Highways of Canadian Literature

by J. D. Logan; Donald G. French

This meant that following the consummation of Confederation the people of Canada should find themselves pledged to and engaged in a distinctly new and novel political and social program. This program was chiefly one of political and social consolidation and of industrial and commercial expansion. It was most astutely and effectively, though slowly, carried out. With the ever-increasing political and social unification of the people and the intellectual and commercial expansion of the country, a genuine sentiment of Canadian nationality gradually developed, until by the time of the Great World War, 1914-1918, and largely in consequence of Canada’s part in that war, the sentiment of Canadian nationality suddenly acquired a pervasive intensity and evolved into a definite and profound sense of distinct nationhood.

Now, with this development in political and social consolidation, and territorial, industrial, and commercial expansion, and the evolution of a sentiment of nationality and, later, nationhood, it was inevitable that there should be not only a change in the literary ideals, inspiration, and aims of Canadian men and women of letters, but also that, with this change in aesthetic and artistic conscience, the literature produced in Canada, after Confederation, should be different in substance, form, and technical artistry or craftsmanship from the literature produced prior to Confederation. It was also inevitable that immediately upon Confederation, when, naturally, political and social consolidation and the sentiment of nationality were virtually at zero point or at least were inchoate, the literary ideals of Canadian men and women of letters should be, in substance and form, for a decade or so, traditional and derivative, not indigenous and originally Canadian. It was indeed so: for at least a decade there was hardly any independent or original native Canadian literature, or in it even a simmering of the sentiment of Canadian nationality, though there was a considerable quantity of ‘journalistic’ and imaginative poetry and prose which possessed distinctive and even engaging aesthetic and artistic qualities, written both by permanently resident émigrés and by native-born Canadians.

In 1868, for instance, Charles Mair, a native-born Canadian, published his Dreamland and Other Poems; and in 1870 John Reade, an Irishman long resident in Canada, published a volume of verse, The Prophecy of Merlin and Other Poems: but while Mair’s poems contained Canadian sentiment and color they were the sentiment and color of objective Nature in Canada; and while John Reade’s volume was written in Canada and though the poet really felt and was in sympathy with all the political, social, and spiritual aspirations of Canada, Reade’s poems themselves were based chiefly upon Arthurian legend and were written in a derivative English romantic manner of form, music, and color.

Mair and Reade and others were having an influence, however, in holding up the ideal of authentic literary creation in Canada while during that decade and the following decade a group of young native-born Canadians were growing into manhood, and were having engendered in their hearts and imagination a distinct innate sentiment of Canadian nationality and were to become the first native-born group of systematic poets and prose writers in Canada. Their work, in poetry and prose, may fairly be signalized as the First Renaissance in Canadian Literature.

This group, for the purposes of literary history, we have denominated the Systematic School of Canadian poets and prose writers. For with the publication of Chas. G. D. Roberts’ Orion and Other Poems in 1880, a native-born leader for native-born men and women of letters appeared in Canada; and with the publication of Roberts’ In Divers Tones in 1887 in Canada (in U. S. 1886), there appeared at length the first ‘Voice’ of the Spirit of Canada, expressed in poetic literature, artistic in structure and noble in inspiration. The authentic beginning of strictly so-called Canadian Literature in English must, therefore, be dated from 1887. Roberts and his colleagues, Lampman, Carman, Campbell, D. C. Scott, F. G. Scott, Pauline Johnson, Gilbert Parker and Marshall Saunders are designated the Systematic School of Canadian poets and prose writers.

The First Renaissance in Canadian Native and National Literature may be said to close either with the publication of Pauline Johnson’s last volume of poems, Canadian Born, in 1903, or with the publication of Robert Service’s first volume of verse, Songs of a Sourdough (1907). By this is not meant that after twenty years of leadership and influence the first Systematic Group had not continued to hold up the ideal to the younger or later Canadian poets and prose writers or that there were no Canadian poets and prose writers who were continuing the older ideal and tradition. As a matter of fact, the creative and artistic ideals of the first group of systematic poets and prose writers had become engendered in the aesthetic and artistic conscience of the younger or later men and women of letters in Canada; and the poetry and prose produced by the younger or later Canadian men and women of letters were notably refined in sentiment, beautiful in structure and imagery, and noble in spiritual substance and appeal. They continued, and still continue, as do also Roberts, Carman, Duncan Campbell Scott and the other living members of the original Systematic Group, the tradition of aesthetic and artistic verse and prose.

But in 1907 another singing voice was heard; and there developed a group of poetasters and picaresque fictionists whose leader was Robert Service. Their special literary métier was verse, though Service and his literary confrères also essayed fiction. This group we call the Vaudeville School of Canadian Poetry. Its vogue lasted for an insignificant period of five years, or from 1908 up to the beginning of the Great World War.

In 1913 appeared a new group of younger Canadian poets and prose writers, who may be regarded as having begun the Second Renaissance in Canadian literature. They inaugurated, as it were, a Restoration Period in Canadian literature, inasmuch as, with some changes in ideals of form and craftsmanship, they essentially ‘restored’ the literary principles and aims of the First Renaissance Group. All these distinctions in nomenclature and dates are, of course, only used for expository or pedagogical purposes. Accordingly, it is convenient to mark the beginning of the Second Renaissance, or the Restoration Period, in Canadian Literature with the publication of Marjorie Pickthall’s first volume of verse, Drift of Pinions, in 1913.

This period in Canadian Literature in English is still in process. It is showing definitive originality in several ways, including original developments in modernity of theme and moral substance, in formal novelty, and in fresh expression of neglected or hitherto unessayed literary genres, such as, for instance, poetic and stage drama, and essays strictly in belles-lettres.

Contemporary with the poets of this period is a group of fictionists, who have produced and are producing novels, romances, and tales which are Canadian in theme, in social background, and in color. This group may be distinguished as the Realistic School of Canadian Fiction.