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Part of
Language in Place: Stylistic perspectives on landscape, place and environment
Edited by Daniela Francesca Virdis, Elisabetta Zurru and Ernestine Lahey
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 37] 2021
► pp. 45–64

Chapter 3
Death by nature in two poems by Alden Nowlan

 | University College Roosevelt
This chapter provides a Text World Theory analysis of two poems by the Canadian poet Alden Nowlan, specifically focusing on the “death by landscape” trope (Atwood 1972) in these works. I argue that Nowlan, often viewed as a regionalist poet, draws on a wilderness-based model of Canadian identity that clearly aligns his work with deeply-felt national concerns. The analysis provided here extends earlier considerations of text-world landscape construction in poetry (e.g. Lahey 2006), thus contributing to the development of a Text World Theory that is more sensitive to literary landscape representation.
Keywords: Text World Theory, Alden Nowlan, Canadian literature, “death by nature”
Article outline
  • 1.Death by nature
  • 2.Text world theory
  • 3.“Hens”
  • 4.“Canadian January night”
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.37.03lah
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