EVANGELINE: AN INQUIRY INTO CULTURAL CONCIOUSNESS AND STORYTELLING
Research Mentor(s)
Christina Keppie
Description
This project seeks to illuminate the importance of storytelling to a culture’s collective memory and consciousness through an inquiry of the Evangeline Myth. The story of Evangeline has shaped much of Acadian and Cajun identity. However, this story was written by a non-Acadian, and therefore is born of an outside-looking-in perspective. This project illustrates why this outsider perspective may have negative consequences on a culture using specific examples from the Acadian diaspora to prove that the Evangeline Myth is not an accurate portrayal of Acadian-ness and, in fact, dilutes and whitewashes both the Deportation of 1755 and the Acadian identity in the minds of outsiders and insiders alike. A discussion of writing as resistance occurs, introducing the concept of erasure poetry, a type of poetry in which former works are erased to create a new narrative. This erasure is done on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline itself, thus creating a new narrative out of the old. It is acknowledged that the author is, like Longfellow, a white Anglophone who does not belong to the Acadian community. It is further acknowledged that Acadie is not a monolith, so this analysis of the Evangeline Myth may not resonate in every corner of the diaspora.
Document Type
Event
Start Date
May 2022
End Date
May 2022
Location
Carver Gym (Bellingham, Wash.)
Department
CHSS - Sociology
Genre/Form
student projects; posters
Type
Image
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
EVANGELINE: AN INQUIRY INTO CULTURAL CONCIOUSNESS AND STORYTELLING
Carver Gym (Bellingham, Wash.)
This project seeks to illuminate the importance of storytelling to a culture’s collective memory and consciousness through an inquiry of the Evangeline Myth. The story of Evangeline has shaped much of Acadian and Cajun identity. However, this story was written by a non-Acadian, and therefore is born of an outside-looking-in perspective. This project illustrates why this outsider perspective may have negative consequences on a culture using specific examples from the Acadian diaspora to prove that the Evangeline Myth is not an accurate portrayal of Acadian-ness and, in fact, dilutes and whitewashes both the Deportation of 1755 and the Acadian identity in the minds of outsiders and insiders alike. A discussion of writing as resistance occurs, introducing the concept of erasure poetry, a type of poetry in which former works are erased to create a new narrative. This erasure is done on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline itself, thus creating a new narrative out of the old. It is acknowledged that the author is, like Longfellow, a white Anglophone who does not belong to the Acadian community. It is further acknowledged that Acadie is not a monolith, so this analysis of the Evangeline Myth may not resonate in every corner of the diaspora.