Margaret Laurence's Epic ImaginationAlthough at times painfully insecure about her creative ability and achievement, Margaret Laurence nevertheless remained fiercely loyal to her artistic vision, an archetypal vision of loss, exile and redemption that sought comprehensive expression in the epic mode that shapes the Bible, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and ultimately the Manawaka world of Hagar Shipley, Rachel Cameron, Stacey MacAindra, and Morag Gunn. Paul Comeau traces the development of Margaret Laurence's epic voice from its tentative beginnings in her African fiction to its culmination in the epic Manawaka Cycle, a Dantesque journey through an infernal state of self-destructive pride, out of a purgatorial paralysis of self-doubt, and on to a kind of paradisal fulfillment in self-knowledge. Laurence discovered in epic a fitting mode at once to requite her debt to the ancestors and to break free of their influence to portray the world through the sight of her own eyes. In so doing, she became the enduring epic voice of a country and a generation. |
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Page vii
... Purgatorial Progress 71 V Jason's Quest and A Bird in the House : Epic Dialogue 97 VI The Diviners : Heaven on Earth 115 VII Epic Epilogue 139 Notes 145 Works Cited 161 Index 171 Acknowledgements THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK has seemed at ...
... Purgatorial Progress 71 V Jason's Quest and A Bird in the House : Epic Dialogue 97 VI The Diviners : Heaven on Earth 115 VII Epic Epilogue 139 Notes 145 Works Cited 161 Index 171 Acknowledgements THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK has seemed at ...
Page xvii
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Page 71
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Page 73
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Page 75
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Adamo African Amegbe apocalyptic archetypal pattern Bible biblical Bird Calla Canadian Fiction Canadian Studies Catharine Parr Traill child Christian Christie Christie's Clara Thomas Commedia context Critical cultural dance Dante Dante's David Staines death demonic descent dialogue Diviners earth emotional epic mode exile Exodus father fear feminine feminist Fire-Dwellers Frye George Woodcock Godman's grace Grandfather Connor Hagar Hagar Shipley heaven hell heroic human imagery Jason Jason's Quest Jest of God Journal of Canadian Kestoe Laurence's Fiction Laurence's imagination loser epic Manawaka Manawaka books Manawaka cycle Manawaka World Margaret Laurence Matthew McClelland memory metaphor Milton Morag Morag Gunn Moses mother myth narrative Nathaniel novel Paradise Lost past Patricia Morley pride Promised Land Prophet's Camel Bell Prospero purgatorial Quint redemption revelation Richalife River salvation Sasabonsam Satan sense Shadow Point Side Jordan social souls spiritual Stacey Stacey's Stone Angel symbolic theme tion Tomorrow-Tamer Tonnerre Toronto Vanessa vision voice words writing