He did not do this by a sort of reporting. He did it by letting them talk for themselves in their own patois. Thus he gave to his pictures of the French-Canadian habitant, lumberman, and peasant, a racy and dramatic realism which distinguishes them as ‘characters’ apart in Canadian, in English, and in world literature. This is the first reason why William Henry Drummond must be regarded as an absolute creator of literary species. He created a new form of romantic genre poetry, gave it reality, veracity, and ideality. This is what Louis Fréchette meant when in his Introduction to Drummond’s first volume, he hailed Drummond as ‘the pathfinder of a new land of song.’
In what way did Drummond give true ideality to the life and character which he presented also with a convincing realism and veracity? There is a species of romance which is the sheer invention of the fancy or imagination. It presents a life and character that have never existed and could not be possible anywhere on earth. That kind of romance is so ‘fantastic’ as to be absolutely unreal. There is another kind of romance which is based on real imagination of supposed real life and real personages. This sort of romance is typified by fairy tales, not the fairy tales of all lands, but of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. The people actually believe in the real existence of fairies, and imagine these invisible creatures in the forms of human beings. Romances about them and their doings are, therefore, not fantastic, but are based on a kind of reality. Again: there is a species of romance based upon the imagining of real personages in impossible situations and doing impossible things. It exists in Canadian Literature in those romances in which the Indian conducts himself in ways that could only be possible with men of civilized natures and civilized ideas. This kind of romance is not unreal; it is too ideal.
In poetically conceiving and presenting the French-Canadian habitant, lumberman, or peasant, Drummond might have drawn them as fantastic, or fanciful, or absolutely ideal characters. Or, he might have drawn them, as Service, for instance, has limned his characters of the trails and mining camps, with an accentuated or rude realism. Drummond employed none of these methods. He presented the French-Canadian habitant, lumberman, and peasant as they really appear on the outside, and as they ideally are on the inside, to the vision which sympathetically divines their feelings, emotions, aspirations, sorrows, joys, and consolations. Drummond’s poetic eye perceived the ideal spirit of the French-Canadian habitant as it shines through the outer, rude, homely, simple, hesitant creature whom the English-speaking compatriot only too often, till Drummond’s time, took to be of a lower and less spiritual order than himself. By this combined realistic and idealistic treatment of the character and life of the French-Canadian habitant, lumberman, and peasant, Drummond created a new species of Canadian genre poetry, a new form of the Canadian Idyll.
As a creator, Drummond is entitled to another distinction. He originated a new and distinct type of Humor. There were humorists before and since Drummond. There was the prose humor of Haliburton’s Sam Slick. There was the verse humor of Howe and of Lanigan. There was the prose humor of De Mille and of Mrs. Cotes. There have been the prose humor of Leacock and the verse humor of Service. But the only humor of all these that is likely to perdure as world literature is that of Haliburton. Drummond has created a humor which also is likely to live in permanent literature. It is distinguished from all the other humor written in Canada by the fact that it is never satiric or malicious or ungenial, or mere humor for the sake of raising a laugh or to ridicule another. It is humor with pathos. Just as Haliburton is unique as a satiric humorist, so Drummond is unique as a sympathetic and interpretative humorist. He is a Master of Humor and of Pathos.
His work is so well known throughout the world that it is hardly necessary to quote examples of his humor. Mere excerpts will not suffice. We may, however, recall, as outstanding examples, The Wreck of the Julie Plante, How Bateese Came Home, The Curé of Calumette, Dominique, The Corduroy Road, Little Bateese, Johnnie Courteau, and When Albani Sang.
A few words on Drummond’s use of a patois or dialect and on his verse technique will be sufficient. It is by his patois that he gives not only naturalness but also veracity to the speech of his characters. His dialect is pure and clean and is felt by the reader as natural and genuine. As to technique, Drummond is a master of simple but flowing rhythm and obtains his rhymes with an ease and naturalness that disclose him as an original inventor of rhyme. He elected to be ‘The Poet of the Habitant,’ and as such he is unique. Yet his poetry in this form, as well as in other forms, clearly shows that if he had essayed the writing of verse on traditional themes and in a traditional manner, he could have been a poet of considerable distinction. It is best, however, to leave him with his natural distinction and glory about him—the Poet of the Habitant. As the discoverer of the New Romance in Canada, as the Creator of the New Canadian Idyll, and as the Master of a unique species of Canadian Humor and Pathos, William Henry Drummond made a signally original contribution to the quantity and quality of the creative literature of Canada.
CHAPTER XIX
The Vaudeville School
THE DECADENT INTERIM IN CANADIAN LITERATURE—THE VAUDEVILLE SCHOOL OF POETS—ROBERT W. SERVICE, ROBERT J. C. STEAD, AND OTHERS.
Not ineptly, though somewhat jocosely, we may group Canadian Poets in the Post-Confederation period, from 1887 to 1907, into three Schools, and label them with characteristic sobriquets. Already Archibald Lampman, Wilfred Campbell, Duncan Campbell Scott, with Pauline Johnson and Frederick George Scott, have been called ‘The Great Lakes School.’ This is a dignified sobriquet, and derives its descriptive aptness from the native environment, or from the themes, of these poets, or from both. Again: Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman have been named ‘The Birchbark School.’ This is a jocose, playful sobriquet, and was applied to these poets because ‘they use the mottled scrolls of the Red Man’s papyrus to build a canoe, or as a vehicle for verse, with equal dexterity.’