First full-length investigation into Canadian literary medievalism as a discrete phenomenon.
The essays in this volume consider what is original and distinctive about the manifestation of medievalism in Canadian literature and its origins and its subsequent growth and development: from the first novel published in Canadawritten by a Canadian-born author, Julia Beckwith Hart’s
St Ursula’s Convent (1824), to the recent work of the best-selling novelist Patrick De Witt (
Undermajordomo Minor, published in 2015). Topics addressed includethe strong strain of medievalist fantasy itself in the work of the young-adult author Kit Pearson, and the longer novels of Charles de Lint, Steven Erikson, and Guy Gavriel Kay; the medievalist inclinations of Archibald Lampman and W.W. Campbell, well-known nineteenth-century Canadian poets; and the often-studied
Wacousta by John Richardson, first published in 1832. Chapters also cover early Canadian periodicals’ engagement with orientalist medievalism; and works by twentieth-century writers such as the irrepressible Earle Birney, the witty and intellectual Robertson Davies, and the fascinating and learned Margaret Atwood.
M.J. TOSWELL is a Professor at the University of Western Ontario, ANNA CZARNOWUS is a Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice.
Contributors: D.M.R. Bentley, Agnieszka Klis-Brodowska, Anna Czarnowus, Brian Johnson, Laurel Ryan, David Watt, M.J. Toswell, Dominika Ruszkiewicz, Cory Rushton, Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Ewa Drab, and Michael Fox.
Table of Content
Introduction: English Canadian Medievalism – Jane Toswell and Anna Czarnowus
‘Men of the North’: Archibald Lampman’s Use of Incidents in the Lives of Medieval Monarchs and Aristocrats – David Bentley
‘Going Back to the Middle Ages’: Tracing Medievalism in Julia Beckwith Hart’s
St. Ursula’s Convent and John Richardson’s
Wacousta – Agnieszka Klis-Brodowska
John Richardson’s
Wacousta and the Transfer of Medievalist Romance – Anna Czarnowus
A Canadian Caliban in King Arthur’s Court: Materialist Medievalism and Northern Gothic in William Wilfred Campbell’s
Mordred – Brian Johnson
Orientalist Medievalism in Early Canadian Periodicals – Laurel Ryan
The Collegiate Gothic: Legitimacy and Inheritance in Robertson Davies’
The Rebel Angels – David Watt
Earle Birney as Public Poet: a Canadian Chaucer? – Jane Toswell
‘That’s what you get for being food’: Margaret Atwood’s Symbolic Cannibalism – Dominika Ruszkiewicz
Lost in Allegory: Grief and Chivalry in Kit Pearson’s
A Perfect, Gentle Knight – Cory Rushton
Remembering the Romance: Medievalist Romance in Fantasy Fiction by Charles de Lint and Guy Gavriel Kay – Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun
Medievalisms and Romance Traditions in Guy Gavriel Kay’s
Ysabel – Ewa Drab
The Medieval Methods of Patrick De Witt:
Undermajordomo Minor – Michael Fox
About the author
M.J. TOSWELL is a Professor at the University of Western Ontario.
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