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Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'etudes canadiennes Editor RALPH HEINTZMAN Directeur Associate Editors DAVID CAMERON Directeurs adjoints JOHN WADLAND Editorial Assistants ARLENE DAVIS Assistantes MARGARET PEARCE Editorial Board JEAN-PIERRE LAPOINTE Comite de redaction MARGARET LAURENCE HARVEY McCUE JACQUES MONET, S. J. W. L. MORTON W. F. W. NEVILLE GORDON ROPER DONALD V. SMILEY DENIS SMITH PHILIP STRATFORD T. H. B. SYMONS W. E. TAYLOR CLARA THOMAS MELVILLE H. WATKINS ALAN WILSON The virtues of reverence It would be difficult to conceive a project which would give greater pleasure to the editors of the Journal of Canadian Studies than the preparation of a special issue on Robertson Davies. Whether or not the Deptford or "Magian" trilogy is in fact the greatest work in Canadian fiction, as Claude Bissell recently declared, one can think of very few rivals for the title - some of which would no doubt be in French. An issue devoted to the work of Robertson Davies explores and celebrates one of the noblest achievements of the Canadian imagination and, in so doing, gives us at least a partial account of ourselves. What Davies has created is now a part of what we are and may become. That this issue of the Journal has to a large degree the character of a celebration will be immediately apparent. Ronald Sutherland , Wilfred Cude, James Neufeld and Clara Thomas are all in a predominantly celebratory mood. And with good reason, for there is much to celebrate: above all, the simple fact that such works exist. One frequently has cause to regret that critics are not more alive to the miracle of creation. So often they seem to take for granted the works which furnish material for their analysis, forgetting the miracle on which (pace Northrop Frye) their own labour depends: that a thing should be which once was not. In art, in science, in philosophical thought - and in life itself - everything depends upon the Journal of Canadian Studies 1 primary act of imagination and creation; and yet it is the very thing which the backwardlooking perspective of the critic, the logician, the historian of science, or the scientific historian is so inclined to overlook. In the case of Robertson Davies, there are at least two reasons to give thanks for the i m a g i n a t i v e and creative energy which brought his works into being. One is the sheer delight which they afford. No doubt a successor to Professor Cluett will eventually use a computer to analyse the structure and rhythm of Davies' prose in an attempt to explain why it gives such pleasure. In Davies' books, the language alone is sufficient to make them compulsively readable. It could be said of them, as of only a few other Canadian works, that every sentence contains within itself, as Coleridge said, "the reason why it is so and not otherwise" and carries the reader forward "not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of the mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself ." Davies is not content, however, to offer delight and nothing more. He wishes, as should any responsible artist, to go beyond immediate pleasure - or rather through it and by means of it - to an ultimate concern with questions of goodness and truth. It is on this level that many readers have found the recent novels so exhilarating, and we should surely be grateful that Canadian literature is enriched by works of fiction in which such matters are of high concern. But an author who chooses this ground must be prepared to be engaged upon it, and just such an engagement is the main purpose of Stephen Bonnycastle's contribution to this issue. While readily acknowledging the craftsmanship and charm of Davies' second trilogy, Mr. Bonnycastle takes issue with what he perceives to be the moral vision that informs it. Whether or not the moral ideas expressed by the novels as a whole are those which Mr. Bonnycastle presents shall 2 remain an open question until others have examined his claims. One should not leap...

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