著者
荒木 陽子 Araki Yoko
出版者
新潟大学大学院現代社会文化研究科
雑誌
現代社会文化研究 (ISSN:13458485)
巻号頁・発行日
no.44, pp.201-217, 2009-03

Charles G. D. Roberts, a leading poet of the "confederation group" in the late 19th century Canada, reworked the images of "Canada" created by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline (1847) to represent his Maritime homeland. Focusing on two of Roberts's early sonnets, "Blomidon" (1885) and "Tides" (1890), this article explores the images particularly chosen from the "American epic" to construct the representation of the Maritimes. The examination of Evangeline-driven images in his verses initially published in Century (New York) shows how Roberts wanted his readers to imagine his own "home". Readers will find that Roberts put emphasis on the sublime, rather harsh seascape which directs his readers' attention to the "Acadia destroyed" after the Acadian expulsion (1755), instead of the picturesque idyll emphasized in Longfellow's work. Such images of the Maritimes, however, may not be consistent with the tourism-oriented images of the area that Roberts as a "local authority" involved in its construction.