HippoCampusLiteratureSpiralIntermediate11 chapters
Canadian literature, from Montgomery to Atwood
I'd like to explore Canadian literature: L. M. Montgomery, Stephen Leacock, Gabrielle Roy, Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Thomas King and newer voices. Cover their major works, recurring themes like the land, identity and survival, and what makes them distinctly Canadian.
What you'll learn
11 chapters
- 1
Orienting the Field: What Counts as Canadian Literature?
- Define Canadian literature as a field shaped by geography, history, language, and cultural debate.
- Recognize the broad chronological arc from early nation-building literature to contemporary plural voices.
- Identify key framing themes that recur across the course, including land, identity, survival, region, and colonialism.
- 2
Before and Around Montgomery: Early Contexts and National Imagination
- Place Montgomery and early 20th-century writers within a broader national and literary context.
- Recognize how late 19th- and early 20th-century writing contributed to ideas of Canada and Canadian readership.
- Understand the role of publishing, imperial ties, and regional settings in early Canadian literature.
- 3
L. M. Montgomery and the Making of a Popular Canadian Classic
- Identify Montgomery's place in Canadian literary history.
- Recognize major works and recurring motifs in her fiction.
- Explain how Montgomery's writing links place, imagination, girlhood, and community.
- 4
Stephen Leacock and Canadian Humor, Satire, and Social Critique
- Describe Leacock's importance as a humorist and satirist.
- Identify major works and the social targets of his satire.
- Explain how comedy contributes to Canadian literary identity.
- 5
French-Canadian and Québécois Perspectives: Gabrielle Roy and Mid-Century Realism
- Recognize the importance of French-language writing within Canadian literature.
- Identify Gabrielle Roy's major contribution to social realism.
- Explain how class, urban life, and language broaden the picture of Canadian literary identity.
- 6
Postwar Regionalism and Prairie Voices: Margaret Laurence and the Search for Self
- Locate Margaret Laurence within postwar Canadian literature.
- Identify the significance of the Manawaka cycle and prairie settings.
- Explain how regional fiction can address national questions of identity, gender, memory, and community.
- 7
The Short Story and Everyday Complexity: Alice Munro
- Recognize Alice Munro's importance to the Canadian short story tradition.
- Identify characteristic features of Munro's narrative method and subject matter.
- Explain how ordinary lives and small communities become sites of deep literary complexity.
- 8
Margaret Atwood: Survival, Power, and Canadian Literary Self-Definition
- Identify Margaret Atwood's central place in late 20th-century Canadian literature.
- Recognize major works across genres and their recurring concerns.
- Explain how Atwood helped shape discussion of Canadian literature through both fiction and criticism.
- 9
Indigenous Storytelling, Resistance, and Renewal: Thomas King and Beyond
- Understand Indigenous writing as central, not peripheral, to Canadian literature.
- Recognize Thomas King's role in combining storytelling, humor, and critique.
- Identify how Indigenous writers challenge settler narratives and reshape literary history.
- 10
Newer Voices and Expanding Canons: Contemporary Canadian Literature
- Survey the broader diversification of Canadian literature in recent decades.
- Identify newer voices and the social contexts that shape their work.
- Explain how contemporary writing expands earlier themes of identity, land, migration, and belonging.
- 11
Through-Lines Across the Tradition: Land, Identity, Survival, and the Canadian Difference
- Synthesize major recurring themes across the authors and periods surveyed.
- Compare how different writers define Canadian experience through setting, voice, and historical perspective.
- Develop a preliminary answer to what makes Canadian literature distinct.
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