International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d

Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction
Editor-in-Chief Rédacteur en chef
Kenneth McRoberts, York University, Canada
Associate Editors Rédacteurs adjoints
Isabel Carrera Suarez, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
Carolle Simard, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Robert S. Schwartzwald, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Managing Editor Secrétaire de rédaction
Guy Leclair, ICCS/CIEC, Ottawa, Canada
Advisory Board / Comité consultatif
Irene J.J. Burgers, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Patrick Coleman, University of California/Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Enric Fossas, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, España
Lois Foster, La Trobe University, Australia
Fabrizio Ghilardi, Università di Pisa, Italia
Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Eugenia Issraelian, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
James Jackson, Trinity College, Republic of Ireland
Jean-Michel Lacroix, Université de Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle, France
Denise Gurgel Lavallée, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brésil
Eugene Lee, Sookmyung University, Korea
Erling Lindström, Uppsala University, Sweden
Ursula Mathis, Universität Innsbruck, Autriche
Amarjit S. Narang, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
Heather Norris Nicholson, University College of Ripon and York St. John,
United Kingdom
Satoru Osanai, Chuo University, Japan
Vilma Petrash, Universidad Central de Venezuela-Caracas, Venezuela
Danielle Schaub, University of Haifa, Israel
Sherry Simon, Concordia University, Canada
Wang Tongfu, Shanghai International Studies University, China

International Journal of Canadian Studies
Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring / Printemps 1997
Time, Space and Place
Le temps, l’espace et le lieu
Table of Contents / Table des matières
Isabel Carrera Suarez
Introduction / Présentation .........................5
Jonathan Bordo
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist Landscape Art (Canada &
Australia) and the So-Called Claim to American Exception .......13
William J. Buxton
Time, Space and the Place of Universities in Western Civilization:
Harold Innis’ Plea .............................37
Randy William Widdis
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity: A Canadian Perspective . . 49
Guildo Rousseau
La descente du continent ..........................67
Patricia Vervoort
Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles. ..............85
Beverley Curran and Mitoko Hirabayashi
Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in Le désert mauve . . 109
S. Ramaswamy
Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems: An Indian View ...121
Valerie Legge
Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives ......135
Review Essay / Essai critique
Jocelyn Létourneau
Le temps du lieu raconté. Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes
relatives à l’histoire du Québec. .....................153
Open Topic Articles / Articles hors-thèmes
Michael A. O’Neill
Stepping Forward, Stepping Back? Health Care, the Federal Government
and the New Canada Health and Social Transfer. ............169

Mark E. Rush
Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States: Managing the
Tension that Haunts International Law ..................187
David G. Delafenêtre and Daisy L. Neijmann
The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada: A Sociological
and Literary Perspective .........................209

Introduction
The dimensions of time and space
are not only the permanent subject
of cultural and scientific
speculation, but also, in their close
link with the construction of place,
fundamental factors of individual
and collective self-definition. Not
surprisingly, they are often at the
core of discussions of identity, and
since Northrop Frye posed his
much quoted and contested
Canadian existential question
“Where is here?,” aspects of place
have been perceived as
particularly significant in the
national context. Many of the
articles that follow expand the
limits of the questions asked about
spatio-temporal aspects in Canada.
The abundance of references to the
imaginary, to the interaction
between reality and myth, brings
to mind another classic statement
by a Canadian writer and theorist,
Robert Kroetsch’s assertion that
“the fiction makes us real,” which
posed the importance of narrative
in the understanding and creation
of communities. In the papers that
follow, the constant shuttle
between the social and the
cultural, between the concrete and
the abstract, confirms that
intertwining of reality and desire,
of places and maps of the mind
within the Canadian context.
The first group of articles deals
with interrelated questions of time
and space as they affect cultural
and social constructions. Through
a comparison of colonialist
landscape art in Australia and
Canada, Jonathan Bordo’s opening
piece links the Canadian symbolic
of the wilderness to the
Présentation
Le temps et l’espace sont non
seulement un sujet constant de
spéculation culturelle et scientifique
mais aussi, étant donné leur rapport
étroit à la construction de la notion de
lieu, des facteurs déterminants dans la
définition que se donnent d’euxmêmes
les individus et les
collectivités. Il n’est donc pas
surprenant que ces concepts se
retrouvent au cœur de débats portant
sur l’identité, surtout depuis la grande
question existentielle canadienne
formulée par Northrop Frye, « Où est
ici? », des aspects du lieu ont pris une
signification toute particulière dans le
contexte national. Plusieurs des
articles qui suivent abordent de
nouveaux horizons sur les questions
de l’espace et du temps au Canada.
Les nombreuses références à
l’imaginaire, à l’interdépendance de
la réalité et du mythe, rappellent la
formule classique d’un autre écrivain
et théoricien canadien Robert
Kroetsch. Selon lui, « la fiction nous
rend réel ». Son assertion affirme
l’importance de la narration dans la
compréhension et la création des
communautés. Dans les articles qui
suivent, le passage constant du social
au culturel, du concret à l’abstrait,
confirme ce mélange inextricable de
la réalité et du désir, des lieux et des
topographies de l’esprit dans un
contexte canadien.
Le premier groupe d’articles porte sur
les rapports du temps et de l’espace et
leurs effets sur les constructions
culturelles et sociales. Par le biais
d’une comparaison de l’art paysagiste
colonial au Canada et en Australie,
l’article de Jonathan Bordo relie la
symbolique canadienne de la nature
sauvage au mythe fondateur nordaméricain
de cette nature comme
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

