Before the Country: Native Renaissance, Canadian Mythology - Softcover

Stephanie McKenzie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802094465 ISBN 13: 9780802094469

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2007

Synopsis

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canada witnessed an explosion in the production of literary works by Aboriginal writers, a development that some critics have called the Native Renaissance. In Before the Country, Stephanie McKenzie explores the extent to which this growing body of literature influenced non-Native Canadian writers and has been fundamental in shaping our search for a national mythology.

In the context of Northrop Frye's theories of myth, and in light of the attempts of social critics and early anthologists to define Canada and Canadian literature, McKenzie discusses the ways in which our decidedly fractured sense of literary nationalism has set indigenous culture apart from the mainstream. She examines anew the aesthetics of Native Literature and, in a style that is creative as much as it is scholarly, McKenzie incorporates the principles of storytelling into the unfolding of her argument. This strategy not only enlivens her narrative, but also underscores the need for new theoretical strategies in the criticism of Aboriginal literatures. Before the Country invites us to engage in one such endeavour.

About this title

About the Author

Stephanie McKenzie teaches in the Department of English at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Corner Brook.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802094465
• ISBN 13: 9780802094469
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224