An Aesthetic of Companionship: The Champlain Myth in Early Canadian Literature

• Andre John Narbonne ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Windsor

     University of Windsor

     Canadá

     
• Localización: Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, ISSN 0004-1327, ISSN-e 1920-1222, Vol. 42, Nº. 2, 2011 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Brand, adichie, and twain, interviews with post-9/11 novelists, and more), págs. 75-98
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article explores the relationship between historical accounts of Samuel de Champlain's "Order of Good Cheer" and a tradition of humour that includes authors such as Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Stephen Leacock. Canadian critics and writers including Charles G.D. Roberts and Lawrence J. Burpee who were searching for a literary myth of origins imediately after Confederation celebrated Champlain's social order and its chief wit, Marc Lescarbot. The genial spirit of the "Order of Good Cheer," a humorous affirmation of the community in the teeth of a sometimes-hostile environment, was the basis of a British North American humorous tradition that asserted that humour could bond communites, not simply critique them. This idea was extremely important to Canadian authors writing around Confederation because it served a patriotic literary agenda.