The dissertation investigates the correlations among the development of general anthologies of Canadian literature, the Canadian canon, and visions of national identity. While literature anthologies are widely used in university classrooms, the influential role of the anthology in the critical study of literature has been largely overlooked, particularly in Canada. The dissertation begins with an analysis of the stages of development of general anthologies of Canadian literature, demonstrating that there are important links between dominant critical trends and the guiding interests of the various phases of anthology development and that anthologies both reflect and participate in moulding views of the nation and its literature. Focusing then upon five eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Canadian authors, the dissertation traces their treatment in anthologies and analyzes in detail the impact of stages of anthology development upon authors’ inclusion and presentation. The reception of Frances Brooke, John Richardson, William Kirby, Susanna Moodie, and Emily Pauline Johnson over a span of nearly 90 years is examined, and points of inclusion and exclusion are scrutinized to determine links with prevailing critical interests as well as canonical status. These case studies reveal the functions of anthologies, which include recovering overlooked authors, amending past oversights, reflecting new areas of critical inquiry, and preserving the national literary tradition. Their treatment also reveals the effect of larger critical concerns, such as alignment with dominant visions of the nation, considerations of genre, and reassessments of past views. The dissertation shows that the anthology is a carefully constructed, culturally valuable work that plays an important role in literary criticism and canon formation and is a genre worthy of careful scrutiny.

This thesis is a journey into the realm of Spider Woman—the Cosmic Weaver—and explores ways in which Spider Woman figures and textile imagery became increasingly important and powerful healing metaphors in literature, during the rise of second wave feminism. Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Paula Gunn Allen's The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, and Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar illustrate the importance of these healing metaphors in women's fiction. Framing the analysis is Mary Daly's concept for creating a gynocentric literature (Gyn/Ecology) that escapes patriarchal linguistic constraints through the process of "spooking, sparking and spinning' new words and new stories on a "loom of our own."

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O objetivo desta dissertação é o de investigar as disputas pelo poder subjacentes no texto literário do autor cherokee/canadense Thomas King, mais especificamente em seu romance publicado em 1993 intitulado Green Grass, Running Water. Serão destacadas as estratégias performáticas empregadas na desconstrução de representações opressivas de nativo-americanos por discursos ocidentais que compõem um complexo campo de batalha onde vozes em conflito disputam por direitos discursivos nas relações de poder. Se por um lado temos a tradição epistemológica positivista/cartesiana que trabalha há cinco séculos no sentido de exercer controle sobre as representações simbólicas dos nativo-americanos, a fim de que poder executivo e discursivo possa ser exercido sobre eles, por outro lado temos que Thomas King proporciona ao leitor o acesso a uma estrutura cíclica, não hierarquizada da narrativa e do epistêmio nativo-americanos. Esta investigação irá apontar os momentos de conflito entre essas vozes e analisará uma potencial interpretação democrática, de terceira via para esses encontros aparentemente binários. Espera-se ser possível indicar que Green Grass, Running Water propicia um privilegiado campo simbólico para que conflitos culturais e epistemológicos possam ocorrer e ser resolvidos com alguma espécie de resolução positiva em relação ao aspecto frequentemente belicoso dos engajamentos nativos e ocidentais. Para tanto, investigaremos a tradição bíblica e judaico-cristã de hierarquização e como o processo de nomeação de indivíduos e categorias permite que ocorra uma relação de dominação. Discutiremos a estrutura organizacional das comunidades, baseando-nos nas proposições de Zygmunt Bauman, com o intuito de averiguar de que forma o texto literário lida com questões como o pertencimento a grupos que possuem critérios subjetivos de aceitação, permitindo-nos responder se tais critérios permitem uma opção de filiação ou se representam uma demanda coletiva opressiva sobre o indivíduo. Uma análise dos discursos científicos de verdade também será feita, contrastando-os com a construção mítica coletiva das narrativas nativo-americanas como construções alternativas de verdade. Finalmente, teremos um capítulo sobre o poder narrativo da fotografia (mídia presente no romance em diversos momentos), no qual os usos da câmera serão descritos e analisados em seus potenciais de malícia e de narração distorcida. / The aim of this paper is to investigate the power struggles underlying the literary text of Canadian/Cherokee author Thomas King in the novel Green Grass, Running Water, published in 1993. We will highlight the performative strategies employed in the deconstruction of oppressive representations of the Native American by Western discursive and mediatic voices. The novel offers an interweaved narrative of Native and Western cultural materials that, together, will compose a complex battlefield of contentious voices that, ultimately, weigh on the balance of power relations to claim discursive rights. On the one hand, we have the epistemological tradition of a Positivist/Cartesian logic that has been working for five centuries to hold sway over the symbolic representations of the Native Americans in order to exert executive and discursive power over them; on the other hand, Thomas King provides the reader a glimpse of the cyclical, non-hierarchized structure of Native narrative and episteme. This investigation will point out the moments of conflict between these two voices and attempt to elaborate on the potential democratic/third-way interpretation of these seemingly binary encounters. We hope to be able to indicate that Green Grass, Running Water provides a privileged symbolic battleground for cultural and epistemological clashes to occur and be settled with some sort of positive resolution to the long-lasting contentious nature of Native and Western engagements. In order to accomplish that, we will delve into the biblical and Judeo-Christian tradition of hierachization and how the process of naming of individuals and categories allows for domination to occur. We will elaborate on the structural organization of communities, based on the propositions of Zygmunt Bauman, in order to assess how the literary text handles issues such as belonging to groups that have subjective criteria for acceptance, aiming at answering whether these criteria allow for an option of membership or if they pose as oppressive collective demands over the individual. An analysis of the scientific discourses of truth will also be provided, contrasting them with the collective mythmaking of Native American narratives as alternative constructors of truths. Finally, we will have a chapter on the narrative power of photography (a medium present in the novel at various moments), in which the uses of the camera are described and analyzed in their guileful and (mis)narrating potentials.

