Atwood, Moisan, and beyond: The question of diversity in comparative Canadian literature

The following consideration of methodologies in comparative Canadian literary criticism is influenced by Margaret Atwood's Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, and Clement Moisan's Poesie des frontieres: etude comparee des poesies canadienne et quebecoise. An analysis of the advances and pitfalls in Atwood's and Moisan's works of thematic criticism sheds light on what stands to be gained from a broader ground for comparison, one that relinquishes the need to capture all Canadian literary expressions under the net of a single study organized around language and culture. Translation emerges as both a model for such change, and a tool that facilitates a more fluid treatment of differences within recent studies. Contemporary comparisons by E. D. Blodgett, Sylvia Soderlind, Peter Dickinson, and Lianne Moyes seek to forge ahead despite the difficulties inherent to the discipline. Their methodologies demonstrate a desire to find new ways of reading Canadian literatures together, while recognizing Canada's ever-expanding linguistic and cultural literary diversity.