Presenting Canadian Culture to the American Audience

TheCanadian Review of American Studies, Volume 10,Number 2, Fall, 1979 PresentingCanadian Culture to theAmerican Audience Suzanne Henning Uphaus DavidStaines, ed. The Canadian Imagination: Dimensions of a Literary Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977.265 + vii pp. JudithWebster,ed. Voices of Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Culture. Burlington, Vermont: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 1977. 118 + xx pp. Theyear 1977 was an unusual, even an epochal one, in the history of Canadian-American relations. The publication of two books in the United States,both devoted to Canadian culture, is an event without precedent, and indicatesthe growing interest of American society in the neighbor to the North. After decades in which the Canadian market has been glutted with studiesof United States history and culture, it must warm the hearts of faithfulCanadians who have feared anonymity for so long, that they are, at last, beingnoticed. For many, recognition is proof of existence. Bothof these books, then, are introductions, directed toward an American audience,to Canadian culture. The Staines book confines itself to Canadian literaryculture and is comprised of an Introduction and eight essays by such Canadiannotables as Northrop Frye, Marshall McLuhan, Margaret Atwood, GeorgeWoodcock and others. Most of the pieces were originally given as addresseslaunching H_arvard Univer$ity's new program in Canadian studies, anevent which, in itself, demonstrates an increasing awareness of Canada in theUnited States. Similanly, Voices of Canada has its origins in an event which is evidence of growingAmerican interest in Canada: the Symposium on 20th Century CanadianCulture held in Washington, D.C. from January 24to April 7, 1977. Voicesof Canada is an admirably edited compendium of that symposium, includingthe texts of addresses by Frye, Andre Fortier, Hugh MacLennan andRobertson Davies, excerpts from panel discussions, and a chapter on 210 Suzanne Henning Uphaus "The Art Scene in Canada" which is the editor's summary of fwo panel discussions and a lecture on contemporary Canadian art. Half of the volumeis the French translation of the English text, so that the actual page numbers given above may be misleading. In just fifty English pages of double column small type, however, Voices of Canada conveys the contemporary cultural scene in Canada far more completely than does The Canadian Imagination. Admittedly, both books face a difficult task. What is most notable about Canadian culture, and what makes it so difficult to define, is its comparatively recent history and the diversity of its expression. Of course every nation hasa variety of perspectives; as soon as two different individuals sit down to write, you are going to have two entirely different documents. Wallace Stevens said it all about a black bird. But there may be certain common circumstances behind the writing of the various documents, certain assumptions unconsciously assimilated from the cultural heritage of the country, which the critic perceives and emphasizes. A literary culture is the compounded creation, it seems to me, of critics who, perceiving common threads in a number ofworks, weave them together, and of individual artists who assimilate and add to what becomes a national tradition. Thus the critic helps to create a mythology; before the critics among my readers bristle, let me remind them that mythology is always based upon a factual foundation, and that, perceivedin this way, the critic becomes an artist of sorts, and an integral part of any literary tradition. But the difficulties facing the critic of Canadian art in his attempt to create a national mythology are unusually complex simply because of Canada's rejection of the melting pot theory. Canada's cultural heterogeneity is the one assumption upon which all the scholars in both books agree, and it isa necessary step in any person's understanding of Canada. Indeed, the frequent references throughout both volumes to regionalism and ethnic minorities, the omnipresent obligation to modify the noun "Canadian," with "Western" or "Eastern," "French" or "English," is testimony to the cultural heterogeneity of that country. Canadians call their country a "mosaic" rather than a "melting pot," and this fact alone makes the job of the Canadian critic, who seeks a common denominator, almost impossible. Nonetheless critics try, and The Canadian Imagination includes several unreconciled attempts to reduce the diversity of Canadian literature...