Canon Making with a Vengeance
Did some inferior works creep into the Canadian pantheon? If so, why? March 2008
The conception and dissemination of the New Canadian Library series has had a profound impact on the evolution of Canadian literature over the past 50 years. It fostered the teaching of Canadian poetry and fiction in high schools and universities, provided material for critics who built a national literature industry that involved thousands of people in a variety of institutions and introduced the contentious concept of a national literary canon at a time when Canadians were questioning the ways in which their diverse identities were somehow reflected in creative…