict Anderson, and Michel Foucault—of the theoretical parameters of the dissertation as a whole. Chapter two focuses on three nationally "ambivalent" and sexually "dissident" fictions by Timothy Findley. A comparative analysis of the homophobic criticism accompanying the sexual/textual travels of Patrick Anderson and Scott Symons serves as the basis of chapter three. Chapter four discusses the allegorical function of homosexuality in the nationalist theatre of Michel Tremblay, Rene-Daniel Dubois, and Michel Marc Bouchard. Chapter five examines how national and sexual borderlines become permeable in the lesbian-feminist translation poetics of Nicole Brossard and Daphne Marlatt. Issues of performativity (the repetition and reception of various acts of identification) are brought to the fore in chapters six and seven, especially as they relate to the (dis)located politics of Dionne Brand, and the (re)imagined communities of Tomson Highway and Beth Brant, respectively. Finally, chapter eight revisits some of the vexed questions of identity raised throughout the dissertation by moving the discussion of nationalisms and sexualities into the classroom. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis clarifies some issues at the forefront of Multicultural education from an anti-racist perspective. The researcher is concerned that, while school boards across the country allegedly promote an education wherein the perspectives of all Canadian cultural groups are included—a goal that reflects promises of both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the policy of Multiculturalism—differences persist between what is intended by policy makers and what perspectives are actually included in the curriculum. These contradictions between intentions and conduct are explored by exarmning the effects of Multicultural ideology on the discursive borders of Canadian education. These ideas are then related to the specific example of African Canadian history. Past and present contradictions between Canadian policies and practices toward African Canadians are scrutinized. The issue of African Canadian exclusion from the Canadian Literary Canon is emphasized and this problem is related through a discussion of the Canadian publishing industry. The writer argues that different kinds of opportunities are required that help learners explore the subject of racism on an emotional level, develop in-depth understandings about African Canadian history and cultures, and give learners opportunities to listen to African Canadian perspectives. The idea that African Canadian literature could be utilised by educators is suggested as a way to start establishing a basis for education where African Canadian perspectives are represented on equal terms. Pedagogical problems that might arise with the introduction of these stories into the curriculum are addressed. The writer argues that Canadian education developed out of a context of oppression. Postmodern research paradigms are suggested as a way to explore these issues. Following on the diverse writing styles that are used in postmodern inquiries, an excerpt from a play by the writer is included. Both the play and the discussion intentionally disrupt the suggestion of a self-Other dichotomy that is sometimes present in education and research. The writer explores this territory and ultimately suggests the possibility of negotiating relationships that are not defined by oppression, but that acknowledge the pain that oppression causes. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

The reorientation of federal state policy on Canada's relation to Indigenous peoples that occurred in the years 1969-1974, although heralded as progressive, inaugurated not so much an age of liberation, restititution, and reconciliation as a bureaucratic and institutional framework for perpetuating settler-colonial processes of dispossession and assimilation. This was a period of intense struggle both within and without Indigenous politics, as activist dissidents to the increasing institutionalization of negotiation with the colonial state were branded as pathological and dangerous "Red Power" militants and phased out from mainstream political discourse. As they lived through the contradictions of these processes, three such militants turned to writing autobiographies that would become foundational influences upon the development of Indigenous literature in Canada: Maria Campbell's Halfbreed, Howard Adams's Prison of Grass, and Lee Maracle's Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel. These autobiographies, which explicitly spoke to the writers' political and activist experiences and positions, occupy a complicated position in Indigenous literary history. Often relegated to a bygone moment of polemic, bitterness, and resentment, they have been more or less systematically misread or dismissed as works of literature by literary critics. This thesis proposes that considering these works in their formal and narrative specificity, as well as constituting a literary-critical and literary-historical end in itself given the dearth of scholarly attention paid to this period of Indigenous/Canadian history in general and these works in particular, can open up productive theoretical and critical insights into two ongoing disciplinary concerns: dismantling ongoing scholarly investments in colonial premises about and usages of narrative, subjectivity, and history; and envisaging possible relations between Indigenous literature(s) and literary study and anti-colonial political processes, especially processes of activism and movement-building toward decolonization.

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