IJCS / RIÉC
foundational North American myth
of the wilderness as Terra Nullius,
initiated by the Massachusetts Bay
puritans. This space, devoid of the
human figure and opposed to
European historicized landscape
while conveniently erasing the
Aboriginal Other, finds its ultimate
expression in the iconic paintings of
the Group of Seven, and serves as
legitimation of territorial claims. By
contrasting it with the symbolic of
the Australian bush, and challenging
the concept of “American exception,”
Bordo situates the Canadian
wilderness imaginary within the
dominant cultural project of Euro-
North America, which reverberates
still, in his view, in contemporary
deep ecology. Issues of political
space are also the subject of William
J. Buxton’s approach to Harold Innis’
work, which focuses on the methods
by which civilizations ensure
territorial control and durability, and
the monopolies of knowledge created
in the process. In Innis’ analysis, the
modern era is obsessed with the
control of space while plagued by
“endemic present-mindedness.” This
imbalance, related to mechanization
and commercialization, finds certain
points of resistance in time-sensitive
areas such as orality, the universities
or the humanities. Buxton explores
Innis’ commitment to counteracting
contemporary spatializing tendencies
through universities, as well as the
role of Canada in resisting the spacebiased,
globalizing United States.
Randy Williams Widdis’ central
theme, the borderland, is also
primarily a territorial concept, but his
argument highlights precisely the
importance of the time factor in the
definition of place. Through an
analysis of the Canadian diversity of
internal borders—regional, cultural,
8
Terra Nullius, mise de l’avant par
les puritains de la baie du
Massachusetts. Cet espace
dépeuplé, tout à l’opposé des
paysages européens chargés
d’histoire et faisant peu de cas de
l’Autre, en l’occurrence les
Autochtones, trouve son expression
ultime dans les représentations
iconiques du Groupe des Sept et
vient légitimer les ambitions
territoriales. En le mettant en
contraste avec la symbolique du
« bush » australien et en remettant
en question le concept
d’« exception américaine », Bordo
situe l’imaginaire canadien de la
nature sauvage dans le contexte du
projet culturel dominant des Nord-
Américains d’origine européenne,
qui selon lui, trouve encore des
résonances dans l’écologie
profonde contemporaine. L’espace
politique constitue aussi le sujet de
l’approche des travaux de Harold
Innis par William J. Buxton. Son
article met en lumière les méthodes
par lesquelles les civilisations
assurent le contrôle et la pérennité
de leur territoire et le monopole des
savoirs qui s’ensuit. Dans l’analyse
de Innis, l’ère moderne est marquée
par une obsession du contrôle de
l’espace et par une « constante
propension au présent ». Ce
déséquilibre issu de la
mécanisation et de la
commercialisation trouve certains
points de résistance dans des
secteurs où le temps joue un rôle
déterminant, tel les traditions
orales, les milieux universitaires ou
les humanités. Buxton explore
l’engagement de Innis en vue de
contrecarrer les tendances
contemporaines à l’éparpillement
dans les universités de même que le
rôledu Canada vis à vis l’empire

economic—and of cultural
bridges, he reminds us of the
organic, dynamic aspect of
borders and borderlands, of the
evolution of identity and place
over time. In Canada, he
maintains, this includes a
development of national
economies and political-cultural
institutions that transcended
differences and counterbalanced
the north-south integrative forces
(Canada-U.S.) which defenders of
the Borderlands Thesis emphasize.
The paradoxical character of
Canadian identity, Widdis
suggests, will face new challenges
in the present globalized,
postmodern world. In a return to
the symbolic aspects of space,
Guildo Rousseau deals directly
with the realm of the geographic
imaginary of the (North)
American continent. Through the
analysis of a number of literary
works from Québec, Anglophone
Canada and the U.S., he explores
the mental landscapes and the
maps of desire involved in the
fictional criss-crossing of North
America, a space marked
primarily by movement, by
voyages of discovery that insist on
two axes: East-West and North-
South. While patterns recur—the
West as object enunciated from
the East, the “descent” south into
the dark continent, the encounter
with the Other—the variations of
the myth demonstrate its fluidity,
which finds one of its most
powerful symbols in North
American rivers, with their
resonance of rites of passage,
death and resurrection.
The second group of articles deals
with specific works of art and their
treatment of the concepts of space
Time, Space and Place
Le temps, l’espace et le lieu
américain toujours plus globalisant et
envahissant.
Le thème principal qu’aborde Randy
Williams Widdis, celui de région
limitrophe, est lui aussi un concept
qui s’applique au territoire.
Cependant, son argumentation met
précisément en lumière l’importance
du temps dans la définition du lieu.
Par une analyse de la diversité des
frontières internes qui se trouvent au
Canada — qu’elles soient régionales,
culturelles ou économiques — et des
rapprochements entre les cultures, il
nous rappelle la nature organique et
dynamique des frontières et des
régions limitrophes, et met en lumière
l’évolution de l’identité et du lieu à
travers le temps. Au Canada,
soutient-il, cette évolution s’effectue
par la mise en place d’économies,
d’institutions politiques et culturelles
de nature nationale qui sont venues
transcender les différences et
contrebalancer les forces
d’intégration nord-sud (Canada —
États-Unis), ceci en opposition aux
thèses mises de l’avant par les tenants
de la théorie des zones limitrophes.
Le caractère paradoxal de l’identité
canadienne, soutient Widdis, devra
relever les nouveaux défis posés par
le monde actuel, global et postmoderne.
Dans un retour aux aspects
symboliques de l’espace, Guildo
Rousseau traite expressément du
domaine de l’imaginaire
géographique du continent nordaméricain.
Par une analyse de
plusieurs œuvres littéraires du
Québec, du Canada anglais et des
États-Unis, il explore le paysage
mental et les territoires du désir mis
en œuvre dans les traversées fictives
de l’Amérique du Nord, un espace
marqué par le déplacement, par les
voyages de découverte qui se
déploient selon deux axes : est-ouest
9

