January 28: The Poetry of Colonization

Class Two

Part One:

1:  Discussion of Short Presentations (Suggested: 5-7 minutes)

• What are they? When will they be due? We will sign up for them during the break

(sign-up sheet)

Part Two:

2: In-class Journal Writing: (10 minutes)

• For today, you had to come up with a three-page statement regarding how aspects of the assigned reading related to Frye’s theory of the Garrison Mentality.

• We will be talking about this writing this evening.

• To get that conversation started, I want us to spend the next 10 minutes focused a question we started to address last time:What is Canada?

• Tonight, we will take a more focused approach to that question.

• What does Canada appear to be in our reading for tonight? How would you define or describe the “Canada” of the mid-to-late Eighteenth Century (Brooke) or of the early-to-mid-nineteenth century (Moodie)?

• Give good specific examples to back yourself up. You can reference your writing if you have it with you.

Group Work: (5 – 7 minutes)

• In groups, I’d like you to come up with a list of your early impressions of Canadian writing as you have explored it so far.

• Try to focus on specific details that have stayed with you. Why do these things appear to be important?

• You don’t have to tie everything to the Garrison Mentality, but it may be a good place to begin.

Group Presentation:  (5 minutes)

• Groups present ideas to the class

Class Discussions:  (10 minutes)

• Class builds on group finding

• Consolidate ideas around textual evidence

This information is the basic backdrop against which we are going to move forward in our consideration of Canadian literature. These are the fundamental issues that the stories we encounter will be dealing with in one way or another.

In-Class Writing #2: (Suggested: 7 Minutes)

• Okay, now – as we get ready to head into the break, I’d like to take a few moments to discuss some of the possible limitations of the Garrison Mentality as you might now be seeing them.

• When and where does this theory appear to fall short, or simply be an inaccurate or limiting way of considering the readings that we read for tonight?

Group Discussion and Class Discussion (Suggested: 7 Minutes)

Break: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Part Three:

In-class Journal Writing: (Suggested: 5-7 minutes)

From Garrison to Nationhood

• So, we’ve thought a little about the Garrison Mentality, and some of us may believe that it remains a strong and powerful force in our daily lives. And powerful and accurate a theory as it may be, it is, in terms of Canada, an idea that pre-dates the formation of the “Canada” as a modern nation, and that is where we are going to turn our attention tonight.

• Most of us would agree that Canada is a nation, but most of us would probably have different answers to the question “What is a nation?” so let’s take some time today to think about that. Let’s do a short 5 minute journal entry on this. What is a nation, generally, from your point-of-view?

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 3-5 minutes)

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 3-5 minutes)

Part Four

Mini-Lecture/ Mini-Lecture in Action

One relevant theory of nationalism comes from Benedict Anderson’s book _Imagined Communities_

Benedict Anderson’s Theory of Nationalism

Some of you may remember my lecture last semester on Benedict Anderson’s concept of Time and the Nation.  It will bear on our discussion this evening. I’ve put up two videos from that class at the end of this page, if you want to review it.

So, in a nutshell, here is Anderson’s theory of Nationalism in four steps as it is relevant to our class:

Step One: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Anderson argues that, long ago, during the medieval period (400-1500 AD), Christians did not think about time in the same you and I probably do.

Let’s think about what life was like for these people, generally.

• You lived and died in the village you were born in, and probably never left it during the course of your life.
  

• You married within your own small class and social grouping within that society, probably to a close relative (ewww!)
  

• Your entire family that was living was there with you and you all had the same professions if you had any profession at all.

• Your life was dictated by an unbroken agricultural routine necessary for survival.

• You had no expectation that your life would ever change in a significant way, and it probably did not.
  

If you lived this life, you would have no need for a clock or a rigid calendar, as the routine of life as it had been lived would be enough to organize your activities, generally.

Journal: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Imagine how your life would be different right now if you lived in such a world. What would you lose? Would, perhaps, would you gain?

Group Discussion: (suggested: 5 minutes)

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Step Two: (Suggested 5 minutes)

Not surprisingly, such people had a religious belief system that said that God was fully represented at each and every moment, constant and complete at all times (St. Augustine).

Okay, well — if God is fully represented all the time, and everything stems from God then –

• There can be no “past” or “future” as you or I understand the terms.

• There can only be an “eternal unchanging present” to which everything relates, because everything relates to God under this view.

