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Downtown Canada: Writing Canadian Cities
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Downtown Canada: Writing Canadian Cities Paperback - 2005 - 2nd Edition

by Justin D. Edwards (Editor); Douglas Ivison (Editor)

From the publisher

The vast majority of Canadians live in cities, yet for the most part, discussions of Canadian literature have failed to actively engage with the country's urban experience. Canada's prevalent myths continue to be about nordicity and the wilderness, and, stereotypically at least, its literature is often perceived as being about small towns, rural areas, and 'roughing it in the bush.'

Downtown Canada is a collection of essays that addresses Canada as an urban place. The contributors focus their attention on the writing of Canada's cities - including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Halifax - and call attention to the centrality of the city in Canadian literature. They examine how characters are affected by the urban experience in works by a group of authors as diverse as the country itself: Hugh MacLennan, Jovette Marchessault, Michael Ondaatje, Austin Clarke, and Gerald Lynch, to name just a few. Editors Justin D. Edwards and Douglas Ivison have brought together an esteemed group of international Canadian literary scholars, and together they have created a book that is timely and unique, questioning conventional assumptions about Canadian literature, and Canadian culture more generally.

First line

The notion that Canadian literature has a deep and abiding relationship with the land has governed criticism of Canadian literature (generally thematic, but also more avowedly theoretical) for the last half century, largely to the exclusion of critiques relating to literary systems as urban institutions (and, more broadly, to critiques of Canadian society and culture as products of the Enlightenment project).

Details

  • Title Downtown Canada: Writing Canadian Cities
  • Author Justin D. Edwards (Editor); Douglas Ivison (Editor)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition number 2nd
  • Edition 2
  • Pages 290
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of Toronto Press
  • Date November 19, 2005
  • ISBN 9780802086686 / 0802086683
  • Weight 0.6 lbs (0.27 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.62 x 5.8 x 0.69 in (21.89 x 14.73 x 1.75 cm)
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: Canadian
  • Library of Congress subjects City and town life in literature, Canadian literature - 20th century - History
  • Dewey Decimal Code 813.540

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