IJCS / RIÉC
and/or time. Patricia Vervoort shows
how Joe Fafard’s cow sculptures
translate theories of spatial illusion
into three-dimensional subjects. The
many representations of cows in
Fafard’s career, often underrated as
humorous or merely thematic icons
of place, demonstrate the artist’s
long-standing engagement with
spatial representation and with
theoretical issues in science and art.
From his cows in “space wrinkles” to
his more recent techniques, all his
animal sculptures challenge the laws
of perspective and our very
perception of reality. Beverly Curran
and Mitoko Hirabayashi explore the
acts of translation in Nicole
Brossard’s novel Le désert mauve,
especially with regard to the
interactions between the spaces of
life and fiction, male and female
reality, language and body, reading
and writing. As they analyse the gaps
opened by the reader-translatorcharacter
Maude Laures in her
transformation of désert into horizon,
the authors invite us to find a new
narrative in the textual spaces of the
novel. From a different theoretical
perspective, S. Ramaswamy’s
consciously “Indian” reading of two
Canadian poems, by Bliss Carman
and Margaret Atwood, exposes us to
a different conceptualization of
space, time and place, a perspective
contrasted in the essay with
European philosophical and literary
traditions. Finally, Valerie Legge, in
her Bakhtinian analysis of Agnes C.
Laut’s Heralds of Empire, shows
how a popular author at the turn of
the century engages in a process of
revisionism of history and literature,
how her fugitive heroes, “liminal
men and chameleon women,” resist
the conventions of time and space,
move from one cultural zone to
another, and embrace the North as
10
ou nord-sud. Bien que des modèles
reviennent — l’Ouest constitué
comme objet à partir de l’Est et la
« descente » vers le sud qui
représente le continent obscur et la
rencontre avec l’Autre — les
variantes du mythe manifestent sa
fluidité, qui trouve l’une de ses
illustrations les plus fortes dans
l’image du cours des rivières nordaméricaines
et le cortège de rites
initiatiques et de cycles de mort et
de résurrection qu’elles évoquent.
Le second ensemble d’articles
traite de certaines œuvres d’art et
de la manière dont celles-ci
abordent le temps et(ou) l’espace.
Patricia Vervoort montre de quelle
manière les sculptures de vaches
produites par Joe Fafard traduisent
des théories sur l’illusion spatiale
dans des sujets tridimensionnels.
Les nombreuses représentations de
vaches qui jalonnent la carrière de
Fafard, souvent mésestimées et
reléguées au rang de l’humour ou
de simples icones emblématiques
du lieu, mettent en lumière la
préoccupation constante de l’artiste
eu égard à la représentation dans
l’espace et aux questions
théoriques qui chevauchent les arts
et les sciences. Depuis ses vaches
prises dans des « rides spatiales »
jusqu’à ses productions récentes,
toutes les sculptures d’animaux de
Fafard remettent en question les
lois de la perspective et notre
perception de la réalité. Beverly
Curran et Mitoko Hirabayashi
explorent le processus de
traduction dans le roman de Nicole
Brossard Le désert mauve en
suivant le fil des interactions de
l’espace fictif et du vécu, de la
réalité masculine et féminine, du
langage et du corps, de la lecture et
de l’écriture. À mesure qu’elles

the open territory which allows
creativity and cultural diversity.
In the review essay by Jocelyn
Létourneau, recent literature
proposing chronologies for the
history of Québec is seen to fall
mainly within two categories: the
first, following nationalist
tradition, chooses symbolic dates,
beginning with 1759, as landmarks
for a cultural narrative of
disempowerment and colonization;
the second, born in the 1960s,
works along the lines of socioeconomic
experience, the
structural and historical processes
and discontinuities which situate
the development of Québec within
the chronology of the western
world. As the author points out,
both lines have political
implications and theoretical
limitations. Recent chronologies
employing new criteria, such as
media and communication, public
expression of citizens, or women’s
issues, have yet to influence the
general public, for whom the
temporality of place is constructed
along recognizable traditional
lines.
The last three articles constitute
the open topic section of the issue.
Michael O’Neil analyses the
evolving role of the federal
government in the health insurance
system, and traces a pattern of
progressive decline of involvement
and funding on the part of Ottawa.
By leaving health care in the hands
of the provinces, the author argues,
the federal government has shifted
from enabler and guarantor of
citizens’ welfare to financial
administrator, and ceases to make
possible a defining Canadian
characteristic, access to Medicare.
Mark E. Rush, following on the
Time, Space and Place
Le temps, l’espace et le lieu
analysent les brèches que pratique
Maude Laures — la lectricetraductrice-protagoniste
— dans sa
transformation de désert en horizon,
les auteures nous convient à
construire un nouveau récit dans les
interstices du roman. Dans une
perspective théorique autre, la lecture
délibérément « indienne », par S.
Ramaswamy, de deux poèmes des
Canadiens Bliss Carman et Margaret
Atwood nous met en présence d’une
autre conceptualisation du temps, de
l’espace et du lieu, une perspective
que l’article contraste aux traditions
philosophiques et littéraires
européennes. En dernier lieu, Valerie
Legge dans son analyse baktinienne
du roman Heralds of Empire d’Agnes
C. Laut montre comment une auteure
populaire du tournant du siècle jette un
regard révisionniste sur l’histoire et la
littérature, comment ses héros fugitifs,
hommes liminaires et femmes
caméléons, s’opposent aux
conventions qui régissent le temps et
l’espace, passent d’une zone culturelle
à une autre pour englober le Nord,
territoire ouvert à la créativité et à la
diversité culturelle.
Dans son essai critique, Jocelyn
Létourneau distingue deux catégories
dans les ouvrages récents portant sur
la trame chronologique de l’histoire
du Québec. La première adopte la
tradition nationaliste pour choisir des
dates symboliques, à commencer par
1759, et les pose comme étape d’un
récit culturel axé sur la dépossession
et la colonisation. La seconde, issue
des années 1960, prend comme fil
conducteur l’expérience socioéconomique
et retrace autant les
processus structuraux et historiques
que les ruptures qui situent le
développement du Québec dans la
chronologie du monde occidental.
Comme le signale l’auteur, les deux
11

