The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

New Developments A younger wave of writers in-
cluded Guy Vanderhaeghe, who explored post-
modern masculinity inMan Descending(1982), and
Sarah Sheard, who assayed the politics of cultural
trespass inAlmost Japanese(1985). Canadian poets
drew more notice as well. Indeed, some poets be-
came widely acclaimed as fiction writers. Michael
Ondaatje had previously practiced experimental
prose in the interstices of his poetic career. HisIn the
Skin of a Lion(1987) was a full-fledged novel about
the construction of a bridge in early twentieth cen-
tury Toronto that brought together people of differ-
ent ethnicities, backgrounds, and aspirations. The
book represented the first step in what was to be a re-
markable career as a novelist. Paulette Jiles was an-
other poet who turned to fiction. Other Canadian
poets remained exclusively loyal to the verse form.
These included Robert Bringhurst, who was power-
fully influenced by Asian poetry and philosophy,
and Roo Borson, known for her probing, imagistic
work.
Dominated in previous decades by male writers
such as Roger Lemelin, Roch Carrier, and Hubert
Aquin, Québécois literature in the 1980’s saw the
emergence of feminist writing in the work of Nicole
Brossard and Louky Bersianik. The openly gay
Michel Tremblay produced lyrical and politically
provocative plays. Anne Hébert, at her peak in her
late sixties and early seventies, absorbed every new
technique she encountered and incorporated each
one into in her lucid, compassionate work. François
Benoit and Philippe Chauveau inAcceptation Globale
(1986) presented a generation disillusioned with
the political idealism of the 1970’s, but Canadian lit-
erature in the 1980’s as a whole sustained a resolute
idealism.

Impact Canadian literature increased its profile
within global literary culture during the 1980’s. Sev-
eral established writers produced some of their most
important works in that decade, while significant
new voices began to emerge as well. Like the rest of
Canadians during a decade that witnessed a new
constitution, full independence from the United
Kingdom, and a crisis over Québécois sovereignty,
Canada’s authors both sought to forge a collective
national identity and insisted upon understanding
themselves and their experience through a more
narrowly focused, regional lens.

Further Reading

Davey, Frank.Post-national Arguments: The Politics of

the Anglophone Canadian Novel Since 1967.Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1993. A Western

Canadian and a poet, Davey examines how the

1980’s both furthered and problematized the na-

tionalistic tendencies of the previous decade.

Heble, Ajay.The Tumble of Reason: Alice Munro’s Dis-

course of Absence. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1994. The first theoretically engaged study

of a major Canadian writer who emerged in the

1980’s.

New,W.H.A Histor y of Canadian Literature. Montreal:

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001. Gives am-

ple coverage of the decade’s most important writ-

ers and trends.

Powe, B. W.A Climate Charged: Essays on Canadian

Writers. Toronto: Mosaic, 1984. Powe’s attacks on

many of the sacred cows of the Canadian literary

establishment offered an alternative vision that

exemplified the increasing ideological pluralism

of the 1980’s.

Toye, William, and Eugene Benson.The Oxford Com-

panion to Canadian Literature. 2d ed. Toronto: Ox-

ford University Press, 1997. Includes many entries

on Canadian writers of the 1980’s.

Nicholas Birns

See also Book publishing; Davies, Robertson;

Feminism;Handmaid’s Tale, The; Literature in the

United States; Poetry; Richler, Mordecai; Theater.

Literature in the United States

Definition Drama, prose, and poetry by U.S.

authors

Some American literature of the 1980’s commented on the

culture of the times, which was often seen as greedy and ma-

terialistic, as well as on the emerging AIDS epidemic. The

gulf between popular and “literar y” texts widened, as book-

stores featured separate sections of “literature” and “fic-

tion,” and the academic study of literature turned toward

theor y. The decade also witnessed the rise of significant

voices from the margins of society, as racial and ethnic mi-

norities produced much of the best American literature.

These works were quickly incorporated into the literar y

canon by universities concerned to adopt multicultural cur-

ricula.

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