Allegiance / Anxiety / Identity: The Rhetoric of Legitimation in the Early Canadian Long Poem, from Carey to Crawford

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Allegiance / Anxiety / Identity: The Rhetoric of Legitimation in the Early Canadian Long Poem, from Carey to Crawford
Abstract
The author points out that the early Canadian long poem has often been faulted for its lack of aesthetic integrity, being seen in many cases as little more than poorly "versified rhetoric." His investigation of the rhetorical devices at work in the early Canadian long poem reveals them to be highly strategic operations of both the imperial-colonial project in British North America and the emerging national consciousness of the new nation of Canada. He argues that these operations may be understood more clearly through the close examination of periodic "ruptures" in the texts -- inconsistencies, contradictions, anomalies, and deflections -- which underscore the frequently conflictual nature of the "unsaid" (the real historical, economic and social conditions) and the surface level of the narrative (the aesthetic and generic constraints). The author contends that such an analysis reveals the extent to which the problems of allegiance, anxiety and identity were inextricably involved in the colonial and national projects, an involvement which the poetry, despite its intentions, could neither mask nor resolve. Chapter two of the dissertation, titled "The Quebec Experience", dissects Thomas Cary's 1798 poem "Abram's Plain: A Poem". The British-born Carey's (1751-1823) long poem, written in the style of British poet James Thomson, is a 568-line description of the St. Lawrence Valley, its towns and people.
Type
PhD dissertation
University
McGill University
Place
Montreal
Date
1995
# of Pages
iv-264p.
Language
en
URL
Citation
Mazoff, C.D. “Allegiance / Anxiety / Identity: The Rhetoric of Legitimation in the Early Canadian Long Poem, from Carey to Crawford.” PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28840&silo_library=GEN01.
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