Vas, Gorden. € THE BUSH GARDEN F Tk destroy all faith that differs from his own, but Couadlican tone who wants to make his own faith real to others. Just aso are country cannot become a civilizaion without explores. Pioneers going out into the loneliness of a deserted lain! Noda. Fr no social imagination can develop except through nas oi r Fy have followed their own vision beyond its inevitable lone ‘ots final resting place in the travition of art The reew.t- an imaginative journey of remarkatle integrity and dive in is what is commemorated inthis book. Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada F Sour Yeas Aco, a group of editors met to draw up the fest tentative plans for a history of English Canadian wan What we then dreamed of x substantially what we have go hanged very lle in esemtials | expressed at the tame he hope tat such a book would help to broaden the intact Ing generalizations that bordered on guesserk ae writers" meant primarily myself I find, hemenes oh dence has infact tended to conf the subject. To atu at more ev irm most of my intuitions on -anadian literature properly, one must outgrow the view that evaluation is the end of criticism, instead of its ingiden tal by-product. evaluation is one’s guiding principle, criticism of Canadian liter ‘ature would become only a debunk. {ng project, leaving it a poor naked alouette plucked of every feather of decency and dignity. True, what is really remarkable is not how litle but how much good writing has been produced in Canada. But this would not affe evaluator. The evaluative view is based on the criticism as concerned mainly to define and ca line classics of literature, ct the rigorous conception of ize the gen- And Canada has produced no “iterary History of Canada: Carl F. Klinck, General Editor, Universi of Toronto Press; pp. xi, 945; 1965,THE BUSH GARDEN greater in kind ¢han that of his best readers (Canadians them ht argue about one or two, but in the perspective of the world at large the statement is true). There is n¢ Canadian writer of whom we can say what we can say of the world's major writers, that their reaclers can grow up inside their work without ever being aware of a circumference. Thus the metaphor of the critic as “judge” holds better for a critic who is never dealing with the kind 0° writer who judges him, This fact about Canadian literate, so widely deplored by Canadians, has one advantage, It is much easier two see what literature is tying to do when we are studying a literature that has not quite done i If no Canadian author pulls us away yom the Canadian context rd the centre of literary expe- ¢ itself, then at every point we remain aware of his social and historical setting. The conception of what is literary has to be greatly broadened for such a literature, The literary, in Canada, is often only an incidental quality of writings which, in its orthodox genres of poetry and fiction, itis more signif: ‘cantly studied as a part of Canadian life than as a part of an suitonomous world of literature 1 merely admitting or conceding this, the editors ave gone out of their way to emphasize it. We have asked for chapters on political, historical, religious, scholarly, phito- sophical, scientific, and other nonliterary writing, to show how the verbal ima imation operates as a ferment in all uultural life, We have included the writings of foreigners, of travellers, of immigrants, of emigrants — even of emigrants whose most articulate literary emotion was their thankfulness A geting even if he is not Canadi the hell out of Canada, The reader of this book, n or much interested in Canadian literature as such, may still learn a good deal about the liter ary imagination as a force and function of lif generally. For here another often deplored fact alse becomes an advantage that many Canadian cultural phenomena are not peculiarly Canadian at all, but are typical of theie wider North American Conclusion to a Literary History of Can: and Western contexts. This book is a collection of essays in cultural history, and of the general principles of cultural history we still know relatively little. It is, of course, closely related to political and to economic history, but itis a separate and definable subject im itself, Like other kinds of history, it has its own themes of exploration, settlement, and development, but these themes relate to a social imagination that explores and settles and develops, and the imagination has its own rhythms of growth as well as its own modes of expression. It is obvious that Canadian literature, whatever its inherent merits, is an indis- pensable aid to the knowledge of Canada. It records what the P ig nadian imagination has reacted to, nid it tells us things about this environment that nothing else will ll us. By exam relatively small and lowlying cultural development is studied in all its dimensions. There is far oo much Canadian writing for this book not t become, in placés, something of a Fortunately, the bulk of Canadian nonsiterary writing, even today tion in which the readable has become the impure hhas not yet declined into the state of sodden specializa I stress our ignorance of the laws and conditions of cultural history for an obvious reason. The question: