Alfred Lord Tennyson: The Poet in an Age of Theory by W. David Shaw (review)

250 LETTERS IN CANADA David Shaw's new book on the first time. This is the Lord fennt/s:on: and it is full of ~.....,.......i".,." rl01"1"'<:'1"1 one so, in a 'creates unavailable in an oral recitation of that drama: in an oral reC:ltatiOltl, a line can be voiced in only one with one in a HUMANITIES 251 silent reacling/ the printed text allows for two or even several possibilities at once, so that the dramatic character can 'speak with two minds upon a subject.' Syntax, punctuation, and lineation are, as Shaw's analyses show, other matters that can appeal to the eye in ways different from their appeal to the ear. Finally, there is the all-important ability of a reader to glance backward or look forward on a printed page, an easier task than a listener's having to remember words and phrases that disappear the moment they are spoken. The 'reinvented poem' (the term is Helen Vendler's) allows errors in judgment to stand and 'contradictoryimpressions to remain,' and our ability to move around within such a printed text makes possible our reinvented reading of an inner drama which a stage play can only treat more obliquely. Shaw, one hopes, will develop all of these topics into a full theory of the dramatic monologue. If this book is any indication, that result is well worth waiting for. (DONALD S. HAIR) Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins and Michael A. Petennan, editors. 1Bless You in My Heart: Selected Correspondence ofCatharine Parr Traill University of Toronto Press. xxii, 438. $39.95 Catharine Parr Strickland Traill's life and literary career span most of the nineteenth century, and encompass much of Canada's culturalrustory. Born in England in the county of Kent in 1802, she published her first book in London in 1818 and emigrated to Upper Canada in 1832, where she published her last book in 1895, four years before her death in 1899. Today, she and her sister, Susanna Strickland Moodie~ are best known for their contrasting pioneer narratives: Traill,s The Backwoods ofCanada (1836) often serves as a foil for Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush (1852) as critics contrast a placid, sunny Catharine with an opinionated, contradictory Susanna, usually allowingSusanna'sself-dramatizingpersona to override thatofher more self-effacing sister. Now that the editorial team that has already produced two fine volumes ofMoodie's letters has issued this selection of Traill's correspondence,it is possible to see the extent to which the narrator of Catharine's publications is a constructed persona,shaped to fit the mode ofpublic discourse expected of a Victorian gentlewoman. In preparing this volume, the editors located nearly 500 letters (from which they have selected 136) spanningseven decades (1827-99): ample testimony to the role of letter-writingas a primary medium ofsocialcommunicationinVictorian Canada, especially for a busy wife, mother (of rune), and author who enjoyed little domestic assistance and scant leisure time. Both the selected letters and the editorial commentary highlight Traill's career as an author, providing details of the difficulties attending composition , publication (book and periodical), and distribution in nineteenthcentury rural Canada. Many of her schemes came to naught; other projects ...