Canadian literature thread:
Topic: Predomination of ethical criticism.
I believe that the moral edict of a novel, though inseperable, is ultimately irrelevant to the value of literature. This is not to say that morality does not serve purpose to literatures true virtues, aesthetics and form.
Instead of developing works of literature that introduce the universal concepts imposed on humanity that derive from the aesthetics, the supplanted ethical tradition reaffirms our cultural and psychological biases by refraining from the juxtaposition of opposing thought-- ecriticism places the cart before the horse.
As such, the Canadian literary tradition has, and continues to, fail in establishing a concrete canon.
>>7474459
whoa, guys. Don't spam the thread, this is a slow board.
Sounds like bullshit to me. Not even interesting bullshit. Fail better next time.
If it's parody, it's pretty dry.
>>7475424
Why is it bullshit?
>>7475424
>Fail better
There is no way to fail in this context, anon. Why must you always project your insecurities onto others?
>>7475430
"universal concepts imposed on humanity?"
What concepts? Concepts are rarely imposed, save for those drubbed into us by the tin mallet of repetition. Their sheen of universality is the mere truth effect of familiarity.
What did the ethical tradition supplant? Your writin is incoherent. Your conclusion may follow from your premise, but I can't even tell what your premise is.
>>7474459
I think it's more interesting to point out our relationship to the United States. Canadians read American literature and hope to make literature for the American market; meanwhile they must put off any idea of a national literature because there is hardly any market for Canadian literature in Canada, and Canadian readers have lost any sense of the stakes of being anything other than north-of-American.
I do think there are serious consequences to having groundless moral opinions without a theology to inform them. But that problem has not stopped the development of American literature.
As for aesthetics before ethics, you might notice that the US thinks of us primarily as a slightly more politically progressive version of the their country, but otherwise not very interesting. There is a feeling that what Canadians have to say about social welfare or feminism is important, but what they have to say about God or death or beauty does not. Nobody wants to hear about a Great Canadian Novel, but they do want to hear what the northern neighbours think about healthcare. And, as I've said, a Canadian novelist has to at least try to succeed in the US market.
>>7475490
You are misinterpreting what I meant by universal concepts brought forth by pursuing aesthetics.
Aesthetics, in art, is beauty in form and sensation. For example, during the Romantic era, the idea was that beauty is most truly presented in nature, but that beauty is the allure of nature, and not the other way around.
In literature, the same is true, but in a non-visual, conceptual way. For example, a novel that explores the concept of love in an intricate, profound manner through form holds aesthetic value. You can apply this to most of the great works in a literary canon, which is timeless because their subject matter is transcendent of generations and culture.
For example, Moby Dick is only superficially about whaling. It is truly about obsession, fate and free will.
These are perennial concepts that are not bound by the cultural and generational horizons of it reader. The concepts that these books explore are every bit as valuable to a man from Nantucket as it is to another half way across the world.
As well, the characters in these stories still have emotion and depth, but their morality are byproducts of a greater machine in motion.
These concepts are universal, and they are not concepts of choice; they are a innate--they are a part of humanity.
>What did ethical tradition supplant?
Ethical criticism supplanted the new historicism of Canadian literature. Prevailing schools of criticism topple existing schools all the time. I only mention it because that is what the topic is about.
>>7475563
That is a good point, and I think that the perception you're touching on--that Canadian literature has ceased to thresh out the idea of the Canadian identity on its own terms, and is instead relying on the plurality of the 'immigrant moves to Canada' narrative (which simply places a foreign culture in contrast with an existing one)--is a growing one. Just for clarification, I'm not suggesting that Canada stops publishing stories about diversity, but rather that this is the dominant theme in Canadian publishing. I feel like it was an ambitious attempt to stand for everything, but in turn we stand for nothing.
>>7475563
How can this dependence on the American publishing industry be broken? Does the reassertion of the Canadian identity in Canadian literature have to come from the ground up with small literary journals?
>>7475763
Inb4 "The Canadians are transpiring."We are :^)
>>7475766
>transpiring
*conspiring
polite sage because im an idiot.
