Welcome to Eh 303: Canadian Literature
Part One: Introductions
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Review of Course Policy and Procedures (Suggested: 10-15 minutes)
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Introductions (Suggested: 5 minutes)
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Roundtable Discussion Part One: What is Canada to you? (Suggested: 5 minutes)
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First Major Point: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)
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Like all nations, Canada can only be defined as it exists during a specific period in time.
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Just as the “America” of today is not the “America” of late-twentieth century, the “Canada” of today is not the “Canada” of any other time. Such definitions are best sought out in history classes, and this is not a history class.
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A specific definition for what Canada is, then, less useful for us than a definition for what Canada may or might be, or what it might appear to be to us through a reasoned consideration of its literature — that is, it stories, myths, and traditions that can be associated with general conceptions of “Canada.”
Roundtable Discussion Part Two: What is Literature to You? (5 minutes)
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Second Major Point: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)
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Literature is the oral of written record of human experience that impacts society.
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In its grandest sense, literature collectively represents the stories, myths, and traditions that underline society
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Your culture is a product of literature, and you probably are as well.
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During different periods, different forms of literature are more or less evident in a society or culture. As a student, you may have a particular affinity for a certain kind of literature — a national literature, a gendered literature, a religious literature, ect.
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You also probably have some rudimentary tools for judging and evaluating literature.
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For example: In our society, literature — when it is regarded as useful — is valued for its capacity to make people “good,” “productive” members of a community. Certainly, there is some value to this. But literature is always more than this or any other culturally approved standard, and this is one reason why people have such a hard time defining it: they want to tie to an emotional or political standard, and literature is always more than that!
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Part Two: Familiarization
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So, now that we have thought a little bit about what Canada is and what Literature is, we are ready to start thinking about what Canadian Literature is.
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But before we so, I would like to take a few moments for you to consolidate these ideas for yourself.
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In your journals, I would like you to informally write down for yourself what your understanding of the concept of “national literature” is, it can be the literature of any nation. What does that phrase mean to you? (10 Minutes)
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Group Discussion: (5 minutes)
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Group Report: (5 minutes)
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Class Discussion: (5 minutes)
10 Minute Break
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Part Three:
Opening lecture: A Canadian Condition: The “Garrison” Mentality (10-15 minutes)
Those of you who had me last winter for Major British Authors may remember that, at the very start of that course, we were thinking about medieval life in Europe, and how it was a period when the greatest scientific and social achievements were regarded as having occurred a thousand years before during the age of antiquity. The human mind was presumed to have “peaked” long, long ago.
You might remember the scribe Bede, who lived around 730 BC, and who, with 250 books, had perhaps the largest library in Europe. By contrast, I have about 450 books in my office. Stupid Bede!
Well, the early Canadian experience was, for many of the regions first English and French settler, in some senses very similar. However, the distance here between the origins of knowledge and everyday life was not temporal, but was geographical.
Now, when I refer to the early Canadian experience, I am referring to the 17th and 18th centuries.
Early Canadian settlers were not like the religious outcasts who settled America.
Rather, they were businessmen and soldiers with close ties to the English and French empires. Their time in Canada was a time “away” from home — and Canada was _not_ home.
It was something else, something mysterious.
Socially, the only value many early residents in Canada found was the value they could get from people who shared their European ideals. They got these ideals from the military communities they lived in, and these communities were called “Garrisons.”
Garrison In Fredericton, New Brunswick!
Though they were built much later, we have several examples of Garrisons in Maine: Fort Kent, Fort Fairfield, Houlton, and Fort Knox, to name only a few.
First Major Theory: Living in Garrisons does _strange_ things to people.
There is a theory about it called “The Garrison Mentality,” and it was created by Northrop Frye
Small and isolated communities surrounded with a physical and psychological “frontier,” separated from their American and British cultural sources: communities that provide all that its members have in the way of distinctively human values, and that are compelled to feel a great respect for the law and order that holds them together, yet confronted with a huge, unthinking, menacing, and formidable physical setting – such communities are bound to develop a garrison mentality. –Frye
The Garrison Mentality
Now, the idea of the garrison mentality leads Frye to claim that there were two types of early Canadians, fighters and deserters. Fighters supported the Garrison, and deserters leave it. This causes internal tension. But do we believe this?
Journal Entry: (suggested: 10)
Now that we have thought a little about the Garrison Mentality, I want you to take a few moments and describe the social dynamics of small town life as you understand it. Please use good specific details. What keeps the people in small towns united? How do their values define the town? What is it like to be a member of a small town in Rural Maine, or wherever it may be that you are from? Avoid cliche and be specific.
