Abstracts
Abstract
Teachers and critics who include best-selling novels by Indigenous writers in discussions of Canadian literature are contributing to the wider circulation of those novels, which can only be beneficial. Nevertheless, the tendency to read these novels using methods derived from Euro-Canadian cultural and literary frameworks, while useful, is in many ways limiting. Critical methods emerging from Indigenous intellectual, cultural, and academic contexts can enrich our readings of such work, as well as lead us to the discovery (or recovery) of related Indigenous literature that does not achieve such wide circulation. This essay focuses on a few different ways of reading Eden Robinson’s well-known novel Monkey Beach, arguing that paying attention to a diversity of methodologies within Indigenous literary theory can enrich the reading experience. Two prominent schools of thought, here understood as complementary rather than in opposition, and both finding their origins in American Indian rather than Native Canadian interdisciplinary studies, are Indigenous literary nationalism and trickster discourse as it intersects with notions of hybridity. Focussed on Nation-specific uses of creation stories in cultural revitalization, and on urban “post-indian” perspectives respectively, these approaches offer alternatives to prevailing Western approaches such as ethnographic, magic realist, or gothic readings.
Résumé
Des enseignants et des critiques qui incluent des romans à succès d’écrivains autochtones dans les discussions sur la littérature canadienne contribuent à leur diffusion à une échelle plus large, ce qui ne peut être que bénéfique. Toutefois, la tendance à lire ces romans selon des méthodes dérivées des cadres culturels et littéraires euro-canadiens, bien qu’utile, est étriquée à plusieurs égards. Par contre, des méthodes critiques issues de milieux intellectuels, culturels et universitaires autochtones peuvent enrichir notre lecture de ces oeuvres et nous permettre de découvrir (ou de redécouvrir) une littérature autochtone connexe qui ne jouit pas d’une diffusion aussi vaste. Cet article porte sur les différentes façons de lire le célèbre roman Monkey Beach d’Eden Robinson et soutient qu’en prêtant attention à la diversité des méthodes dans la théorie littéraire autochtone, nous pourrons rehausser notre expérience de la lecture. Deux écoles de pensée de premier plan, qui sont plus complémentaires qu’opposées et qui trouvent leur origine dans des études interdisciplinaires amérindiennes plutôt qu’autochtones canadiennes, sont le nationalisme littéraire indigène et le discours du trickster qui est lié aux notions d’hybridité. Ces approches qui sont axées, respectivement, sur le recours national à la création de récits dans la revitalisation culturelle et sur des perspectives urbaines « post-autochtones » offrent des solutions de rechange à la conception dominante occidentale comme des lectures ethnographiques, réalistes magiques ou gothiques.
Appendices
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