THE NEWFOUNDLAND CHARACTER: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR WRITINGS.
Edited by D.W.S. Ryan and T.P. Rossiter. St. John's, Jesperson Press, c1984.147pp, paper, $8.95, ISBN 0-920502 -33-4. Distributed by Jesperson Press, 26A Flavin St. St. John's, Nfld., A 1C 3R9
Volume 13 Number 3
Intended for use in the classroom, this anthology of prose and poetry about life in Newfoundland and Labrador, past and present, is divided into thematic units and accompanied by questions and essay topics for the student reader. On each page, there are notes clarifying some of the colloquialisms, geographic references, and archaic terms. Many of the nineteenth-century writings idealize the character of the Newfoundlander, but some recount the hardships, privations, and social problems of outport life in the era of schooners and sailing ships. The subjects run the gamut of lumbermen tales, accounts of heroes like Captain William Jackman, who single-handedly saved twenty-seven people from death, eighteenth-century legends like that of the mysterious disappearance of Jean Paul de Benoit, essays on Newfoundland's participation in both World wars, and humorous stories like Ted Russell's "Crime Wave in Pigeon Inlet." One of the best stories recounts the story of the legendary ghost of the White Eskimo. But dominating all else are the poems and stories about the treacheries of the sea, the vagaries of the fishery, the bravery of the fishermen, and the cold, lonely winters on the Labrador coast. The selections have been well-chosen and the book will provide provocative and enjoyable reading for junior and senior high school students in their Canadian literature classes.
Manion Mintis, Bonar Law Memorial School, Rexton, N.B. |
1971-1979 | 1980-1985 | 1986-1990 | 1991-1995
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