The literary history of a nation is one of the main cornerstones of its national identity. As a result of Canada's diverse cultural history, however, its literary history is varied and, as E.D. Blodgett contends, is composed of five parts that work to create the whole. These parts include English Canada, French Canada, First Nations communities, Inuit communities, and immigrant communities. Using the critical writing on constructing nationhood, E.D. Blodgett suggests that Canadian literary histories can be used to address the problem of nation and to examine how each of the several 'national' groups that compose Canada develops unique narratives that demonstrate their different responses to the notion of nationhood and their sense of place within Canada's borders.
The first such history of its kind in Canada, Five-Part Invention offers a means of reading ethnic difference through cultural representations: the concentration on place and spatial configuration in English Canadian literature; the focus on time and history in French Canadian literature; the cultural trauma of the First Nations and Inuit literature; and the losses and ambiguous recoveries of ethnic minority writing. Blodgett concludes by addressing the roots of Canada's fragmented literary history and speculates on the reasons that this tradition continues today. Original, intelligent, and provocative, Five-Part Invention brings an entirely new perspective to the notion of literary history and will greatly influence the study of Canadian literature in the future.

Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada

Literature & Fiction

Blodgett, E.D.

History & Criticism

University of Toronto Press

University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division

Alice Munro (Twayne's World Authors Series)

Twayne Pub

Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano

Poetry

Buschekbooks

"Antonio Machado said, 'Every poet should create for himself a metaphysics which he need not expound, but which will lie implicit in his work.' What lies implicit in "Apostrophes III: alone upon the earth, is a deep belief in the sacredness of the moment, the voices of that moment. E.D. Blodgett's poetry gives us revelations, the depth of human experience when we 'pass into ourselves, ' the silence of ourselves, stillness and rapture, 'the sleeping that we are.' Here is the grace of seeing and listening, the ecstasy of understanding. Here is being and time, both roses rising through flesh. "(Don Domanski)

Apostrophes III: Alone upon the Earth

as bells that ring through the winter air the clear laughter of children sings in the treesIn a series of poems inspired by Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, E. D. Blodgett searches for meaning amidst grief. In the contemplative gentleness of his words, he finds the special light children possess in their state of unknowing as they encounter the world. These sparse poems move through acceptance and resignation to the solace that exists in the word. Blodgett's poetry will speak to readers who have experienced loss, are exploring grief, or want to find a way to connect with stillness as they meditate on the unfathomable nothingness of death. Robert Kroetsch Series

Songs for Dead Children (Robert Kroetsch Series)

The University of Alberta Press

A bilingual collection of renga poetry by two of Canada's most celebrated poets in English and in French, each writing in his respective language in response to the other. A project of discourse itself, shared in dialogue between two poets, as they explore Novalis' definition of poetry as "the truly absolute real." The poetic act is world-changing, the agglomeration of atoms as they fall through space--a sort of "elective affinity," or state of grace--to constitute Being. If Lao Tzu reminds us that the Dao that can be named is not the eternal Dao, this renga, suffused with elements of the natural world, also recognizes that, in the words of Angelus Silesius, "the unnameable, which we usually call God, is expressed and revealed through the Word." Léveillé and Bloggett share an unprecedented dialogue that possesses both paradox and complete clarity of word in Canada's two official languages. "With poems that phase between mythologies, E.D. Blodgett and J.R. Léveillé lend their voices to a chorus of Orpheus, Bede, and Ariel. EX NIHOLO reflects a friendship between poets that ends at the moment of illumination, when figures of speech are taken literally as a dictionary."--Nathan Dueck Poetry.

Ex Nihilo

Levéillé, J.R.

At Bay Press

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