Aulas Abertas - RHOSE 2014

“THERE ARE NO DAFFODILS IN CANADA”

The Canadian poet and novelist Jane Urquhart has been praised for her “compelling depiction of the sense of place in human lives”, as Alice Munro wrote. In this seminar, we want to observe the way Urquhart relates to the tradition of English Literature in order to build a new sense of home in the alien and complex landscape of Western Ontario. Ultimately what is at stake is the search for a new way of speaking, a “Canadian literature” where the past makes way for new forms capable of construing a place where, as one of Urquhart’s character puts it, one “never will find Wordsworth’s daffodils” (The Whirlpool, 1990).