Literature in Canada 2.0

3.3 GGRW Allusions

This is the third time I’ve read the novel. The way I’ve found most effective for me is to flag possible allusions as I read them and write a quick note. This has helped me methodically comb through the references and make more connections. I’ve used post-its this time because I find that I notice things differently each read and don’t want anything too permanent but I’m kicking myself that I’ve lost some of my previous readings’ notebooks. I’m going at this similar to Jane Flick in her reading guide….read more

Apr.02

Assignment 3.2

Posted by jbernoe in Assignment 3.2

Narratives assume, in Blanca Chester’s words, “a common matrix of cultural knowledge.” The Four Old Indians are perhaps the best examples of characters that belong to a matrix of cultural knowledge, which excludes many non-First Nations. What were your first questions about and impressions of these characters? How have you come to understand their place in the novel? I had read this novel a couple times in my earlier course at UBC with Dr. Paterson, so I was familiar with the importance of the number 4, the Medicine Wheel, and…read more

Mar.12

Assignment 3.1

Posted by jbernoe in Assignment 3.1

Frye writes: A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Dubussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to…read more

Mar.10