IJCS / RIÉC
theme of the previous issue of this
Journal, discusses the tensions
between the universal rights of
immigrants and the sovereign
rights of citizens. The comparative
study of court cases in Canada and
the U.S. shows a relative
consistency in the treatment of the
jurisprudential conflict which
arises between the relevant federal
and provincial laws. Such
tensions, according to the author,
can only be “managed” (not
resolved) by achieving a balance
between competing interests, and
by means of the legal distinction
between citizens and persons,
between the rights of citizens and
general human rights. The final
article, by David G. Delafenêtre
and Daisy L. Neijmann, discusses
Netherlandic and Scandinavian
acculturative tendencies in
Canada. Through a combined use
of census demographic material
and analysis of the cultural
positioning of Icelandic-Canadian
and Dutch-Canadian writers, the
authors trace the patterns of
adaptation of these two “invisible”
groups, and argue that
multicultural policies such as the
“mosaic” conception of ethnicity
fail to explain or acknowledge
groups whose tendency to
intermarriage and integration is
better defined by the concept of
transculturality, a term which
gauges mutual influence between
the host and immigrant
communities.
With the first nine articles dealing
widely with spatio-temporal
themes, and the three articles in
the final section discussing various
aspects of community- building in
Canada, this issue offers
illuminating insights into Canadian
12
perspectives sont porteuses de
conséquences politiques et de
limitations théoriques. Les
nouvelles approches de la
chronologie posant de nouveaux
critères, tel les média et les
communications, les manifestations
publiques des citoyens ou encore
les questions soulevées par la
condition féminine, n’ont pas
encore fait sentir leur influence sur
le grand public, pour qui la
temporalité du lieu se construit
selon des paramètres traditionnels
et reconnaissables.
Les trois derniers articles
constituent la section Hors-thème
du numéro. Michael O’Neil
examine le rôle changeant du
gouvernement fédéral en regard du
système d’assurance-maladie et
montre le retrait progressif de
l’engagement et du financement
par Ottawa. En remettant aux
provinces la responsabilité des
soins de santé, l’auteur allègue que
le gouvernement fédéral a délaissé
son rôle de maître d’œuvre et de
garant du bien-être des citoyens
pour celui de gestionnaire
financier; ce faisant, l’accès au
régime universel de soins de santé
cesse d’être une caractéristique
déterminante de l’identité
canadienne. Poursuivant le thème
du numéro précédent, Mark E.
Rush examine les tensions entre les
droits fondamentaux des étrangers
et les droits souverains des
citoyens. L’étude comparative de
causes plaidées devant des
tribunaux canadiens et américains
révèle une cohérence relative dans
l’approche des conflits de
jurisprudence existant entre les lois
fédérales et provinciales
applicables. Selon l’auteur, ces
tensions ne peuvent qu’être gérées

self-definition, into crucial
narratives of its present and its
past.
Isabel Carrera Suarez
Associate Editor
Time, Space and Place
Le temps, l’espace et le lieu
— et non résolues — en établissant
un équilibre entre les intérêts en jeu
et en préservant la distinction entre
« personnes » et « citoyens », entre
les droits des citoyens et les droits
humains en général. Le dernier
article de David G. Delafenêtre et
Daisy L. Neijmann traite des
tendances canado-néerlandaises et
canado- scandinaves en matière
d’adaptation au Canada. Par le biais
de données démographiques et
d’une analyse de la position
culturelle d’auteurs canadiens
d’origine islandaise et hollandaise,
les auteurs font ressortir les
principales constantes de
ll’intégration de ces deux groupes
« invisibles » et soutiennent que les
politiques multiculturelles qui
conçoivent l’ethnicité comme une
mosaïque ne peuvent ni expliquer
ni reconnaître les groupes dont la
tendance aux mariages mixtes et à
l’intégration sont mieux définis par
le concept de transculturalisme,
terme-repère de l’influence
réciproque qui s’exerce entre les
immigrants et leur terre d’accueil.
Avec neuf articles traitant de
plusieurs thèmes en rapport avec le
temps et l’espace, auxquels viennent
s’ajouter les trois derniers articles
qui examinent divers aspects de la
construction des communautés au
Canada, le présent numéro jette un
éclairage sur la formation de
l’identité canadienne, sur des récits
déterminants de son passé et de son
présent.
Isabel Carrera Suarez
Rédactrice adjointe
13