Group Discussion: Groups discuss findings, come up with a collective statement on their thoughts. (5-7 minutes)
Class Discussion of Group findings. (5-10 minutes)
Do we buy this theory today? Journal entry on whether or not you think people who live in small towns might fall into this psychological trap. Have you ever experienced it? If so, explain when and what it was like.
Part Four: (10 minutes)
We will begin our investigation into Canadian literature with some writing that relates to garrison life. Two women, writing in very different centuries and in very different literary modes, both appear to have been touching on the basic themes Frye identifies with the Garrison Mentality.
Two early works that appear to show the Garrison Mentality in action are Frances Brooke’s “The History of Emily Montague” and Susanna Moodie’s “Roughing It in the Bush.”
Frances Brooke
A few facts:
Born 1723-24. She was a well known member of the theaterical community in London before she left for Quebec with her husband in 1768. He was a chaplain in the Garrison there. Her novel, The History of Emily Montague, was written while she was in Canada. She returned home after writing it.
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Idyllic Description of Quebec (pages 11-13)
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Idyllic Description of First Nations People (pages 15-16)
Susanna Moodie
A Few Facts about “perhaps the saddest middle class woman in the history of the world”
Born in England in 1803, died in 1885 in Canada, where she lived a great deal of her life.
In 1832, she moved to a farm near Lakefield, north of Peterborough, Canada.
Published Roughing it in the Bush in 1852, about life in the 1830s
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Description of Quebec (page 16)
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Dislike of Canadian Life (page 39)
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Thoughts on First Nations People (page 146)
Canadian Literature 
Posted by Proposed Syllabus « Canadian Literature on January 19, 2010 at 1:32 pm
[…] January 21 Context and Colonization […]
Posted by Jason Stewart on January 24, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Prof. Adam Crowley
Jason Stewart
24 January 2010
During the colonization of the New World by the leading European nations in the early 18th century there was a large competition to obtain as much land as possible, regardless of location or who may already inhabit that land. Amidst all the land snatching, forts were built in strategic locations, then cities around these forts to further populate the areas. In such a habitat as Canada garrisons were used to house the population and protect them from the wilderness and the “savages” of that land. Northrop Frye determined that people who lived in such garrisons developed a “Garrison Mentality” where the mind splits and only two types of people inhabit the garrison: Fighters (those who support the garrison) and Deserters (those who leave the garrison). This mentality was developed by Frye in the mid-20th century thus looking back at Canadian authors we can better analyze what type of person the author was, a fighter for Canada or a deserter.
Frances Brooke was the New World’s first author, which is interesting to find that this author was a woman coming from a very misogynistic Europe, where female writers were few and far between. Brooke’s novel “Emily Bronte” begins with letter correspondences between a traveling officer Mr. Rivers and his sister, Miss Lucy Rivers, with the former traveling to Canada and the latter living in England. In the first letter back to Europe, Rivers states that he “prefer[s] Canada to New York” (Brooke 9), which already shows the authors personal preference to the new land she inhabits. Brooke has her traveling officer describe grandiose scenes of Canadian wild side to entice the reader to believe that the land that Brooke is from is that of a land dreamed up by gods. While describing the river Montmorenci, Brooke has her character state that “it almost breathes; I no longer wonder at the enthusiasm of Greece and Rome; ‘twas from objects resembling this their mythology took its rise; it seems the residence of a thousand deities” (30). Northrop Frye, upon reading these passages would argue that Frances Brooke was a “fighter” for Canada and any garrison in the nations borders.
It is when Brooke is describing the native women of Canada do we see her as a “deserter”, but not of Canada, but European ways. Frances Brooke was born in England and traveled with her husband to the New World. It is through her writing that we see early feministic support. When Brooke has her character Rivers describing how new chiefs are voted in for a village, do we see her wish for change in the way women are treated in Europe. “…the members of which are like him elected by the matrons: I am pleased with this last regulation, as women are, beyond all doubt, the best judges of the merit of men; and I should be extremely pleased to see it adopted in England” (33). Brooke uses her character as a “fighter” for not only Canada but also civil rights
Posted by Meghann Peterson on January 24, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Meghann Peterson
Prof. Crowley
January 24, 2010
Response to Emily Montague
Mr. River’s, the main letter writer in Brooke’s Emily Montague, is a man Frye would categorize as a “fighter” in terms of his “garrison mentality.” Mr. Rivers is by all accounts enjoying his time in the new colony of Canada. One of the reasons River’s seems to me a fighter is from his utter lack of though on the idea of the colony as a whole. Mr. Rivers and his friend John seem more occupied with the ways of women and the task of distinguishing between the misses, the women and the “Indian ladies.” By Mr. River’s description we are to believe that the Indian ladies native to Canada are generous with themselves (i.e. promiscuous) in the time before marriage and then closed for business after they snag themselves a husband. This is contrary to the “misses” of English society that he finds not at all appealing. He tells his friend that they are no good to him since he looks for a woman of substance, not one that has just left her dolls behind. The women that do seem attractive to Rivers are the ladies who can hold a conversation with any man and are not just in search for a husband. A woman who does not expect to find a lover in every man she meets and also does not fear men is the conversation partner for him. And it seems he intend to converse with many of them.
