Universidad Tecnológica de Chile Inacap

Traducción Inglés- Español

English Culture

Canada

“Literature”

Nombres: -Rubén Aguilar

-Natalia Cárdenas

Teacher: Juan Peñeipil

Date: October, 2nd

, 2012

-Puerto Montt-

Literature

CanLit is the name we often give to the general Canadian Literature. The literature

of Canada is not very famous around the world, though this happens in many countries.

Canada has many writers. Literature is a strong aspect which shows many characteristics

about the history or the citizens, and CanLit is one of them. The Canadian culture is such a

reflection of its writers who also enrich the culture. CanLit was not very popular in the

early times, but with the time going by, people turned out to be more interested on this.

The colonization of Nouvelle France since 1535 by Cartier, originated the

settlement of many Francophones (people around the world who speak French). The

Francophone community reached a number of 60 thousand from the XVI century til the

colony while Canada was in charge of the British Empire. Nowadays a lot of literature

created during the colonial period is preserved. The content of this literature involves:

Conquest relationship, missionaries reports, histories of the colony and so on. These

preserved information was a great help in order to understand a bit more what was the

people and country like in those days.

In the beginning this country was worried about the economic development, but

when Canadians were able to balance their economy, that was the moment when they

started to create, promote and increase the interest in the Arts, in this case, Literature. In the

beginning The Canadian literature seemed to be very close in both content and style with

European Literature. British, French and also Aborigins are the main cultures, and had

certainly influence in the current diversity in numbers of readers and writers all over the

country. Perhaps this was a product of inspiration with some similar characteristics in

environment. By the way the Canadian landscapes have been a fount of inspiration by

many years for both oral and written literature. The Literature in this country is compared

with Russian literature, because both have similar climate. The Canadian Literature is

inspired in the climate, nature, history, and the literature shows the nature, life and Canada

in the world.

Criticism in CanLit very often focuses on national or regional problems. The socio-

political facts have also influenced and served as a font of inspiration for poetry in this

country. Its literature counts on many genres. The CanLit may possess different categories

and some of the reason why are the following: Regional or province is a common way in

which the differences by place are important. Identify CanLit by authors and finally it is

proper to make divisions by the Literature period. In this case differences and contrasts may

vary, e.g. Poets who wrote in the periods of Canadian wars certainly had another style in

writing because the saw different incidents.

The quality of CanLit is definitely marked by different aspects such as: Humor in

which important or serious topics are laced with humorism. The nature is also used in

CanLit and the shades often vary. In some cases nature is seen as a problem and problem,

other times is seen as a divine privilege.

The Literature, in XIX century, was inspired in the daily life of Man with the

Nature. The way they interacted and saw the world. Later of Second World War, the

country adopted the Modernism into the literature, but the acceptation was not easy. Since

1990, the Canadian literature started to face another reality. CanLit started to be recognized

as one of the most important in the world. Different writers won many awards for their

jobs, direct result of the constant fight to create a definite and proper style. „As for me and

my house‟ (1941) by Sinclair Ross, is a novel where a story of the marriage of a couple is

told. This history is very marked by the nature and climate. Also we can realize that the

author focused in the interaction of people towards nature, relationships among people and

the view of society about nature.

Among the main Canadian artists we can find: Marie MacDonald (author of „fall on

your knees XX century) Anne Hébert (Kamourasca, middle in the past century). John

Ralston Saul in one of his books mention that the CanLit is quite a reflection of both center

of Europe and Latin America instead of the countries we may though influence like

England and France. Ralston Saul also mentioned that Russian Literature is a direct

influence to the Canadian. This is due to the melancholy, provincial celebrations and

difficulty on changes in the system and how the unfriendly weather conditions are very

similar to Russian‟s. Another important Canadian poet is Nicole Brossard (1943). She was

born in Vancouver and her publications in French (La barre du Jour, Les Tetes de Pioche

and Les Herbes Rouges) are a contribution for CanLit. Her inclination about feminism is

marked along her career as a poet with a critic mood and permanent evolution.

John Hugh MacLennan wrote „Two solitudes‟ in 1945. This book is definitely based

on the relationship between English and French Canada. The title of this book has created

great tension, and embodies the current differences in the two main cultures of these lands.

There are lots of histories present in the CanLit, many of them written in different

languages. English Canadian and French Canadian published writings have their own style

and focus. The Canadian writers have also won important awards. The following lines

show the awards and the Authors respectively.

1992, Michael Ondaatje won Man Booker Prize.

2000, Margaret Atwood won Booker Prize.

2001, Alistair MacLeod won IMPAC.

2008, Rawi Hage won IMPAC.

A great example of a shift in the Canadian Literature is „The double Hook‟

(1959).This novel was written by Sheila Watson (24 Oct 1909 – 1 Feb 1998) this changed

the traditional poetic form to a more poetic prose form. This book is aimed to explain how

one person can change the relationships and can even destroy the basis of a community.

Finally, the history of the Canadian literature started to have own life with the

people who came from England and French. They though that the country was similar in

conditions and climate with some of the European countries and carried the style of

Europeans and introduced some of this culture in Canada. Nowadays, Canada has created

and improved a better economy and became to value literature as a matter that needs to be

preserved. Also the country realized that as much as the history and geographical

conditions are a good fount of inspiration for writers. Now the writers of the country have

so much importance in the world since the beginning of XX century and the search of

identity seems to have come to an end to after been constructed a solid Literature.

Biography

Es.knowledger, http://es.knowledger.de/0201212/LiteraturaCanadiense

Canadaenred, http://www.canadaenred.com/content/guia_paises/canada/cultura/36

Canada en Español,http://www.canadaenespanol.com/literatura_canadiense.htm

The Canadian Encyclopedia,2011,

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/customcode/Media.cfm?Params=A3ret-

literature.swf

El poder de la palabra, http://www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=7688