From John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' and Martha Ostenso's 'Wild Geese' to Louis Hémon's 'Maria Chapdelaine', some of the most famous works of American, English-Canadian, and French-Canadian literature belong to the genre of the farm novel. In...
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From John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' and Martha Ostenso's 'Wild Geese' to Louis Hémon's 'Maria Chapdelaine', some of the most famous works of American, English-Canadian, and French-Canadian literature belong to the genre of the farm novel. In this first history of the genre in North America, Florian Freitag examines how these novels draw on the history of farming in 19th-century North America as well as on the national self-conceptions of the United States, English Canada, and French Canada, portraying farmers as national icons and the farm as a symbolic space of North American nations
Surveying the fieldsEarly sowings: St. John de Crevecour's "History of Andrew, the Hebridean," -- Patrice Lacombe's La Terre Paternelle, and Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the bush -- Laws of nature: Frank Norris's The octopus, Albert Laberge's La scouine and Frederick Philip Grove's Settlers of the marsh -- New world demeters: Willa Cather's O pioneers!, Louis Hemon's Maria Chapdelaine, and Martha Ostenso's Wild geese -- Rich harvests: Joseph Kirkland's Zury, the meanest man in Spring County -- Claude-Henri Grignon's Un Homme et son peche, and Frederick Philip Grove's Fruits of the earth -- Fields of crisis: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of wrath, Felix-Antoine Savard's Menaud, maitre-draveur, and Robert Stead's Grain -- The cycle of seasons: Louis Bromfield's The farm, Ringuet's Trente arpents and Grace Campbell's The higher hill.
