Figures in a Ground ed. by Diane Bessai and David Jackel, and: The Practical Vision ed. by Jane Campbell and James Doyle (review)

HUMANITIES 433 time. Denham uses the word 'develops' too often to justify what is really a cross-reference, and in earnestly rehearsing the more apologetic passages in Frye's writing he gives an exaggerated sense of the theorist as a Los struggling to repossess his emanation. Some misprints, incongruous in a Frye book, also tend to put the introduction out of tone with the reviews. Really, the purpose of the introduction is to bring the past into conformity with the present and so to welcome the cultural historian of the Standard Authorized Version, the 'Northrop Frye on Culture and Literature.' This has the licence of discipleship, which is to say it is ritualistic, encyclopaedic, committed myth-making. Can we hope that as such it will generate the contrary impulse? That is, to edit against the flow of 'intellectual development' and select from Frye's three hundred other reviews, including the ones on painting and music, a discontinuous, casual series of illuminations, allowing us to see the many tributaries of the creative mind, and to discern a more natural sense in which Frye means 'the end of book reviewing is the beginning of criticism proper.' (SEAN KANE) Diane Bessai and David Jackel, editors. Figures in a Ground Western Producer Prairie Books. xiv, 365. $14-50 cloth, $7-5° paper Jane Campbell and James Doyle, editors. The Practical Vision Wilfrid Laurier University Press. xvi, 16). $7.50 'Festschrift' is not a word that rolls easily off the English tongue. For want of a better word in English, however, the German word has been made to do, especially in academic circles. A 'festschrift,' then, is a gift, a gift in the coin of their craft, by academic colleagues to one of their number who deserves to be especially honoured. It betokens admiration, respect, affection, and even homage. Academics (a curious breed, envious of reputation, sensitive to slight real or imagined, and quick to find fault) are not often tempted to pay homage to colleagues. When they combine, therefore, to honour one of their own in a 'festschrift: they mean to bestow a Singular honour. Figures in a Ground is a collection of nineteen 'Canadian Essays in Modern Literature' (as the subtitle has it) in honour of Sheila Watson. The Practical Vision is a collection of ten 'Essays in English Literature' in honour of Flora Roy. Each contains a portrait, a thing much appreciated by readers who often know the persons being honoured only by name. The portrait of Sheila Watson by Rowland McMaster is an especially fine one, worthy indeed of a minor Karsh. There is a biographical sketch of Flora Roy in the introduction to her volume, together with an appreciation of her long and distinguished career at what is now Wilfrid Laurier 434 LETTERS IN CANADA 1978 University. Sheila Watson is treated rather more generously by her editors. She is given a deft and imaginative evocation of her presence in and about the University of Alberta in 'Sheila Watson in Edmonton' by Henry Kreisel, together with a separate biographical essay, and a superb tribute by the painter Norman Yates, whose seven pencil and acrylic drawings, called 'Portable Canadian Hero: are reproduced as the chief part of his contribution to the volume. If one were obliged to choose between these two books of essays for an extended evening's, or a couple of evenings' read, one's choice would be, almost certainly, Figures in a Ground. The Practical Vision has some excellent things in it, but for vivacity, energy, range, imagination, and a spirit of intellectual adventure and play not often found in books of essays, and especially pleasing in a 'festschrift: the laurel goes to Figures in aGround. The editors, Diane Bessai and David Jackel, have taken the view that, quite apart from its function of bestowing an honour, a 'festschrift: in literature at least, ought to be able to stand on its own as something like a work of art. That is what makes the difference between the two volumes. The Practical Vision is a workmanlike compilation, Figures in aGround the work of craftsmen. None the less, Figures in a Ground has not got everything its own way. Douglas Barbour...