2nd Part of Canadian literature and Bibliography

Ethnical Literature

     When we heard this term, maybe you could associate with Inuit people, for example. But this term gets in a group the aboriginal and different ethnics groups that live in Canada like Irish, Welsh and Scottish.
     Ethnical literature has been written in English or French, even though its exponents are foreign people. The characteristics of this literature is the point of view that the Irish, Welsh or Scottish people contributed from their own reality, and it is like look Canada with the eyes of world.
     By the other hand, in Inuit literature that was affected by the English, because of that the colonizers educated the aboriginal in religion, due to this the main text of Inuit are translations of the bible.
     On the whole, the Indian literature treats about its mythology, legends, fables and fairy tales.
    Otherwise the Irish, Welch and Scottish literature had a period where it was the mainstream in terms of its styles of write. An example, that it shows this literature were the “Canadian Ballads” which were written following the Irish ballads.

Oral literature

    This type of literature is a kind of conserving the oral story of ethnical groups, the “Folklore”. For this reason, the main topic of this kind of text is the myths and legends about heroes. And, this kind of story can be a joke, proverbs or a rhyme, even lullabies, because it is a category that covers all of oral story.
     Lullabies talk about a story which can be romantic or current life, though it is not necessary that the story related about an epic topic.  
    About the ethnical story, it is very focused in heroes. A myth that count the discovery of fire told that is attributed a hero called Nanabozo of the Ojiwa and another called Coyote of Salish’s tribe.
    The oral literature has inspired many writers of North America with its style of creation in the same moment when you talk.
     A property of oral literature is that, it passes for generations in oral form. An example; the myths and legends, that are related through oral form and they are passed over generation in tribes or communities for maintaining the spirit or essence of the root of the people.
     In my opinion this literature or kind of story is very important, because it relates about the roots of tribes and origins of all in the world with its own point of view and with a sample of its reality, because of we think that is a culture like an identity.
     In conclusion, Canada has passed for several styles and now it still maintains all of these styles in harmony. A bit of myth and legends, with a touch of romanticism and the point of view of Irish, Scottish and Welsh all of them created a mixture that is represent in the current texts.

Bibliography

Dionne, R., Literature in French, the Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/literature-in-french

Godard B., Oral literature, the Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/oral-literature-in-english    

New W.H., Literature in English, the Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/literature-in-english

Palmer T. & Rasporich B., Ethnic Literature, the Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/ethnic-literature

1st Part of Canadian Literature

Literature in French

Therefore, as I told previously Canada is the result of a cultural mixture, and the literature is not an exception. The literature has an Ethnical, English and a French face.

French literature has been present since the French colonized Canada, in this time in form of ‘Letters’ like Jesuits letters and personal correspondence, which currently are autographic texts at that time. Also, there are histories and spiritual writings related to France.

In fact, French literature in Canada was marked by a style of write that used a language very educated but which was searched a touch of humour, because of that the text of French literature is very “colourful”.  This is possible to see in the texts of Pierre Perrault.

An anecdote is about the printing presses, because the king never allowed that these machines were installed in the colony of Canada, maybe a system of controlling the opinion of the people. Due to all books were printed in France.

Until 1790 the first Newspaper was printed in Quebec, It was a bilingual newspaper in French and French Canadian that was a mixture of native language with French, but due to some problems with publications was removed and after 1800 a newspaper only in French Canadian was printed, it treated the topics of liberty.

Inside the French literature existing subtypes of literature, one of these subtypes is the Literary Homeland; it appeared after the war that joined Canada. What does mean these words? Many years ago, Canada was separated in two parts; upper and lower Canada. Thus, in this subtype appeared a classification of text that, I think about this is important or interesting which are “rural texts”.

The rural novel, which is part of rural texts, that was a mixture among dreams, a hero with his antagonist, and, a bit of romantic elements.

French literature produced abundance of poets of quality; I think this is part of romantic legacy of French people with their sophisticate language.

Literature in English

After the literature in French was the literature in English, and it treats about the life in the colony in its first time, because of many people from other countries believed that Canada had deserts and areas extremely cold, also it had savage civilizations. This kind of commentaries created stereotypes about the Canadians, for instance the people who visit a rural zone think that the people from this place unknown about technology. In case of Canada, abroad people think that the climate of the country was extreme.

As I said, the writers in Canada always wrote exaggerating the places, and most of these texts were novels and poems of romantic genre. An example of this exaggeration is a text that accounts the story of heroes crossing the frozen north of Canada. The reality was very different.

After this problem the Canadian writers were worried in describing with precision the flora and fauna, obviously the climate as well.

In relation to another idea, the writers described these places, flora and fauna with local words. As a result, a very interesting contribution of this kind of literature is the borrowing. What about the borrowing? I refer a borrowing of French and aboriginal languages, for instance the last one we can said that, “Igloo” is an Eskimo[1] or Inuit word, from French the word “gopher”.

---

[1] Inuit is the real name of Eskimos; they prefer to be call with this name.

CANADIAN LITERATURE

Thinking in a better comprehension we separated this essay in categories; Literature in French and English, Ethnical Literature and Oral Literature. With the last one, we refer an especial category that you could look at interesting. But the most important is the literature in Canada, and how it was influenced by the cultural mixture that exists in this country. As we said in the last essay, Canada has been influenced by three different cultures; the French, with its catholic idealization, the English with the loyalty to the Crown, and the first group of people in Canada, “the aboriginal people” marked by their own beliefs.