An uncomfortable match: Canadian literature and English departments in Canada, 1919--1965

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King, Sarah D. The University of Western Ontario (Canada), ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2003. NQ96696.

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Using Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field and capital, this thesis traces the development of courses in Canadianliterature in Canadian university English departments. Its main argument is that the lengthy process of admitting Canadian literature to the English curriculum, which began in the 1920s but was not widely successful until the late 1960s, is due, not to debate over the literary merit of Canadian literature, but to a lack of agreement about the purpose and content of English studies. This disagreement has its roots in the two arguments used to justify English studies in Canada: Arnoldian idealism and Romantic nationalism. In the 1880s, the first Canadian English professors established an English curriculum devoted solely to theliterature of England. They defended these new departments on the basis of the literary merit and cultural significance of English literature to Canadians. Beginning as early as 1908, Canadian English departments introduced courses in Canadian literature and adapted the study of American literature, sanctioned by English departments in the United States, to Canadian purposes by creating a new hybrid: courses in American and Canadian literature. These courses were taught at every university in Canada and enabled Canadianliterature to find a place on an English curriculum dominated by Arnoldian idealism and, as of the 1930s, New Criticism. Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and into the 1950s, professors interested in promoting Canadianliterature taught American and Canadian literature, adapting the new critical terminology and methodology and applying them to Canadian literary tradition. After World War II, departments began separating North American literature into independent courses in Canadian literature and American literature. They also developed graduate work in Canadian literature. The thesis includes a general account of the development of Canadian literature studies in Canada, as well as histories of Canadian literature studies at seventeen Canadian universities: Acadia University, Dalhousie University, Mount Allison University, the University of New Brunswick, McGill University, Bishop's University, Sir George Williams/Concordia University, the University of Montreal, the University of Sherbrooke, the University of Toronto, Queen's University, the University of Western Ontario, Carleton University, the University of Manitoba, the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia.