Pandemics have been a companion of Western literature ever since its beginnings in Ancient Greece three millennia ago. This article discusses the changing functions of literary pandemics over time, from a mechanism to set the plot going, through being a central character in the plot and a means of exploring human behaviour, to acting as a kind of “objective correlative” of society itself. In the course of this development, the agency behind pandemics moves from a divine being, to unknown and then natural causes, and finally to something disturbed in humanity itself. Against this background, the article the explores the main features of the large body of pandemic-related Canadian fiction (fifty books) that were published in the period 1974–2021.
Don Sparling (Fri,) studied this question.