Before the Country: Native Renaissance, Canadian Mythology

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canada witnessed an explosion in the production of literary works by Aboriginal writers, a development that some critics have called the Native Renaissance. In Before the Country, Stephanie McKenzie explores the extent to which this growing body of literature influenced non-Native Canadian writers and has been fundamental in shaping our search for a national mythology.

In the context of Northrop Frye's theories of myth, and in light of the attempts of socia...