Literary Criticism in Canada

LITERARY CRITICISM IN CANADA PELHAM EDGAR I A SURVEY of the field reveals the eXistence of a considerable volume of literary criticism in this country, but it would be unwise to say that much of it is of outstanding merit. It must also be stated at the outset that even the best of it is for the most part desultory, and confined in its appeal by the circulation limits of the periodical in which it appeared. This applies not only to the casual book review, but to the more considered articles on literary themes, which very rarely, whatever their value, are deemed worthy by author or publisher of preservation in permanent form. Indeed the measure of value attaching to the ordinary critical article is mercenary rather than aesthetic-not how important the utterance lntrinsically may be, but what selling vogue it generates for the book-vendor's wares. By this evaluation it will sink lower in the scale than the pulpit pronouncement of a literary parson, and both print and preaching will yield precedence to the vague unmeasured authority of the microphone. We ~hould be zealous to make this country more book-minded by all legitimate means, and the daily and weekly press can take an increasingly important share in the process. If we consider the space devoted to letters in the papers of other lands, the comparison with our own efforts is disturbing. On reflection we cannot attribute any peculiar altruism to the editors of these great dailies and weeklies. 1f you read the articles, pray turn your eyes also upon the voluminous accompanying advertOisemen ts, and be satisfied that these spacious columns are not financed out of the proprietor's pocket. Not only are the book pages commercially profitable, but a public has been created which would not consent to be deprived of its entertainment. We are still a long way in Canada from mutual service on this prodigious scale-proprietor, editor, reviewer, publisher, bookseller , and public all satisfied, and the author occasionally content. Yet book pages there afe from coast to coast which do useful and often brilliant work. I cannot name them all, and am not sufficiently familiar with many to praise or blame with discrimination. 420 LlTERARY CRITICISM IN CANADA 421 The Vancouv~r Provina must serve to represent the west, the Winnipeg Tribune and Fret Press to represent the centre, \vhile eastern readers find their satisfaction in the weekly pages of the Toronto Globe and Mail, Saturday Nig!Jt, and the Montreal Star. W. A. Deacon of the Globe and Mail is in my view our most competent professional reviewer, but I read with much interest the work of Mrs H. F. Angus, W. T. Allison, Charles Clay, and Morgan Powell in the other papers named, and B. K. Sandwell of Saturday Night is his own liveliest reviewer. Two writers now dead, Thomas B. Roberton and the Hon. Martin Burrell, made journalistic history in the Free Press and Ottawa Journal over a period or years. Their editors bound them down by no reviewer's rules. Each wrote as his fancy prompted, and there was a touch of genius in their fancy. It was less often of books than round and about them that they wrote, and not being book-learned men their views were refreshingly unpedantic. They have had no successors in our country, but the editor who nnds one will have his reward. We have competent book reviewers in Canada, but our wealth in the familiar essay is still to be developed. Before turning from the subject of journalistic criticism) reference should be made to columns contributed throughout 1892 to the Saturday Globe by three Ottawa poets. At the Mermaid was the joint production of Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott, and William Wilfred Campbell, and it must frankly be said it was not criticism from which literary movements might emerge. Campbell wrote badly and without any literary sense. Lampman wrote well enough, but without much spring or vitality. The only real liveliness was contributed by Scott who possessed by far the most alert and informed mind of the three. He probably ranks his articles among the sins of his young manhood, but he...