>>7475607
I know what aesthetics are and what the romantics were all about. I'm a published literary critic. I was just informing you that you can't write worth a damn. Knowing is half the battle.
>>7475877
Wow! Your dick must be huge, OP!I've won awards for my writing :^)
>>7475886
*anon
>>7475877
>I'm a published literary critic
I'm not the guy you're responding to, but . . . As someone who has read many published literary critics, I'm not even a little bit impressed. Nor do I feel any more sure that you know what you're talking about.
Literary criticism in A.D. MMXV is sort of awful
>a fucking leaf
>>7475920
>People don't get sad in Canada. You look at an American flag, and you see red, white, and blue. You bleed your nations colours. You look at a Canadian flag, you see red and white, but no blue. There is no blue in Canada.
Yea, I'm Canadian myself, but Canadian Lit is literally what your mom reads tier.
>TFW we put that hack alice munro on a stamp we are so desperate.
fuck, its so bad.
>>7474459
>Canadian literature
>>7475563
>But that problem has not stopped the development of American literature.
But the Americans have always had at least one or two aesthetes who were willing to put morality in the background, guys like Poe and Emerson. Moreover, even American moralists like Hawthorne, Henry James, Faulkner etc, brought original styles and poetic sensibilities with them. That's the ingredient our literature is missing, experimentation. Can you imagine a Walt Whitman or a Poe, for example, coming out of Canada? I think we've already produced artists who are on their level as far as pure competence goes. But we've not engendered a single artist who is on their level as far as originality goes.
It's like what Nabokov said about Hemingway, "at least he has a style of his own." I can't say that about any of ours.
Of course there are more problems,but I'm curious to see everyone's thoughts on this first tbqh
>>7475954
I can't either, to be quite honest. I have to admit, though, that I am taken with the idea of a group of artists positioning themselves at the vanguard of Canadian literature. I like to imagine that a Canadian literary revival is possible in a similar fashion to the occurrence of The Group of Seven but for literature. Canada's own lost generation.
>>7475933
That's my point.
>>7475924
People get sad in Canada during the winter due to lack of vitamin D
>>7476011
And the suicide rate goes up and all is well is well again. Only the true Canadians remain in Canada.
>>7476020
>Only the true Canadians remain in Canada.
I wish
>>7476020
TFW soon moving somewhere warm from Canada
feels good man.
Canada is Goat country and I will pay her back some day for everything she has given me, but I can't do the cold for 3/4ths of the year and mosquitoes for the other 1/4th thing anymore.
>>7476052
Jokes on you, forecast calls for sunny days!
>>7476011
is that so?
Here's how it works, from somebody who has been published twice:
There's a literal Canadian culture quota set on almost all distributors of media, meaning even garbage will be published in order to reach that quota, as long as it perpetuates the illusion of Canadian culture. Keeps them funded.
In addition, there's a number of racial quotas, and they're getting worse. Be vaguely Native and write about being laughed at at school for wearing an elk's skin or some crap like that, and you'll get published.
I thought there was something beyond this, I even took two advanced courses in Canadian literature to test the waters.
You know what I read? YA written in above average prose, nothing else. Even the best of what I read was a thematic desert.
I saw somebody mention Moby Dick--I'll steal that.
Whereas Moby Dickon a surface level about American culture and the changes occurring, there is much more in terms of allegory, symbolism, and the like of colorful literary techniques.
In Canadian literature, a simple conflict is only representative of general or historical conflict.
It's absolutely the most milquetoast kind of YA literature, except it's not written for the YA demographic. It's also whinier, tries to be edgy by bringing up Reservation abuse or some crap like that, but entirely non-confrontational. I'd argue it's the worst in the 'first-world'.
>>7476093
Yes, the sun is only up for 5 - 6 hours in most cities in December and January. If you go far enough north the sun doesn't come up at all near the solstice. The angle of the sun is too indirect to cause vitamin D synthesis anyways though.
