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Articles

Volume 23, Number 1 (1998)

Overcoming the Two Solitudes of Canadian Literary Regionalism

  • Lisa Chalykoff
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1998-01-01

Abstract

Through a reading of Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space and spatial theorist Edward Soja's Postmodern Geographies, Canadian literary regionalists such as Edward McCourt and Henry Kreisel are shown to have been trapped unnecessarily between two opposing conceptions of regional space. Those operating within the illusion of opacity tend to overemphasize the materiality of space, holding that space's "natural simplicity" speaks for itself. By contrast, those who subscribe to the illusion of transparency tend to view space as an invisible, unproblematic phenomenon "given action free reign." False polarity stunts the ability to theorize literary regions as spaces that are capable of representing simultaneously the social differences that exist inevitably within regional spaces and the complex particularities that issue from a condition of geographic co-presence.