The elaboration in recent cultural and art historical texts of Northrop Frye's assessment of Canadian literature (as articulated in his "Conclusion" to A Literary History of Canada and elsewhere) demonstrates that such concepts as "garrison mentality" and "where is here?" persist in the discourse of English-Canadian cultural studies. One result is the insistence upon regarding representations of land in early twentieth-century artistic endeavours as the manifestation of a colonial response and refusal to accommodate place. Another result is the perception that artists of the early twentieth century were attached to the imperial centre, situated outside the borders of the country, "over there." The work of Ralph Connor, Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, and Emily Carr demonstrates that Frye's and other critical assessments have been too prescriptive: even if these artists employed some European or Old World conventions, they insisted upon Canada's difference from the imperial centre and were proud of that difference. A re-examination of their work demonstrates how they employed land in the construction of national-identity and believed it to be a benevolent rather than hostile force, a source of a spiritual and transcendent experience that resulted in the conversion to Canadian-ness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/6193 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Morra, Linda. |
| Contributors | Staines, David, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 318 p. |
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