>>7476052
I wouldn't ever give up the mountains and snowboarding for a beach
>>7476232
You're thinking of the Canadian Telecommunications requirements. That quota does not apply to literature, but it undoubtedly has an affect on the stories the public consumes.
>>7476279
No, there's still funding quotas. On authors, too.
>>7476232
Insightful post.
I work in UofT's library system and part of my job is handling the incoming "rare books," which include every major published Canadian book. We are mandated to store one copy in our rare books collections.
They all get shipped to the warehouse and have the lowest order rate of any books in the entire system. I cannot tell you how many "I Was A Bullied Indian" books I have shuffled off to their tombs.
The word milquetoast defines this nothing of a country and I can't wait to leave soon.
>>7476341
What is that called, or is it under the same regulations?
>>7476373
It's more like a funded grant for students following precise standards. It's private, too. I went through the process of searching for said grants, or looking for contacts to local publishers. It's essentially the same guidelines content wise, modified for whatever the funder wants to promote.
Almost everything had a guideline pertaining to cultural content. There's no agenda-free promotion of literature in Canada, it's a culture of propagating itself.
>>7476420
Fuck me, this is depressing.
>>7476420
During our grad class we had publishers come in and discuss how to publish your work outside of academia and it was all about ethnic interest stuff and Canadiana. I think he was from Penguin Canada. If you don't have a "hook" like being ethnic and overcoming adversity even the commercial publishers don't care.
That and all the scholarships and funding for studying those kinds of things within the social sciences. Applying for SSHRC is basically about twisting your application to somehow involve progressivism and diversity is a soft target.
>>7476252
Hey man, I'm snowboarding in the mountains as well. Where abouts are you?
>>7476440
Wow, that totally not false sounding story is something you'd never expect from the recent books Penguin Canada published, which for some bizarre reason apart from James seem to be all white people!! What?!
>>7475649
wholeheartedly agree, unfortunately, sadly, I can't see the publishing landscape doing a full 180 anytime soon. Although I'm Canadian and it's a fanciful thought to write something just about being a person in the world, like the Americans do, without summoning muh postcolonialist narrative
>>7474459
I agree, it's 2015 and we all have stashes of cucking porn on our computers.
>>7475954
Let's say I have the style down. What would you deem worthy of writing about or saying as a Canadian author? I know to not focus on the 'le moral' as has been suggested is most can. lit but what besides that, not structurally but story-wise, motif/theme-wise, image-wise, etc.
Genuinely curious.
>>7475954
>But the Americans have always had at least one or two aesthetes who were willing to put morality in the background, guys like Poe and Emerson.
You might notice: I wasn't talking about OP's complaint there, I was offering my own opinion. I said the Americans don't have a theology informing their morality. It was a jab at Puritan "morality"/etc., general lack of perspective.
The problem is that this hasn't stopped Americans from writing good literature, so it can't conceivably be what has stopped Canada.
>>7476368
>The word milquetoast defines this nothing of a country and I can't wait to leave soon.
Seems absurd to be disappointed with abstract concepts. National identity? You really give a shit about a prescribed social ideal for your country? Would you rather have the political discordance and great lit of America or the harmony of Canada and the shit lit we currently have? Rhetorical though, we simply have a country that has existed on one plane since its inception and the well being of its citizens is corollary to its lack of strong literary values
>>7476838
>the harmony of Canada
what nasty kind of meme have you just cooked up
>>7475927
>hack alice munro
3/10, bait harder
>>7476458
Going to lake Louise tomorrow, was at revelstoke last weekend.
What about you?
>>7476838
There is no reason to believe there is a cause behind that correlation. The troubles in the states is not a result of good literature.
>>7477159
Nice man. I'm working up in Whistler for the season, taking some time off school to sort out my bearings and whatnot. I've lived in Quebec for most of my life and the powder up here is unbelievable, I've never ridden anything like this.
>>7477176
That's awesome, whistler is a cool place. The snow is great and the weather is still pretty mild. I used to snowboad and skateboard on the same day there, but I don't skateboard anymore.
I've never been farther east than Saskatchewan, but I'd love to go to Montreal.
