The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature by Coral Ann Howells
Published 2009 · 802 pages · 160,000 words · about 13 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature to read?
The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature scores 43 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 70 out of 100
- Scholarly prose across multiple contributors; assumes familiarity with literary-historical method.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Combines close readings with broad historical and cultural arguments about national tradition.
- Information density: 90 out of 100
- Encyclopedic in scope; each chapter is dense with authors, texts, historical context, and critical argument.
- Narrative indirection: 20 out of 100
- Reference history format; information is organized for clarity and retrieval.
- Symbolic density: 40 out of 100
- Attends to symbolic patterns in primary texts but does not deploy them as a primary critical method.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Scholarly neutrality; limited ironic register appropriate to a reference work.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Arguments and historical accounts are stated directly and conclusively.
- Structural complexity: 60 out of 100
- Organized chronologically with thematic chapters; clear architecture across a large multi-author work.
How The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature is regarded
The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature holds a literary regard score of 45 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.