A Country Without a Soul: Rupert Brooke's Gothic Vision of Canada

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
A Country Without a Soul: Rupert Brooke's Gothic Vision of Canada
Abstract
The British writer and poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) visited Canada in 1913 and wrote a series of travel articles about the trip for the prestigious Westminster Gazette, published posthumously in 1916 under the title "Letters from America". While in Quebec, Brooke wrote a negative account of Montreal ("consists of banks and churches", with dour Scots who spend their time in "laying up their riches in this world or the next", and who gave the city an "air of dour prosperity"). He also described how the city was divided between the French- and English-speaking populations. Though an imperialist himself, Brooke was highly critical of the individualism and materialism that he felt characterized Canada, and he felt alienated in a thinly-populated country that he claimed was without tradition and without a soul. The author points out that Brooke's articles stand apart from the enthusiastic accounts of economic progress and beckoning wilderness written by his fellow British travellers in that age of renewed British interest in the self-governing dominions.
Publication
Canadian Literature/Littérature canadienne
Volume
No. 219
Pages
95-111
Date
Winter 2013
Language
en
Notes

See also: Sandra Martin and Roger Hall, eds. Rupert Brooke in Canada. Toronto, ON: PMA Books, 1978, viii, 154p.

Citation
Little, J. I. “A Country Without a Soul: Rupert Brooke’s Gothic Vision of Canada.” Canadian Literature/Littérature canadienne No. 219 (Winter 2013): 95–111.
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