Jonathan Bordo
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist
Landscape Art (Canada & Australia) and the
So-Called Claim to American Exception*
Abstract
The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridicolegal
declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for
Australia was initiated by these very devices. Yet that colonialism and its
political successions in what was initially British North America came to
articulate itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of a symbolics of the
wilderness, first by the Massachusetts Bay puritans, then by the American
19th century transcendentalists, followed by English speaking Euro-
Canadians during the first third of the twentieth century with Tom Thomson
and the Group of Seven. The close of the millennium is marked by the
alienating of the human from nature of deep ecology, fuelled by that very
imaginary of wilderness. These North American visions intimately configured
the landscape imaginary to what might be called an aestheticizing or
subliming of terra nullius. This paper addresses the wilderness as symbolic
apparatus and the way that Australian and early 20th century Canadian and
American 19th century transcendentalist landscape painting is topologically
named as wilderness, framed by wilderness, and yet wilderness itself is a
condition that is intrinsically unpicturable. What is landscape and what
relation does landscape have to wilderness when wilderness, unlike
landscape, is neither real nor a simulacrum? One might say after Derrida,
that wilderness is a kind of symbolic spacing, a culturally saturated aporia, a
blank. Delineating a double mimetics between the aesthetico-theological
register of wilderness and the juridico-political register of terra nullius is the
conceptual task of this study, leaving as a substantive result the evidence of
the persistence of a colonialist legacy at the heart of contemporary wilderness
visions.
Résumé
Tandis que le projet impérial britannique destiné à l’Amérique du Nord
procédait sans déclaration de Terra Nullius (c.-à-d. terre inhabitée), celui
destiné à l’Australie serait initié par une telle devise. Pourtant, le projet
colonial britannique (ainsi que toutes les successions politiques de
l’Amérique du Nord britannique qui suivirent) s’est orienté sur la symbolique
esthético-théologique visant à opérer un vide pour légitimer l’occupation
violente de ces terres habitées. Tour à tour, les puritains, les
transcendantalistes américains du 19 e siècle, les Euro-Canadiens anglais au
cours du premier tiers du 20 e siècle avec Tom Thomson et le Groupe des Sept
se constituèrent les agents de cette symbolique du vide nommé « wilderness »
(désert, solitude, abîme, tohu-bohu, néant, faute de terme français
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

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équivalent). Renforcée par cet imaginaire, l’aliénation de l’être humain eu
égard à la nature marque la fin de notre millénaire. Cette vision nordaméricaine
a profondément contribué à transformer l’imaginaire du paysage
canadien en ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « esthétisation » ou une
sublimation de la terra nullius. Le présent article examine l’utilisation de ce
paysage nommé « wilderness » en tant qu’outil symbolique. Il examine aussi
le fait que l’art paysagiste des peintres australiens, des peintres canadiens du
début du 20 e siècle et des peintres transcendantalistes du 19 e siècle est
topologiquement nommé « wilderness », que celui-ci encadre cet art et que cet
état est intrinsèquement indescriptible et ne peut donc être représenté.
Qu’entendons-nous par paysage et quelle relation y a-t-il entre «
wilderness » et paysage, quand ce premier, au contraire de la notion de
paysage, n’est ni réalité ni simulacre. On pourrait dire à l’instar de Derrida
que la notion de « wilderness » est une rature symbolique, une aporie
culturellement saturée, un vide. Une des perspectives de cette étude est de
délinier un dédoublement mimétique entre le registre esthético-théologique
de « wilderness » et le registre juridico-politique de terra nullius. Ce qui en
résulte substantiellement c’est la mise en évidence d’un héritage
colonialisant au cœur de la pensée et de la pratique écologique
d’aujourd’hui.
Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a
representation and a presented space, both a signifier and a
signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a
real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the
commodity inside the package.
W.J.T. Mitchell 1
[A]ll the more striking a concoction because they attached
no significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To
begin with, it was simply a void.
Perry Miller 2
The Deserted Landscape
This is how Margaret Atwood describes some landscape paintings of the Group
of Seven, belonging to Lois, her protagonist in Death by Landscape:
None of the pictures is very large, which doesn’t mean they aren’t
valuable...[They are] paintings, or sketches and drawings, by artists
who were not nearly as well known when Lois began to buy them as
they are now. Their work later turned up on stamps, or as silk-screen
reproductions hung in the principals’ offices of high schools, or as
jigsaw puzzles, or on beautifully printed calendars sent out by
corporations as Christmas gifts to their less important clients. These
artists painted after the first war, and in the Thirties and Forties; they
painted landscapes. Lois has two Tom Thomsons, three A.Y.
Jacksons, a Lawren Harris. She has an Arthur Lismer, she has a J.E.H.
MacDonald. She has a David Milne. 3
The roll call of the painters and paintings, comprising the Group of Seven, reads
like a slide identification test directed to a true Canadian (at least from Toronto
and southern Ontario of a certain generation), visual emblems of the “true north
14

