1. _English-Canadian Literature_ is marked by the weaknesses as well as
the merits of colonial life. The struggle for existence, the conquering
of the wilderness, has left scant room for broad culture or scholarship,
and the very fact that Canada is a colony, however free to control her
own affairs, has stood in the way of the creation of anything like a
national literature. And yet, while Canada's intellectual product is
essentially an offshoot of the parent literature of England, it is not
entirely devoid of originality, either in manner or matter. There is in
much of it a spirit of freedom and youthful vigour characteristic of the
country. It is marked by the wholesomeness of Canadian life and Canadian
ideals, and the optimism of a land of limitless potentialities.
The first few decades of the period of British rule were lean years
indeed so far as native literature is concerned. This period of unrest
gave birth to little beyond a flood of political pamphlets, of no
present value save as material for the historian. We may perhaps except
the able though thoroughly partisan writings of Sir John Beverley
Robinson and Bishop Strachan on the one side, and Robert Fleming Gourlay
and William Lyon Mackenzie on the other. In the far West, however, a
little group of adventurous fur-traders, of whom Sir Alexander
Mackenzie, David Thompson, Alexander Henry and Daniel Williams Harmon
may be taken as conspicuous types, were unfolding the vast expanse of
the future dominion. They were men of action, not of words, and had no
thought of literary fame, but their absorbingly interesting journals
are none the less an essential part of the literature of the country.
Barring the work of Francis Parkman, who was not a Canadian, no history
of the first rank has yet been written in or of Canada. Canadian
historians have not merely lacked so far the genius for really great
historical work, but they have lacked the point of view; they have stood
too close to their subject to get the true perspective. At the same time
they have brought together invaluable material for the great historian
of the future. Robert Christie's _History of Lower Canada_ (1848-1854)
was the first serious attempt to deal with the period of British rule.
William Kingsford's (1819-1898) ambitious work, in ten volumes, comes
down like Christie's to the Union of 1841, but goes back to the very
beginnings of Canadian history. In the main it is impartial and
accurate, but the style is heavy and sometimes slovenly. J.C. Dent's
(1841-1888) _Last Forty Years_ (1880) is practically a continuation of
Kingsford. Dent also wrote an interesting though one-sided account of
the rebellion of 1837. Histories of the maritime provinces have been
written by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Beamish Murdoch and James Hannay.
Haliburton's is much the best of the three. The brief but stirring
history of western Canada has been told by Alexander Begg (1840-1898);
and George Bryce (b. 1844) and Beckles Willson (b. 1869) have written
the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. Much scholarship and research
have been devoted to local and special historical subjects, a notable
example of which is Arthur Doughty's exhaustive work on the siege of
Quebec. J. McMullen (b. 1820), Charles Roberts (b. 1860) and Sir John
Bourinot (1837-1902) have written brief and popular histories, covering
the whole field of Canadian history more or less adequately. Alpheus
Todd's (1821-1884) _Parliamentary Government in England_ (1867-1869) and
_Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies_ (1880) are standard
works, as is also Bourinot's _Parliamentary Procedure and Practice_
(1884).
Biography has been devoted mainly to political subjects. The best of
these are Joseph Pope's _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_ (1894), W.D. le
Sueur's _Frontenac_ (1906), Sir John Bourinot's _Lord Elgin_ (1905),
Jean McIlwraith's _Sir Frederick Haldimand_ (1904), D.C. Scott's _John
Graves Simcoe_ (1905), A.D. de Celles' _Papineau and Cartier_ (1904),
Charles Lindsey's _William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), J.W. Longley's
_Joseph Howe_ (1905) and J.S. Willison's _Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ (1903).
In _belles lettres_ very little has been accomplished, unless we may
count Goldwin Smith (q.v.) as a Canadian. As a scholar, a thinker, and a
master of pure English he has exerted a marked influence upon Canadian
literature and Canadian life.
