Great Plains Studies, Center for
Review of The Literary History of Alberta: From Writing-on-Stone to World War Two, by George Melnyk.
Date of this Version
March 2000
Abstract
Literary histories play a crucial role in the construction, maintenance, and enforcement of literary canons. In some academic quarters, literary histories have come to be thought of as the tanks deployed in the canon wars, forces acting to suppress awareness of the vitality of local, regional, and minority literatures, and even of the national literatures of postcolonial countries. The canon-as represented in literary histories, conservative anthologies, official prizes, traditionally designed university English courses, and other cultural apparatuses- is the bulwark resisted by younger writers, women writers, writers of color, gay, lesbian, aboriginal, and experimental writers. Literary histories themselves, however, can play a very subversive role in cultural construction.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly, Volume 20, Number 2, Spring 2000, p. 171. © 2000 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.