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
strong and free.” Atwood’s somewhat testy narrative voice treats these images
with a casualness, bordering on lassitude that only serves to inflect their iconic
status. They are so familiar that she seems barely able to remember the names
and the dates of the works she has fictively clumped on Lois’ wall. Her dating is
vague enough to be almost factually erroneous. Tom Thomson, the Group’s
avatar, but never himself a member of the Group, drowned in Algonquin Park in
1917 while David Milne comes and goes with respect to his filiation to the
Group. But such lapses come with the satisfaction of being on intimate terms
with cultural treasures. Perhaps, it was a Varley on Lois’ wall and not a
McDonald? Atwood quickly penetrates the surface of these vague pictorial
place names to locate a disturbance that sits in the heart of the familiarity. Lois,
we are told, didn’t acquire these paintings because of their picturesque
properties but because of a personal trauma whose meaning and source these
paintings somehow contain:
She wanted something that was in them, although she could not have
said at the time what it was. It was not peace: she does not find them
peaceful in the least. Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease.
There is something there in these paintings some person, force or
power something, or someone, looking back out that fills her with
wordless unease. Despite the fact that there are no people in them or
even animals, there is something or someone looking back. 4
The narrator’s observation that Lois has purchased them “despite the fact that
there are no people in them or even animals” red circles the epicentre of the
trauma through a succinct account of what marks these paintings of the Group
of Seven as a painting style, namely, landscape devoid of human presence.
Atwood sites the unnameable from that absence, in this emptied hollow or
niche. The pictures turn out themselves to be memento mori for an originating
trauma which the paintings also serve to enshrine and perpetuate:
When she was thirteen, Lois went on a canoe trip. This was to be a long
one, into the trackless wilderness, as Cappie put it. It was Lois’s first
canoe trip, and her last. 5
These paintings stand in for the trauma site itself. This site is “the trackless
wilderness” and the occasion was a canoe trip, Lois’ first and last when a cabin
mate of hers, a much accomplished American girl, mysteriously disappeared.
Atwood names “the trackless wilderness” sceptically, putting it in quotation
marks and attributing it to the woodsiest of the woodsy, Lois’ Camp counsellor.
The bracketing jostles the site from the literal, physical reality. Thus the
paintings are mnemonic with respect to a trauma that happened to Lois when
she was thirteen “in the trackless wilderness.” They are for Lois the witnesses to
something that is itself unsayable, inexpressible, reducing her to a condition of
“wordless unease.” 6
Atwood’s painting discourse, shot up with realist naturalism, articulates the
unnameable as a picturesque landscape touched by the sublime, as Canadian art
historians qualify the style. The paintings of the Group of Seven have come to
assume the iconic status of the constantly reissued Canadian postage stamp
(Figure 1), because they depict what every Canadian believes to be the real of
the wilderness. The belief coincides exactly with a popular view of wilderness
15

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Figure 1
Tom Thomson, The West Wind, Postage Stamp
Courtesy of Canada Post Corporation.
16

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
as a physical expanse, usually of land in an ecologically pristine condition,
devoid of human presence, just what these pictures seem to portray—the visual
moment where the fifth day of creation converges with deep ecology.
This void quality of the landscape art of the Group of Seven has not escaped the
attention of aesthetic sensibilities who feel little sympathy toward landscapes
devoid of human presence. As this author has noted elsewhere, 7 Guy Boulizon
in Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec observes that Tom Thomson’s work
“only consists of landscapes where the human beings (except in rare
exceptions) are absent.” 8 The radical imbalance between omnipresent nature
and the paucity of human presence provides Boulizon with the device for an
unequal comparison between the austerities of the Anglo-Canadian bush and
the plenitude of the Quebecois paysage. This incommensurability starkly
manifests the most tenacious and dangerous cultural faultline that runs through
the history of Canadian political culture going back to 1756 and the British
conquest of North America, sealed in the Quebec Act of 1774. For it was with
the conclusion of the Seven Years War that North America, which included
New England and Pilgrim Rock, came to be the colonial preserve of “British
North America.” The traditional visual evidences of human occupancy, which
the Euro-North American landscape sought to erase, fill the Quebec paysage
because a palpable and vigorously asserted human presence mark it as a
culturally inscribed landscape. 9 Boulizon resurrects, unwittingly it seems, the
very same pattern of dichotomies which first surfaced with the nineteenth
century American Renaissance: Europe vs. North America; Culture vs. Nature;
History vs. Wilderness. Quebec is the delegate of the European and the
cosmopolitan in the Anglo-Protestant bush. The symbolics of landscape art
mark a veritable kulturkampf in the northern bush.
In his mimetic literalism, Boulizon appears to have no concept for this
symbolics of the wilderness. He is without a word for it except as
unharmonious, even bizarre landscape art. Bereft of a concept, he thus only
superficially appears to concur with the classical French lexigraphical
tradition. While French does not have an independent substantive noun for
wilderness, it has a range of words which cover the scriptural meanings of
wilderness: désert, solitude, lieu inculte, abîme, errance, néant, tohu-bohu,
putting aside, terre sauvage, the Group’s own bilingual rendering of their
painterly site. The apparent denial of the symbolics of wilderness under any
lexical description seems curious, especially when there is a rather important
precedent for the French classical usage of “désert” to render the wilderness.
Consider the rather telling example of the opening of Democracy in America,in
the standard translation, where Tocqueville describes the vast physical expanse
of America topographically in these words:
The valley of the Mississipi is, on the whole, the most magnificent
dwelling-place prepared by God for man’s abode; and yet it may be
said that at present it is a mighty desert [et pourtant on peut dire qu’elle
ne forme qu’un vaste désert.] 10
Tocqueville declares the Mississippi valley to be “a vast desert,” a desert in the
initial scriptural sense of a humanly bereft space. A strange desert indeed that
yet calls for human dwelling as “the most magnificent dwelling place prepared
17

