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Literary Criticism Canadian

Setting in the East

Maritime Realist Fiction

by (author) David Creelman

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2003
Category
Canadian
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773524781
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $125.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773570740
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $95.00

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Description

He shows that realism arrived comparatively late to the Maritime provinces and argues that the emergence of a realist style corresponded with a dramatic period of economic and cultural disruption during which the Eastern provinces were transformed from one Canada's most developed, prosperous, and promising regions into one characterized by chronic underemployment and underdevelopment. The region is thus torn between its memory of an earlier, more traditional social order and its present experience as a modern industrial society. These tensions are embedded in the Maritime character and have affected not only the lives of its people but the imaginations and texts of its writers. The stories of Thomas Raddall, Hugh MacLennan, Charles Bruce, Ernest Buckler, Alden Nowlan, Alistair MacLeod, Donna Smyth, Budge Wilson, and David Adams Richards have been deeply influenced by the cultural shifts they have observed. In the last two decades a host of new literary voices has emerged, and Creelman also explores the works of such writers as Ann-Marie MacDonald, Lynn Coady, Nancy Bauer, Deborah Joy Corey, Carol Bruneau, Alan Wilson, Leo McKay, and Sheldon Currie. He shows that these Maritime artists share a common regional identity that shapes their narratives as they find their own paths through the tensions which envelop them.

About the author

Editor David Creelman teaches Atlantic literature at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John.

David Creelman's profile page