ix, 267 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / In English literary studies, classical epic poetry is typically regarded as a masculinist genre that imparts and reinforces the values of dominant culture. The Iliad , Odyssey , and Aeneid , after all, were written by men, feature male heroes, and recount the violent events that gave rise to the misogynistic societies of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet, in the twentieth century, women poets have found inspiration for their feminist projects in these ostensibly masculinist poems. The four poets in this study, for example, have drawn from the work of Homer and Virgil to criticize the ways that conventional conceptions of gender identity have impaired both men and women. One might expect, and indeed, most critics argue, that women like H.D., Gwendolyn Brooks, Louise Glück, and Anne Carson invoke their classical predecessors only to reject them and the repressive values that they represent. Close readings of these poets' work, however, demonstrate that, far from dismissing the ancient poems, Helen in Egypt , Annie Allen , Meadowlands , and Autobiography of Red are deeply invested in them, finding in them models for their own social critiques. The work of these four poets emphasizes that the classical epics are not one-dimensional celebrations of violence and traditional masculinity. Indeed, the work of Homer and Virgil expresses anxiety about the misogynistic values of the heroic code to which its warriors adhere, and it urges that war and violence are antithetical to civilized society. In examining the ways that modern women poets have drawn from these facets of the ancient works to condemn the sexism, racism, and heterocentrism of contemporary culture, my dissertation seeks to challenge the characterization of classical epic that prevails in English literary studies and to assert the necessity of understanding the complexity of the ancient texts that inspire modern poets. Taking an intertextual approach, I hope to show that close readings of the classical epics facilitate our understanding of how and why modern women have engaged the work of their ancient predecessors and that this knowledge, in turn, emphasizes that the epic genre is more complex than we have recognized and that its tradition still flourishes. / Committee in charge: Karen Ford, Chairperson, English; Paul Peppis, Member, English; Steven Shankman, Member, English; P. Lowell Bowditch, Outside Member, Classics