Marcello Potocco, Nacionalni imaginariji ... - Pedagoški inštitut

Summaryis a similar use of affective elements, while the relation towards the nativesis even more complex, ranging from their inclusion to total assimilation.In the 1960s and 1970s, a shift occured in the English Canadianpoetry. While strong nationalist tendencies existed in the extraliteraryfield (esp. in M. Atwood’s criticism), ideological tendencies seldom appe a re d i n l itera r y work s . Ne wlove’s p o em s , a long w it h ref erence s to A lPurdy’s, M. Atwood’s and G. Bowering’s texts, are treated as an exampleof ideologically unaffected literature. However, Newlove’s probablymost famous poem – “The Pride” – is regarded as a turning point. Newloveemploys elements of an indigenous oral narrative – where affectiveelements successfully break its unity – only to turn the appropriatednarrative, through rhetorical means, into a claim for the ownership ofthe land, or a rather forced identification with the land and the natives.This seems to be the last trace of searching for a fixed identity, whichNe wlove l ater a ba ndon s . The hostile world becomes a metaphor for thegeneral human condition. Similarly, in Purdy’s and Atwood’s poems,the thematic material of the hostile land is transformed into a profoundlyhuman psychological reality.251