The Studhorse Man: A Prairie Novel

Krupa Shah

Krupa Shah VIT University

Keywords: Canadian Literature, Studhorse Man, Prairie, Robert Kroetsch

Abstract

The paper examines the significance of the prairie in Canadian literature especially with reference to Canadian writer Robert Kroetsch’s novel The Studhorse Man. The prairie is both a metaphor and an experience and it is also the story. The prairie is also the alien and hostile land unrelenting to human footsteps; a land without history and the echoing warmth of myths told and re-told across generations. This paper argues that Robert Kroetsch’s novel The Studhorse Man is an exemplification of the prairie and that it is through its interrupted self-conscious narration that Kroetsch completes the act of naming and re-telling, thus claiming the prairie both as a source as well as a perpetrator of history and myth.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Krupa Shah, VIT University

Krupa Shah is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Vellore Institute of Technology, (VIT), Chennai, India. Her research interests include the literary and cultural history of Gujarat, translation studies, and francophone literature among others. Krupa has been published in several journals and her most recent article examined questions of multilingualism and spatiality in the context of the former French colony of Pondicherry.

References

1. Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: House of Anansi, pp 31-33, 1972.
2. Harrison, Dick. “Re-naming the Past: Contemporary Fiction.” Unnamed Country: The Struggle for a Canadian Fiction. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, pp 183-213, 1977.
3. –. “The American Adam and the Canadian Christ.” Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 16, No. 3, Special Issue: Modern Canadian Literature Hofstra University, pp. 161-167, Jul., 1970.
4. Henry, Richard. “Identity Crises / Cries for Identity: Claiming the Canadian Prairie in the Novels of Robert Kroetsch.” World Literature Today, Vol. 73, No. 2, On Contemporary Canadian Literature(s) University of Oklahoma, pp. 289-294, Spring 1999.
5. Hutcheon, Linda. “Seeing Double: Concluding with Kroetsch.” The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary English- Canadian Fiction. Toronto: Oxford University Press, pp. 160-87, 1988.
6. Kroetsch, Robert. “Introduction.” Boundary 2, Vol. 3, No. 1, A Canadian Issue, pp. 1-2, Autumn 1974. Duke University Press.
7. —. The Studhorse Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969.
8. —. “Sentence.” The Stone Hammer Poems 1960-1975. Toronto: Oolichan Books, pp 61, 1976.
9. Lecker, Robert. “Making it Real: The Canonization of English- Canadian Literature.” Concord, Ont. House of Anansi, 1995.
10. Mckay, Kenneth M. “Letters in Canada 2005.” University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1, Winter 2007.
11. Moss, John. A Reader’s Guide to the Canadian Novel. McClelland & Stewart, pp 148-54, 1981.
12. Neuman, Shirley and Robert Wilson. Eds. Labyrinths of Voice: Conversations with Robert Kroetsch. Edmonton, Alb. NeWest Press, 1982.