While mediocrity is the prevailing characteristic of most of what passes
for poetry in Canada, a few writers have risen to a higher level. The
conditions of Canadian life have not been favourable to the birth of
great poets, but within the limits of their song such men as Archibald
Lampman (1861-1891), William Wilfred Campbell (b. 1861), Charles
Roberts, Bliss Carman (b. 1861) and George Frederick Cameron have
written lines that are well worth remembering. Lampman's poetry is the
most finished and musical. He fell short of being a truly great poet,
inasmuch as great poetry must, which his does not, touch life at many
points, but his verses are marked by the qualities that belonged to the
man--sincerity, purity, seriousness. Campbell's poetry, in spite of a
certain lack of compression, is full of dramatic vigour: Roberts has put
some of his best work into sonnets and short lyrics, while Carman has
been very successful with the ballad, the untrammelled swing and sweep
of which he has finely caught; the simplicity and severity of Cameron's
style won the commendation of even so exacting a critic as Matthew
Arnold. One remarkable drama--Charles Heavysege's (1816-1876) _Saul_
(1857)--belongs to Canadian literature. Though unequal in execution, it
contains passages of exceptional beauty and power. The sweetness and
maturity of Isabella Valency Crawford's (1851-1887) verse are also very
worthy of remembrance. The _habitant_ poems of Dr W.H. Drummond
(1854-1907) stand in a class by themselves, between English and French
Canadian literature, presenting the simple life of the _habitant_ with
unique humour and picturesqueness.
The first distinctively Canadian novel was John Richardson's (1796-1852)
_Wacousta_ (1832), a stirring tale of the war of 1812. Richardson
afterwards wrote half a dozen other romances, dealing chiefly with
incidents in Canadian history. Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) and Katharine
Parr Traill (1802-1899), sisters of Agnes Strickland, contributed novels
and tales to one of the earliest and best of Canadian magazines, the
_Literary Garland_ (1838-1847). _The Golden Dog_, William Kirby's
(1817-1906) fascinating romance of old Quebec, appeared in 1877, in a
pirated edition. Twenty years later the first authorized edition was
published. James de Mille (1833-1880) was the author of some thirty
novels, the best of which is _Helena's Household_ (1868), a story of
Rome in the 1st century. _The Dodge Club_ (1869), a humorous book of
travel, appeared, curiously enough, a few months before _Innocents
Abroad_. De Mille's posthumous novel, _A Strange Manuscript found in a
Copper Cylinder_ (1888), describes a singular race whose cardinal
doctrine is that poverty is honourable and wealth the reverse. Sir
Gilbert Parker (b. 1862) stands first among contemporary Canadian
novelists. He has made admirable use in many of his novels of the
inexhaustible stores of romantic and dramatic material that lie buried
in forgotten pages of Canadian history. Of later Canadian novelists
mention may be made of Sara Jeannette Duncan (Mrs Everard Cotes, b.
1862), Ralph Connor (Charles W. Gordon, b. 1866), Agnes C. Laut (b.
1872), W.A. Fraser (b. 1859) and Ernest Thompson Seton (b. 1860). Thomas
Chandler Haliburton (q.v.) stands in a class by himself. In many
respects his is the most striking figure in Canadian literature. He is
best known as a humorist, and as a humorist he ranks with the creators
of "My Uncle Toby" and "Pickwick." But there is more than humour in
Haliburton's books. He lacked, in fact, but one thing to make him a
great novelist: he had no conception of how to construct a plot. But he
knew human nature, and knew it intimately in all its phases; he could
construct a character and endow it with life; his people talk naturally
and to the point; and many of his descriptive passages are admirable.
Those who read Haliburton's books only for the sake of the humour will
miss much of their value. His inimitable _Clockmaker_ (1837), as well as
the later books, _The Old Judge_ (1849), _The Attache_ (1843), _Wise
Saws and Modern Instances_ (1853) and _Nature and Human Nature_ (1855),
are mirrors of colonial life and character.
For general treatment of English-Canadian literature, reference may be
made to Sir John Bourinot's _Intellectual Development of the Canadian
People_ (1881); G. Mercer Adam's _Outline History of Canadian
Literature_ (1887); "Native Thought and Literature," in J.E. Collins's
_Life of Sir John A. Macdonald_ (1883); "Canadian Literature," by J.M.
Oxley, in the _Encyclopaedia Americana_, vol. ix. (1904); A.
MacMurchy's _Handbook of Canadian Literature_ (1906); and articles by
J. Castell Hopkins, John Reade, A.B. de Mille and Thomas O'Hagan, in
vol. v. of _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country_ (1898-1900);
also to Henry J. Morgan's _Bibliotheca Canadensis_ (1867) and
_Canadian Men and Women of the Time_ (1898); W.D. Lighthall, _Songs of
the Great Dominion_; Theodore Rand's _Treasury of Canadian Verse_
(1900); C.C. James's _Bibliography of Canadian Verse_ (1898); L.E.