why has there been no Canadian writer of classic proportions? may naturally be asked. Atany at it often has been, Our authors realize that itipbetter to deal with what is there than to raise speculations about why something else isnot there. But itis clear thatthe question haunts their minds. And we know so litle about cu: but we do not even know whether or not itis areal question The notion, doubles of romantic origin, that "genius" isa certain quantum that an individual is born with, as he might be born with red hait is still around, but mainly as a folk: tale moti in fiction, like the story of Finch in the Jalna books. “Genius” is as much, and as essentially, a matter of social context as itis of individual character, We do not knowTHE BUSH GARDEN what the social conditions are that produce great literature, oF even whether there is any causal relation at all, If there is, there is no 1 ‘ason to suppose that they are good conditions, or conditions that we should try to reproduce. The notion that the literature one admires must have been nourished by something admirable in the social environment is persistent put has never been justified by evidence. One can still find make his achievement books on Shakespeare that profess t more plausible by talking about a “background” of social cuphoria produced by the defeat of dhe Armada, the discov ‘exy of America a century before, and the conviction that Queen Blizabeth was a wonderful woran, There is a general sense of filler about such speculations, and when similar arguments are given in a negative form te explain the absence fof a Shakespeare in Canada they are no more convincing Puritan inhibitions, pioneer life, “an age too late, cold climate, or years” — these may be important as factors or conditions of Canadian culture, helping us to characterize its qualities, To suggest that any of them isa negative cause of its ‘One theme which runs all through this book is the obvious and unquenchable desire of the Canadian cultural public to identify itself through its literature. Canada is not a bad envi ronment for the author, as far as recogrition goes: in fact the recognition may even hamper his development by making hin pr posts avait the dedicated writer: there are so many medals cmaturely self-conscious. Scholarships, prizes, university Offered for literary achievement that a modern Canadian Dryden might well be moved to write a satire on medals, except that if he did he would promptly be awarded the medal for 1s take an active responsibility for satire and humour, Publish native literature, even poetry; 2 fair proportion of the books an readers are by Canadian writers; the CBC bought by Canad and other media help to employ some writers and publicize others. The efforts made at intervals «@ boost or hard-scll Canadian literature, by asserting that itis much better than it netually is, may look silly enough in retrospect, but they were tea ie nore effaris tn ereate a cultural community, and the Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada aim deserves more sympathy than the means, Canada has wo Tanguages and two literatures, and every statement made jn & book like this about “Canadian literature” employs the figure of speech known as syneccoche, putting a part for the whole Every such statement implies a parallel or contrasting state tment about French-Canadian literature, The advantages of having a national culture based on two languages are in some respects very great, but of course they are for the most part potential. The difficules, if more superficial, are also more actual and more obvious. ‘Canada began as an obstacle, blocking the way to the tea: sures of the East, to be explored only in the hope of finding @ passage through it English Canada continued to be that long eter what is naw the United States had become a defined part af the Western world. One reason for this is obvious from the map. American culture was, down to about 1900, mainly @ ultare of the Atlantic seaboard, with a western frontier that ‘novel irregularly but steadily back until itreached the other canst, The Revolution did not essentially change the cultural sinity of the Englishspeaking community of the North iAdantic that had London and Edinburgh on one side of it ad Boston and Philadelphia on the other. But Canada has, forall practical purposes, no Atlantic seaboard. The traveller from Europe edges into it like a tiny Jonah entering an incon: tevwably large whale slipping past the Straits of Belle Ist into thy Galt of St Lawrence, where five Canadian provinces seeroand him, for the most part invisible. Then he goes uP the St. Lawrence and the inhabited country comes into view, ural tradi- jmainly a French-speaking country, with its own cul ons. To enter the United States is a matter of crossing an cecans to enter Canada is a matter of being silently swallowed by an alien continent This ant unforgettable and intimidating experience to enter Canada in this way. But the experience initiates one into that gigantic eastto-west thrust which historians regard as the as of Canadian development, the “Laurentian” movement that snakes the growth of Canada geographically credible. This vive to the west has attracted t0 itself nearly everything thats