This essay examines the interstices between geography and history in English
Canadian poetry by analyzing the production of space through poetic imagery. It
introduces two terms, "garrison temporality" and "geologic temporality," to demonstrate
how poets created divisions in the Canadian landscape temporally, demarcating these
divisions according to their understanding of the perceived spaces' historicity. In early
Canadian poetry, poets tended to distinguish colonized spaces from uncolonized spaces
by designating them as either historical or ahistorical. This was achieved, more
specifically, by appropriating civil, or garrison, spaces into a narrative of English
expansion which traced its historical lineage back to European antiquity. The space
outside the garrison's perimeter was deemed to exist out of time, providing yet another
justification for further colonization. Later generations of Canadian poets contested the
ahistorical designations created by this narrative, as well as the division they draw
between urban and non-urban spaces, by appealing to geologic time. Geologic
temporality functions not so much as a viable explanatory model for the narration of
history as it does a poetic device for contesting the centrality of Europe and of urban
centers in assessing contemporary Canada's place in time. This essay traces the shift in
attitudes towards time and space from Charles G.D. Roberts' "Tantramar Revisited"
(1886) to Dale Zieroth's "Baptism" (1981).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6585 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Rae, Ian |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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