Immediately after describing the way Indian ladies switch from hussy to housewife we get what seems a contrary description of the lives of the Indians. Rivers description, which idealizes the Indians life, implies that they are lazy. With their “indolence of body [and] tranquility of mind” they live “free from all care.” Except for the cares that are associated with your land being overtaken by wealthy colonists. There are apparently times when the Indians are not at leisure. Rivers explains that war is the “business of their lives” and the “first passion of their soul.” This passion for war also takes up a significant amount of their time. Rivers descriptions of the Indians all have an underlying tone of condescendence; their women are pretty, but only before marriage, they are lazy, but only until time for war songs. And of course, Rivers has heard a story from a friend of the cruelty of an Indian woman who feeds her children the blood of English soldiers. As a reader I see these descriptions to be stories of excitement in Rivers new life away from England, something to write home about.
On his way to Montreal from Quebec Rivers finds the peasants to be “lazy, dirty, and stupid beyond all belief.” Besides that though they’re great. This is another one of Rivers backwards compliments. He does make sure to include in his description what a gentleman he was in receiving all that the peasants did for him. Good for you Mr. Rivers. It is once Rivers arrives in Montreal that we get a clue as to why the book is named after a woman. Rivers meets Emily Montague, as she is engaged to another English officer. He writes many words about her to his sister: her charms, her looks, her conversation. He then writes a sentence or two defending his friendship with her as being just that, a friendship. She is taken and he cannot have her and that is the end of it. I doubt this is true.
Mr. River’s later letter, the one that finishes up out reading of Emily Montague, seems to have the kindest descriptions of the “savages.” In this letter Rivers describes the autonomy of self that is unique to the savages. They are not ruled by the colonists, they are not even ruled by each other. This shows the Indians as unaware of the societal rules of the Europeans. For the Indians “tis his equal he respects, without the gaudy trappings …. to which polished nations pay homage.” In this last comment Rivers shows himself again as a fighter and the Indians as the deserters. They do not participate in the formalities of the colonists, they choose not to participate in them and in that way they are deserters.
Posted by Kacey Beckwith on January 25, 2010 at 10:21 am
Kacey Beckwith
Professor Crowley
January 25, 2010
Emily Montague Response
In Emily Montague, there are a few examples of fighters that can be found. Col. Rivers is clearly the most obvious example from the text of a fighter. He is the character who writes a great number of the letters in the reading and dedicates most of this writing to explaining his observations during his journey. He gives wonderful descriptions of the landscape and surroundings which he has observed on his trip to Canada, as well as descriptions of those native to the Canadian land. On page 15 of the text, Rivers gives a very nice description of the lives of the natives, especially that of the females; “the moment the commence wives, they give up the very idea of pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they plough the ground, they sow, they reap” (page 15). Rivers obviously has respect for the way the native women live, especially after they become wives. He has more respect for these women than he has for women he has been around all of his previous time. Rivers goes on to speak of how the natives live, not only in marriage, but in everyday life, and he expresses the idea that they are not quite as “savage” as one might think. However, he quickly follows this up with a story of a native being completely “savage”. Therefore, it makes Rivers seem as if he is not quite sure how to feel about the natives, although he does have more good than bad to say about them as a people. Once Rivers moves on to Montreal, he describes the women there as well. He seems to have a rather positive opinion of them, although he does not praise them as he first did with the natives he came into contact with. He does refer to these women as “handsome” and “obliging” in manner (page 22). On this very trip to Montreal, Rivers meets a young woman, named Emily Montague, who is to be married. Because of this engagement, Rivers claims to have feelings that are strictly friendly. However, he is clearly enamored with the woman. Lastly, Rivers speaks again of the natives and he has even more nice things to add about them. He seems to praise their government, or lack of it, by saying that every single native is free as an individual, as well as the whole group of them are free as a people. He also seems to praise other ways of life which the natives have taken to, such as their idea of marriage, sense of honor, language, and so on. Rivers, although he admires much about the natives, is still a fighter due to the fast that he has not changed his own thinking in terms of his way of life and that of his purpose in Canada.