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by God.” Unlike the geographically specific austere deserts of scripture, the
desert of the Mississippi Valley is verdant in forest and pasture and this desert is
marked by a second feature of wilderness, namely, a wandering across it by
nomadic, indigenous tribes:
These immense deserts were not, however, wholly untenanted by
men. Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the
forest shades or on the green pastures of the prairie.[Ces immenses
déserts n’étaient pas cependant entièrement privés de la présence de
l’homme; quelques peuplades erraient depuis des siècles sous les
ombrages de la forêt ou parmi les pâturages de la prairie. 11
This almost naive articulation of wilderness as terra nullius, deserted landscape,
tenanted yet unoccupied, 12 is confirmed by Tocqueville’s rendering of
William Bradford’s Arbella sermon of 1626. He translates “the hidious and
desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men” which confronted them
as “un désert hideux et désolé, plein d’animaux et d’hommes sauvages.” 13
Boulizon would have ordinary French usage at his disposal to address the
symbolics of the Laurentian wilderness as désert, which his nationalist
ideology blocks.
In this regard, Australian lexical practice concurs, curiously enough, with the
classical French usage. The Australian National Dictionary is rather sparse
when it comes to wilderness as an independent lexical concept of particular
Australian relevance. The McQuarrie Dictionary lists “wilderness area” as
terrain not interfered with by humans, but circa 1970, it is a rather late arrival. 14
Most, but not all of what is wilderness can be found under that fabulous
variegated entry “bush.” Bush is thick and thin, dense and austere, permeable
and impenetrable, definite and indefinite, visible and invisible, marginal and
ubiquitous. The wild itself is coupled both to desert and bush, to which Marcus
Clarke testifies in his 1874 topographic reverie of the Australian landscape:
In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, the Weird,—the
strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write. Some see no
beauty in our trees without shade, or flowers without perfume, or birds
who cannot fly, and our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all
fours. But the dweller in the wilderness acknowledges the subtle
charm of this fantastic land of monstrosities. He becomes familiar
with the beauty of loneliness. Whispered by the myriad tongues of the
wilderness, he learns the language of the barren and the uncouth, and
can read the hieroglyphs of haggard gum trees blown into odd shapes,
distorted with fierce hot winds, or cramped with cold nights, when the
Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The
phantasmagoria of that wild dreamland called the Bush interprets
itself, and begins to understand why free Esau loved his heritage of
desert-sand better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt. 15
The desert ingests the wild and the bush ingests the desert. The bush becomes
the space where “free Esau loved his heritage of desert-sand better than all the
bountiful richness of Egypt.” The eremos of scripture, expelled from the
European mother country, victimized and dispossessed of its European
portion, comes to dwell in the desert of the Bush. It is from the imaginary of the
bush that the exiled European subject becomes present in all its
18

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
Figure 2
Eugene von Guerard, North-East View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
19

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Figure 3
Arthur Streeton, The Selector’s Hut: Whelan on the Log.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
20

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
incarnations—as free Esau, as von Guerard’s explorer (Figure 2), as Arthur
Streeton’s Selector (Figure 3), as Robert’s pastoralists and Sydney Nolan’s
cartoon imposter, Ned Kelly, ranging over the reconstituted modernist visual
surfaceofartthatnamesitsgroundas“bush”anditsfigureas“bushranger.” 16
Whether domestic or transported, the European imaginary of the land has
constantly and reiteratively required the existential assertion of the subject
figurally as the basis for its collective claim to place. Thus the imaginary of the
bush in its lush polysemy seems unable to accommodate a space whose concept
requires the exclusion of the human from its symbolic representation. The
traces of human occupancy cannot be effaced from the imaginary as the way of
constituting the landscape site. 17 The traces of Aboriginal presence are visually
reiterated despite the official juridico-legal declarations of erasure and the state
sanctioned operations of emptying and enclosure.
Even when the traces of Aboriginal presence have been most deliberately and
systematically effaced both as representation and reality, the bush becomes
denser and more saturated with layers of human scribblings. 18
Where do human scribblings end and “nature’s scribblings” in Marcus Clarke’s
metaphor begin? The bush resists visual emptying. The imaginary of the bush, a
hybrid space, is a surface that denies the possibility of the zero degree of itself.
ThereisnofifthdayofcreationintheEuro-Australiansymbolicofthebush. 19
However, the Euro-North American wilderness imaginary from covenant
theology to deep ecology is defined by that very emptying. Atwood in Death by
Landscape is incisive about the emptying of human presence to constitute
wilderness, but silent with respect to the semiosis of this emptying. The iconic
landscapes that she speaks about at the outset are specific and distinct images
that bring into focus the range of the style, namely, that of a foregrounded
solitary northern tree. 20 The absence is directed from the figure of the tree,
which (at the same time) signs that absence as a deliberate deletion. It sites
“wilderness” as a sign for the deliberate figural emptying of (signs of) human
presence.
There have been comparisons between the early twentieth century Heidelberg
Painting School of Southern Australia21 and the Group of Seven—gum trees
compared to pine trees, gum trees as pine trees, Tom Thomson’s to Arthur
Streeton’s and so on. Yet, they clearly belong to different and asymptotic
symbolic economies, as the comparison of the Thomson Pine (Figure 1) or the
Varley Pine (Figure 4) to a Streeton Gum (Figure 3) ought to suggest.
For (instance), lone tree in the antipodes has been historically the
symbolization of that colonial presence, of that precarious hold on the land and
its attempted capture of the landscape imaginary. The lone tree accompanies
the subject, becoming both the instrument and the justification for European
presence just as (various) One Tree Hills were the site points for surveying the
land. 22 The Northern figure of a solitary tree, on the other hand, occupies the
space where the Subject would have been, signing its absence as wilderness. 23
Perhaps it extends the memory of the lost European forest, to the “new
world.” 24
21

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Figure 4
F.H. Varley, Stormy Weather Georgian Bay.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
22