Horning's and L.J. Burpee's _Bibliography of Canadian Fiction_ (1904);
S.E. Dawson's _Prose Writers of Canada_ (1901); "Canadian Poetry," by
J.A. Cooper, in _The National_, 29, p. 364; "Recent Canadian Fiction,"
by L.J. Burpee, in _The Forum_, August 1899. For individual authors,
see Haliburton's _A Centenary Chaplet_ (1897), with a bibliography;
"Haliburton," by F. Blake Crofton, in _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the
Country_; C.H. Farnham's _Life of Francis Parkman_ and H.D. Sedgwick's
_Francis Parkman_ (1901); and articles on "Parkman," by E.L. Godkin,
in _The Nation_, 71, p. 441; by Justin Winsor in _The Atlantic_, 73,
p. 660; by W.D. Howells, _The Atlantic_, 34, p. 602; by John Fiske,
_The Atlantic_, 73, p. 664; by J.B. Gilder in _The Critic_, 23, p.
322; "Goldwin Smith as a Critic," by H. Spencer, _Contemp. Review_,
41, p. 519; "Goldwin Smith's Historical Works," by C.E. Norton, _North
American Review_, 99, p. 523; "Poetry of Charles Heavysege," by Bayard
Taylor, _Atlantic_, 16, p. 412; "Charles Heavysege," by L.J. Burpee,
in _Trans. Royal Society of Canada_, 1901; "Archibald Lampman," by
W.D. Howells, _Literature_ (N.Y.), 4, p. 217; "Archibald Lampman," by
L.J. Burpee, in _North American Notes and Queries_ (Quebec), August
and September 1900; "Poetry of Bliss Carman," by J.P. Mowbray,
_Critic_, 41, p. 308; "Isabella Valency Crawford," in _Poet-Lore_
(Boston), xiii. No. 4; _Roberts and the Influences of his Time_
(1906), by James Cappon; "William Wilfred Campbell," _Sewanee Review_,
October 1900; "Kingsford's History of Canada," by G.M. Wrong, _N.A.
Review_, I p. 550; "Books of Gilbert Parker," by C.A. Pratt, _Critic_,
33, p. 271. (L. J. B.)
2. _French-Canadian Literature_ at the opening of the 20th century might
be described as entirely the work of two generations, and it was
separated from the old regime by three more generations whose racial
sentiment only found expression in the traditional songs and tales which
their forefathers of the 17th century had brought over from the _mere
patrie_. Folk-lore has always been the most essentially French of all
imaginative influences in Canadian life; and the songs are the
quintessence of the lore. Not that the folk-songs have no local
variants. Indian words, like _moccasin_ and _toboggan_, are often
introduced. French forms are freely turned into pure Canadianisms, like
_cageux_, raftsman, _boucane_, brushwood smoke, _portage_, &c. New
characters, which appeal more directly to the local audience, sometimes
supplant old ones, like the _quatre vieux sauvages_ who have ousted the
time-honoured _quatre-z-officiers_ from the Canadian version of
_Malbrouk_. There are even a few entire songs of transatlantic origin.
But all these variants together are mere stray curios among the crowding
souvenirs of the old home over sea. No other bridge can rival _le Pont
d'Avignon_. "_Ici_" in _C'est le ban vin qui danse ici_ can be nowhere
else but in old France--_le ban vin_ alone proves this. And the Canadian
folk-singer, though in a land of myriad springs, still goes _a la claire
fontaine_ of his ancestral fancy; while the lullabies his mother sang
him, like the love-songs with which he serenades his _blonde_, were
nearly all sung throughout the Normandy of _le Grand Monarque_. The
_habitant_ was separated from old-world changes two centuries ago by
difference of place and circumstances, while he has hitherto been
safeguarded from many new-world changes by the segregative influences of
race, religion, language and custom; and so his folk-lore still remains
the intimate _alter et idem_ of what it was in the days of the great
pioneers. It is no longer a living spirit among the people at large; but
in secluded villages and "back concessions" one can still hear some
charming melodies as old and pure as the verses to which they are sung,
and even a few quaint survivals of Gregorian tunes. The best collection,
more particularly from the musical point of view, is _Les Chansons
populaires du Canada_, started by Ernest Gagnon (1st ed. 1865).