• Living a life of absolute routine, it becomes possible to believe that – even if your life changes a little bit over the course of your life – these changes are of no real significance in terms of your understanding of the eternal present.
  

• It is also important to note that such people would have found the notion of comparing their lives with God to have been an absurd notion — even though it is perhaps not such an absurd notion now.  The notion of a “personal God” would have been laughable at this time, generally.

Anderson backs his theory up with stained glass windows from medieval churches.He notices how European Christ and Mary look, and also how their garments represent medieval ideals, rather than actual items from the period commonly associated with the birth of Christ.

Okay, let’s try to imagine this world some more, but this time let’s think about how aspects of our own lives may actually be like life in the world we are imagining. Perhaps it is not as weird as we think!

Journal: (Suggested: 5 -10 minutes)

• What are the most constant and unchanging aspects of your life? Identify and describe.

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

• Groups Discuss findings
  

Class Discussion of Group Findings: (Suggested: 5-7 minutes)

In this medieval world, there were no nations, now this is true for a number of reasons, but most importantly it was, according to Anderson, because if you live in the present, you have no way to associate yourself with communities of any real size or complexity.

Step Three: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

• Anderson argues that, since the 1500s, a series of major social changes have generally lead to people moving around more and interacting with people from other parts of the world.

• One result of this has been general erosion in people’s belief that the world, and God, are unchanging subjects.

• Because things change, people are more willing to believe in a past (the way things were), a present (the way things are), and a future (the way things are predicted to become).

• To consolidate and organize growing communities, it was necessary to invent different means and methods for organizing the past, present and future under a common sense of time, and this has been done through the clock.

• The clock lets us imagine enormous communities existing at the exact same time we are, and this is what makes the nation possible, according to Anderson. So a nation — according to Anderson, is an “Imagined Community.” Remember when I said that literature was important?
  

Okay,  while we don’t need to imagine this world – let’s try to comment on it.

Journal: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

What kind of hold does the clock have over your life? Or you an on time person or a “constantly” late person — what might this say about how you understand your role in your nation?

Group Discussion of findings: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Class Discussion of Group Findings: (3-5 minutes)

Step Four: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

Canadian Literature lets us watch this process in action!

• One of the things that is easiest to overlook about these early writings, and early novels in general, is that they are a technology for representing what was THEN a developing belief in global concepts of chronological time.

• It is no accident that early novels generally follow an epistolary format – or are presented as journals. We overlook the significance of what is going on here. The author is asserting or representing his or her culture’s developing belief in the power of chronological time to connect you to people you will never meet: the characters in the novel.
  

• The clock and calendar connects the characters to each other, but it also connects you to them though the common points in time that are addressed. It’s so obvious it’s easy to over look, but it is crucially important!

Let’s look at some examples from Francis Brooke’s “Emily Montage”

Example One: (Opening Dedication)

Example Two: (Notice the hour by hour commentary)

Now, this technology works really well when  you are a fighter writing to other fighters, people who share your investment in chronological time to fulfill this unifying function.

BUT!

What happens when you are trying to write about a place where your assumptions about time NO LONGER MAKE SENSE!

One thing we might notice about Susanna Moodie is that she only associates time with certain kinds of events:

Example One:

Example Two:

But time very quickly goes to the wayside, and soon she is mentioning it only infrequently.

What happens when you encounter a landscape that does not appear to follow the rules of your calendar or clock – either because you lose all your accurate time keeping devices, or because all the social structures that support that system are simply absent!

Also, what happens when, you start to encounter people who have no regard for these systems?

Well – if you’re a particularly bright Irish person  moving through Canada, or a brilliant poet actually born in Canada, you start to colonize the landscape by finding new ways to associate the strange world you are encountering with your inherited notions of community and nationhood.

Introduction to our authors:

Isabella Valancy Crawford

25 December 1850 – 12 February 1887

Born in Ireland. Moved to Canada in 1857.  Died of “heart disease” in 1887

193-236

Charles Sangster

July 16, 1822 – December 9, 1893

First writer we have met who was actually born in Canada

9-61

For next time, I want you to read:

Isabella Valancy Crawford’s Malcolm’s Katie (193-236)

Charles Sangster The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay (9-61)

Keeping in mind our conversations on the garrison mentality and time, I want you to comment on the different versions or time and culture that you encounter in this reading.

Listen to one hour of the CBC Fredericton Station, write about what you hear.

(Supplemental/ Relevant Lectures)

Malcolm’s Katie:

The St. Lawrence and The Saguenay :

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