''The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination'' is a collection of essays by
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
literary critic
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.
Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symmet ...
(1912–1991). The collection was originally published in 1971; it was republished, with an introduction by Canadian postmodern theorist
Linda Hutcheon
Linda Hutcheon, Royal Society of Canada, FRSC, Order of Canada, O.C. (born August 24, 1947) is a Canadian academic working in the fields of Literary Theory, literary theory and Literary Criticism, criticism, opera, and Canadian studies. She is a ...
, in 1995. ''The Bush Garden'' features analyses of Canadian poetry, prose fiction and painting. According to Frye's introduction, the essays were selected to provide a composite view of the Canadian imagination, an understanding of the human imagination's reaction to and development in response to the Canadian environment.
''The Bush Garden'' includes an edited version of Frye's "Conclusion" to
Carl F. Klinck
Carl Frederick Klinck (March 24, 1908 – October 22, 1990) was a Canadian literary historian and academic.
Born in Elmira, Ontario, he received a BA from Waterloo College (now Wilfrid Laurier University) in 1927, and a MA and PhD from Colum ...
’s ''Literary History of Canada''. In this work, Frye articulated his theory of "
garrison mentality The garrison mentality, or theory, argues that early Canadian identity was characterised by fear of an empty and hostile national landscape. It suggests that the environment’s impact on the national psyche has influenced themes within Canadian lit ...
" as the defining characteristic of Canadian literature.
Garrison mentality The garrison mentality, or theory, argues that early Canadian identity was characterised by fear of an empty and hostile national landscape. It suggests that the environment’s impact on the national psyche has influenced themes within Canadian lit ...
is the attitude of a community that feels isolated from cultural centres and besieged by a hostile landscape. Frye maintained that such communities were peculiarly Canadian, and fostered a literature that was formally immature, that displayed deep moral discomfort with “uncivilized” nature, and whose narratives reinforced social norms and values
Criticism
Although Frye asserted that his picture of Canadian self-image was unique to Canada, the picture of a civilization, led by
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
founders and establishing itself within a hostile or potentially hostile landscape, is in fact a recurring theme of the
foundation myths told by a wide variety of cultures about themselves.
Contents
* Author's Preface
* From "Letters in Canada" (''University of Toronto Quarterly'')
:(originally published in the ''University of Toronto Quarterly'' 1950–1959)
* Canada and Its Poetry
:(originally published in ''The Book of Canadian Poetry'', A. J. M. Smith, editor. 1943)
* The Narrative Tradition in English-Canadian Poetry
:(originally published in 1946)
* Turning New Leaves
:(originally published in ''Folk Songs of Canada'', Edith Fulton Fowke and Richard Johnston, editors, 1954)
* Preface to an Uncollected Anthology
:(originally published in 1956)
* Silence in the Sea
:(originally published in 1968)
* Canadian and Colonial Painting
:(originally published in 1940)
*
David Milne: An Appreciation
:(originally published in 1948)
* Lawren Harris: An Introduction
:(originally published in ''Lawren Harris'',
Bess Harris and R. G. P. Colgrove, editors, 1969)
* Conclusion to a ''Literary History of Canada''
:(originally published in ''Literary History of Canada'', Carl F. Klinck general editor, 1965)
References
* Frye, Northrop. ''The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination with Introduction by Linda Hutcheon''. Toronto: Anansi, 1995.
Notes
External links
The Bush Garden Oxford Text Archive.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bush Garden
1971 non-fiction books
Books by Northrop Frye
Canadian essay collections
Essays about literature