Race-patriotism is the distinguishing characteristic of French-Canadian
literature, which is so deeply rooted in national politics that L.J.
Papineau, the most insistent demagogue of 1837, must certainly be named
among the founders, for the sake of speeches which came before written
works both in point of time and popular esteem. Only 360 volumes had
been published during 80 years, when, in 1845, the first famous book
appeared--Francois Xavier Garneau's (1809-1866) _Histoire du Canada_. It
had immense success in Canada, was favourably noticed in France, and has
influenced all succeeding men of letters. Unfortunately, the imperfect
data on which it is based, and the too exclusively patriotic spirit in
which it is written, prevent it from being an authoritative history: the
author himself declares "_Vous verrez si la defaite de nos ancetres ne
vaut pas toutes las victoires_." But it is of far-reaching importance as
the first great literary stimulus to racial self-respect. "_Le Canada
francais avait perdu ses Ictlres de noblesse; Garneau les lui a
rendues_." F.X. Garneau is also remembered for his poems, and he was
followed by his son Alfred Garneau (1836-1904).
A. Gerin-Lajoie was a mere lad when the exile of some compatriots
inspired _Le Canadien errant_, which immediately became a universal
folk-song. Many years later he wrote discriminatingly about those _Dix
ans au Canada_ (1888) that saw the establishment of responsible
government. But his fame rests on _Jean Rivard_ (1874), the prose
bucolic of the _habitant_. The hero, left at the head of a fatherless
family of twelve when nearly through college, turns from the glut of
graduates swarming round the prospects of professional city-bred
careers, steadfastly wrests a home from the wilderness, helps his
brothers and sisters, marries a _habitante_ fit for the wife of a
pioneer, brings up a large family, and founds a settlement which grows
into several parishes and finally becomes the centre of the electoral
district of "Rivardville," which returns him to parliament. These simple
and earnest _Scenes de la vie reelle_ are an appealing revelation of
that eternal secret of the soil which every people wishing to have a
country of its own must early lay to heart; and _Jean Rivard, le
defricheur_, will always remain the eponym of the new _colons_ of the
19th century.
Philippe de Gaspe's historical novel, _Les Anciens Canadiens_ (1863), is
the complement of Garneau and Gerin-Lajoie. Everything about the
author's life helped him to write this book. Born in 1784, and brought
up among reminiscent eye-witnesses of the old regime, he was an eager
listener, with a wonderful memory and whole-hearted pride in the glories
of his race and family, a kindly _seigneur_, who loved and was loved by
all his _censitaires_, a keen observer of many changing systems, down to
the final Confederation of 1867, and a man who had felt both extremes of
fortune (_Memoires_, 1866). The story rambles rather far from its
well-worn plot. But these very digressions give the book its intimate
and abiding charm; for they keep the reader in close personal touch with
every side of Canadian life, with songs and tales and homely forms of
speech, with the best features of seigniorial times and the strong
guidance of an ardent church, with _voyageurs, coureurs de bois_,
Indians, soldiers, sailors and all the strenuous adventurers of a wild,
new, giant world. The poet of this little band of authors was Octave
Cremazie, a Quebec bookseller, who failed in business and spent his last
years as a penniless exile in France. He is usually rather too
derivative, he lacks the saving grace of style, and even his best
Canadian poems hardly rise above fervent occasional verse. Yet he became
a national poet, because he was the first to celebrate occasions of
deeply felt popular emotion in acceptable rhyme, and he will always
remain one because each occasion touched some lasting aspiration of his
race. He sings what Garneau recounts--the love of mother country, mother
church and Canada. The _Guerre de Crimee, Guerre d'ltalie_, even
_Castel-fidardo_, are duly chronicled. An ode on _Mgr. de
Montmorency-Laval_, first bishop of Quebec, brings him nearer to his
proper themes, which are found in full perfection in the _Chant du vieux
soldat canadien_, composed in 1856 to honour the first French man-of-war
that visited British Quebec, and _Le Drapeau de Carillon_ (1858), a
centennial paean for Montcalm's Canadians at Ticonderoga. Much of the
mature work of this first generation, and of the juvenilia of the
second, appeared in _Les Soirees canadiennes_ and _Le Foyer canadien_,
founded in 1862 and 1863 respectively. The abbe Ferland was an
enthusiastic editor and historian, and Etienne Parent should be
remembered as the first Canadian philosopher.
