The sixteen articles in The Rhetoric of Canadian Writing are a welcome contribution to the growing interest in Canadian culture, indicating its variety - Aboriginal, Anglo-Canadian and French-Canadian culture and their interrelationships are all represented. In classical oratory the term “rhetoric” signifies the art of influencing the thought and conduct of readers and listeners, and this concept is used as an underlying current of debate in this volume. Contributors address the theme of identity and post-colonial disputation in their explorations of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writing by Elizabeth Simcoe, Catharine Parr Traill and Lucy Montgomery as well as contemporary works by Margaret Atwood, Nancy Huston, Wayne Johnston, Susan Swan, Jacques Poulin and Rudy Wiebe. Quebecoise writer Louis Dupré contributes a compelling reflection on women's writing in Quebec.

This work is a comparative study of nineteenth-century English-Canadian and French Canadian novel prefaces, a previously unexplored literary topic. As a study in Comparative Literature - with the application of a specific literary framework and methodology - the study conforms to theoretical and methodological postulates formulated in and prescribed by this framework when applied. This a priori postulate necessitates that the research on and the presentation of the Canadian novel preface be carried out in a specific manner, as follows. First, the study will establish the hypothesis that the preface to nineteenth-century English-Canadian and French-Canadian novels is a genre in its own right. This hypothesis will rest on the following: 1) a taxonomical survey of related terms meaning "preface"; 2) a survey of secondary Iiterature of works dealing with the preface; 3) a discussion of the theoretical framework and methodology of the Empirical Theory of Literature and its appropriateness for the study of the preface; and 4) a discussion of the process of the compilation of the corpus of nineteenth-century Canadian novel prefaces (Chapter one). In a second step, the theoretical postulate outlined in the hypothesis will be put into practice by the development and production of a preface typology (Chapter two). In a third step, further tenets of the Empirical Theory of Literature will be tested on the corpus of the prefaces (Chapter three). In a fourth step, the prefaces will be analysed following the tenets formulated in and prescribed by the systemic framework applied (Chapter four).

Criticism that takes an ideological approach to Canadian writing is scarce; political-rhetorical studies are even more uncommon. In this original approach to postwar Canadian fiction Glenn Deer presents provocative readings of ideologies as well as experiments with authorial stances.

Writing & Rhetoric Book 1: Fable Teacher's Edition includes the comlete studetn text, as well as answer keys, teacher's notes, and explanations. For every writing assignment, this edition also supplies descriptions and examples of waht excellentstudent writing should look like, providing the teacher with meaningful and concrete guidance."

This is a complete handbook and rhetoric, useful to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students of composition. It is the first Canadian edition of Kane's The Oxford Guide to Writing. Kane makes extensive use of quotations; in the new edition, more than one third of the samples are now by Canadian writers. References to Canadian geography, history, literature, and politics reflect the rich diversity of our population, and there is a brief appendix on Canadian spelling. Extensive revisions reflect recent changes in library cataloguing, the new MLA citation form, and fields such as Women's Studies.

Part One of this strongly worded, informed, and wide-ranging collection examines key issues for the future of Canadian criticism. Part Two offers new readings of important works by Grove, Wilson, MacLennan, Davies, Laurence, Hood, Wiebe, Hodgins, and Atwood. As W.J. Keith argues, `We still have a mission: to have our literature recognized as an essential reflection of our national life. This is what I mean by retrenchment and consolidation. Literature can survive without literary criticism but it cannot survive if it is unknown and unread. It is criticism's prime function at the present time to see that it is both known and read with that mature enjoyment which is a combination of emotional sensitivity and humane intelligence. As critics, scholars, editors, we shall not be fulfilling our responsibilities or justifying our existence if we attempt anything less.' Or as Keith modestly observes in his introduction to this collection, `If this book is of any interest, it will be because Canadian literature is an important subject. Literary commentators like myself are middle-men, and should be prepared to admit the fact. If this book succeeds in helping readers to appreciate the works of Canadian writers that I discuss, and to derive increased pleasure and insight from them, it will have served its purpose. I can see no other justification for it -- or for any other work of criticism.'