Canada in the Making: Pastoral Ideology in the Poetry of the Early Colonial Era

Abstract

Poetry in present day Canada begun almost simultaneously with the European colonization of those regions of the New World. Many of their first poets had been forced to immigrate into these unknown parts of the world. Albeit the stylistic belatedness (as compared to their European standards and contemporaries), their poems remain invaluable documents for the understanding of history of the literary of cultural growth in Canada, and of its social and political contradictions and tensions. In fact, long before the urban shift in North-American in late 19th century, Canadian English poets had been giving a significant contribution to the building up of a national identity, mostly through their exploration of the pastoral myth. This essay interprets some significant moments and authors of this process.