Giving Canada a Literary History

the long version

In Giving Canada a Literary History, Carl Klinck combines his autobiography with a history of the development of Canadian Literature as a serious field of study. When he set out to find out the "facts," he did so because he was convinced that "Our national soul is hidden within us, in what we are, in our expression of ourselves, in our literature." Indeed, the present strong state of the discipline is largely the result of Carl Klinck's efforts to establish a canon and to provide the basic tools of study through his own publications and through collaborative efforts with other scholars. He believed that the work he had undertaken was a "patriotic duty," and his role in the creation of student texts, editions of classic works, and especially, The Literary History of Canada made him the principal architect of the systematic scholarship that has emerged in Canada since the early 1960s.