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Title: |
A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick |
Search Result:
| By (author): |
Reavley Gair |
| ISBN10-13: |
0864920393 : 9780864920393 |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pages: |
286 |
| Weight: |
.583 Kg. |
| Published: |
Goose Lane Editions - January 1986 |
| List Price: |
11.99 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: |
Out of Print
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| Subjects: |
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| A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick provides an introduction to the major languages and literatures of the province. Though this volume was conceived as part of the Bicentennial celebration in 1984, the earliest materials it describes pre-date the founding of New Brunswick. Micmac and Maliseet were spoken here centuries before the first European settlers came, and story-tellers gave form to the drams and common experiences of the original peoples, contributing to a tradition which extends unbroken to the present day. It is with the Micmac and Maliseet languages, therefore, that this volume begins. But the newer traditions of eastern Canada are long-established too. Jacques Cartier's grim winter of 1535-36 at the mouth of the Ste-Croix River (;in present-day Québec); served as a prologue to the slow establishment of what became New France, while the recorded Acadian literary tradition may be traced to a masque entitled The Theatre of Neptune, written by Marc Lescarbot and performed on November 14, 1606, "upon the waves of Port Royal" by actors in canoes — the earliest known dramatic performance written in an Old World language on the edges of what was to become Canada. Acadian French remains the proud inheritance of the Acadian people, and A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick includes essays on the language, poetry, theatre, fiction, essay, public speech, as well as the folklore of the Acadians. Though a few English-speaking settlers had penetrated the land much earlier, it was the Loyalist influx of 1783, after the American War of Independence, which led in the following year to the political entity known as New Brunswick. The English literary tradition, in its more formal expressions, is therefore essentially confined to the period of the province's political history, and until recently was much influenced by what Fred Cogswell has described as the "classical education" of many of its writers. Not surprisingly, however, the English language in use in the province shows the influence of the Scots and the Irish in addition to other less predictable ethnic strands. The eighteen chapters which make up A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick, written by scholars at various Maritime universities and colleges, offer for the first time a wide-ranging account of a diverse heritage. It has been published in French and English by Les Editions d'Acadie of Moncton and Goose Lane Editions of Fredericton, respectively. |
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