At Confederation many eager followers began to take up the work which
the founders were laying down. The abbe Casgrain devoted a life-time to
making the French-Canadians appear as the chosen people of new-world
history; but, though an able advocate, he spoilt a really good case by
trying to prove too much. His _Pelerinage au pays d'Evangeline_ (1888)
is a splendid defence of the unfortunate Acadians; and all his books
attract the reader by their charm of style and personality. But his
_Montcalm et Levis_ (1891) and other works on the conquest, are all
warped by a strong bias against both Wolfe and Montcalm, and in favour
of Vandreuil, the Canadian-born governor; while they show an inadequate
grasp of military problems, and practically ignore the vast determining
factor of sea-power altogether. Benjamin Sulte's comprehensive _Histoire
des Canadiens-francais_ (1882) is a well-written, many-sided work.
Thomas Chapais' monographs are as firmly grounded as they are finely
expressed; his _Jean Talon_ (1904) is of prime importance; and his
_Montcalm_ (1901) is the generous _amende honorable_ paid by
French-Canadian literature to a much misrepresented, but admirably
wrought, career. A. Gerin-Lajoie's cry of "back to the land" was
successfully adapted to modern developments in _Le Saguenay_ (1896) and
_L'Outaouais superieur_ (1889) by Arthur Buies, who showed what immense
inland breadths of country lay open to suitable "Jean Rivards" from the
older settlements along the St Lawrence. In oratory, which most
French-Canadians admire beyond all other forms of verbal art, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier has greatly surpassed L.J. Papineau, by dealing with
more complex questions, taking a higher point of view, and expressing
himself with a much apter flexibility of style.
Among later poets may be mentioned Pierre Chauveau (1820-1890), Louis
Fiset, (b. 1827), and Adolphe Poisson (b. 1849). Louis Frechette
(1830-1908) has, however, long been the only poet with a reputation
outside of Canada. In 1879 _Les Fleurs boreales_ won the Prix Monthyon
from the French Academy. In 1887 _La Legende d'un peuple_ became the
acknowledged epic of a race. He occasionally nods; is rather strident in
the patriotic vein; and too often answers the untoward call of rhetoric
when his subject is about to soar into the heights of poetry. But a rich
vocabulary, a mastery of verse-forms quite beyond the range of Cremazie,
real originality of conception, individual distinction of style, deep
insight into the soul of his people, and, still more, the glow of
warm-blooded life pulsing through the whole poem, all combine to give
him the greatest place at home and an important one in the world at
large. _Les Vengeances_ (1875), by Leon Pamphile Le May, and _Les
Aspirations_ (1904), by W. Chapman, worthily represent the older and
younger contemporaries. Dr Neree Beauchemin keeps within somewhat narrow
limits in _Les Floraisons matutinales_ (1897); but within them he shows
true poetic genius, a fine sense of rhythm, rhyme and verbal melody, a
_curiosa felicitas_ of epithet and phrase, and so sure an eye for local
colour that a stranger could choose no better guide to the imaginative
life of Canada.
A Canadian drama hardly exists; among its best works are the pleasantly
epigrammatic plays of F.G. Marchand. Novels are not yet much in vogue;
though Madame Conan's _L'Oublie_ (1902) has been crowned by the Academy;
while Dr Choquette's _Les Ribaud_ (1898) is a good dramatic story, and
his _Claude Paysan_ (1899) is an admirably simple idyllic tale of the
hopeless love of a soil-bound _habitant_, told with intense natural
feeling and fine artistic reserve. Chief-Justice Routhier, a most
accomplished occasional writer, is very French-Canadian when arraigning
_Les Grands Drames_ of the classics (1889) before his ecclesiastical
court and finding them guilty of Paganism.
The best bibliographies are Phileas Gagnon's _Essai de bibliographie
canadienne_ (1895), and Dr N.E. Dionne's list of publications from the
earliest times in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_
for 1905. (W. Wo.)