James Hogg: The Growth of a Writer by David Groves (review)

126 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 There is much in this book that is quite old-fashioned, especially the authors' almost obsessive preoccupation with authorial intentions and source hunting. Furthermore, the voyage that is actually described is certainly less conclusively a journey into Wordsworth's mind than into the 'bicameral' consciousness of Thomas and Ober. At a time when the theory of allusion has been made into an extremely sophisticated mode of literary analysis, in Harold Bloom's theory ofallusive misreading, orJohn Hollander's work on the allusive structure of literary texts, the authors' lack of concern for formulating what they mean by allusion will raise many problems. Without either a clear verbal or semantic constraint on what is perceived as a verbal debt or allusion, the authors, in the heat of the chase, all too frequently bag anything that moves. And sometimes, they bag things that have not moved for a long time, like the works of Philo of Alexandria. Although this book deals with material that is probably not of great interest to many readers of Wordsworth, it does represent a valuable, if somewhat specialized, contribution to our knowledge of the poet's relationship to scientific thought, especially to the various poetic tributes written about Newton, and of his friendship with Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College, Dublin. (ALAN HEWELL) David Groves. james Hogg: The Growth ofa Writer Scottish Academic Press 1988. 160. $19.95 International scholarly interest in the Ettrick Shepherd has grown steadily during the past decade. Canadian involvement in this recuperation would likely intensifyifit were more widely known thatJames Hogg is an ancestor of Alice Munro. Munro herself has expressed interest in Hogg's work and recently spent several months living in Scotland. The narrator of Munro's 'Chaddeleys and Flemings' blames her father's 'scrupulously egalitarian' attitudes on his 'Scottish blood.' Although David Groves makes no reference to Munro in this book, the James Hogg here depicted shares Munro's profoundly egalitarian approach to storytelling. Groves argues that Hogg's poems and stories contain a 'distinctive personal "myth" of descent. That myth traces an individual's downward journey into confusion and despair, followed by the essential discovery of human fellowship and finally the return to community and social values.' Groves demonstrates clearly that the pattern is applicable to Hogg. What limits his readings is a failure to situate this parabola and to realize that it is by no means 'personal' or 'unique' to Hogg. Although Frye is cited usefully in several places, more Frye or more literary history is needed to put Hogg's version of the romance parabola into the context of Scottish Romanticism. HUMANITIES 127 The absence of this larger context leads Groves to make conclusions thatdo notalways do justice to the subtletyofhis readings. Overand over again he concludes a reading with a 'universal' value. Hogg, he claims, leads us repeatedly to the 'simple admission thatall people are essentially the same.' There's something to be said for such startling simplicity, but this levelling quality in Hogg's work also needs to be situated in a larger context of comedy. The egalitarian stance, in any case, involves (as Groves himself indicates elsewhere in the book) an 'appreciation of diverse temperaments, creeds, and perspectives.' Groves is at his best when he shows how Hogg's craft is the result of his tolerance for difference - his refusal to take sides on the divisive political and theological issues that swirled around Blackwood's in those days. The best part ofthis rather uneven book is without question the reading of Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Groves emphasizes the 'unconscious kinship between the editor and Robert' and examines the way Hogg's technique 'subverts the individualism' of each and reduces them 'to the same level of confusion and self-doubt,' showing 'their involvement in relationship, process, and community.' (MAGDALENE REDEKOP) Frances Armstrong. Dickens and the Concept of Home UMI Research Press. 175. us $39.95 Frances Armstrong's Dickens and the Concept of Home makes a valuable contribution to Victorian social history as well as to Dickens scholarship. Armstrong does a revisionist reading of Dickens's attitudes towards the...