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
At first glance there seem to be promising points of commonality between the
Australian and Canadian colonialist landscape projects. They seem so
obviously to inhabit different zones of the same colonialist “imaginary” that
was conceptualized so well by Benedict Anderson in Imagined
Communities, 25 interchangeable cases of the analysis of Imperial landscape
offered by W.J.T. Mitchell. 26 I began by problematizing the figural sign of the
subject in Canadian post-colonial and Australian colonial landscape art and
established a difference of quality in the imaginary between “wilderness” and
“bush” respectively as indicators for that which animates and frames the picture
rather than that which the picture portrays. I then correlated what Mitchell calls
some “hard facts of Landscape” 27 namely the juridico-legal operations of terra
nullius, of emptying and enclosure to the imaginary of the Canadian wilderness
as emptied and the bush as inscribed. My third entrance is to invite into the
wilderness imaginary, the project of the American republic which in freeing
itself from British colonialism transferred the very wilderness symbolics into
its own domestic coloniality, a subliming of terra nullius as its own version of
and claim to modernity.
The Witness in the Landscape
Even the most cursory inventory of the work of Tom Thomson, whom one
might call the founder of the Laurentian wilderness image, would reveal a
singular dedication on his part to eliminating human and living animal traces
whether of human figures proper, conveyances, cabins and encampment,
lumber booms and wildlife. Thomson painted all of these things at one time or
another, but in terms of the wilderness style of the Group, these evidences of
humanoccupancywerethewitnessestoapresencethathadtoberemoved. 28
Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven share the new world site for the
landscape as wilderness with their nineteenth century Euro-North American
transcendentalist predecessors. The notion of a “deserted landscape” remained
an elusive aspiration, thwarted as much by method as a contrariness in
ambition. The fact remains that the American landscape picturesque is secured
by reflexively declared human presence (Figure 5).
The Western European landscape from the fifteenth century forward is marked
by deliberate signs of human presence: if not human beings figuratively
present, then evidences of living human presence, shelters, dwellings, paths,
roads, signs marking enclosures such as walls and fences, smoke rising from a
fire; if not material evidences of living human presence, then traces on the land
of former human occupancies, cairns, tumuli, ruins, graves, architecture. In all
these respects, the landscape image of Tom Thomson and the Group aspires to
an effacing of human presence as figure, material evidence and trace. The
Group were inheritors of a landscape tradition that had already established the
rhetorical figuration of Euro-North American landscape as wilderness, namely
the Hudson River School of Painting and the influence that it had on late
nineteenth century Canadian landscape art, especially on Lucius O’Brien. 29
Thus, the uniqueness of early twentieth century landscape art of the Group of
Seven is not its invention of a visual rhetoric of the wilderness. Rather, its
innovation rests with what it made of a Romanticist legacy, and a Northern
23

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Figure 5
Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. David Dows, 1909.
24

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
symbolic apprenticeship in order to work through to another starker and austere
wilderness visual poetics. 30
Even when the American transcendental poetics raised ontological questions
concerning human presence itself, the thought of no place is never fulfilled by a
visual step to erase completely figural inscription of the subject from the poetic
surface. Rather, the ontological question of human presence becomes the
assertion of the wilderness as the sign that marks America’s cultural superiority
over Europe: America > Europe; Wilderness > History. Europe is history,
agony, architecture, ruins where “everywhere the traces of men” contaminate
in their ubiquity. The European landscape refuses to surrender the inescapable,
unerasable traces of human continuance. 31 However, wilderness incults
American specialness by positioning the subject as a witness in the wilderness,
bearing witness to the condition of wilderness. 32
Emerson puts into words what Church and the Hudson River School enunciate
visually when he begins Nature:
Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. The
foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we,
through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation
to the Universe? Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of
insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not
the history of theirs? Why should we grope among the dry bones of the
past? 33
The American Romanticist Wilderness aspired to pristine, edenic expanse,
thinned of the historical encumbrance of human presence while posing
pictorial conundrums about the limits of picturing that required the subject to
bear witness to the condition of wilderness as an unpicturable index of the
sublime. Without going into an extended comparison here between Emerson’s
aesthetic solipsizing meditation in the solitude of the woods to its obvious
textual prototype of Descartes’s meditation in the seventeenth century pastoral
of a French hotel, suffice it to note that Emerson obviously transfers Descartes’
conditions of philosophical preparation to a subject positioning, “standing on
the bare ground” where the classical French discourse of solitude becomes
transposed to the New England woods:
In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel nothing can
befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes.)
which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head
bathed by the blythe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean
egotism vanishes. 34
Where Cartesian Inquiry feigns the cancelling of the external world in order to
posit the absolute solitariness of the philosophizing subject, Emerson calls the
wilderness that solitude of the woods surrounding this philosophizing subject.
He posits the wilderness as an enduring condition, a substratum whose
continuity has to be reiteratively established and confirmed testamentally. The
testamental gaze establishes the priority or firstness of nature in its wild
condition. Nature is the word that comes to be used to name its extension but
wilderness is that which names its firstness as a humanly prior natural
substratum. Reduced to a naked specularity as the medium of testamental
25

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transfer, Emerson is understandably reluctant to part with his eyes, unlike his
European philosophy tutor, Descartes, who seems willing to part with the body
but not with the tropes of sight as vision. The American Romanticist sublime
aspired to wilderness drained of human presence but deposited instead a subject
of pure presence, stripped bare to the zero-degree of a pure opticality, bearing
witness to nature, and through this cogito to justify its special entitlement to
dominion. 35
The subject testifies to its condition as an ekphrasis of testimony where seeing
is writing and writing is seeing. Consider the writing in the essay entitled
“Nature” as testimony to nature and compare it to the beholder’s view in
Church’s The Heart of the Andes (Figure 5), where the “witness” is doubled as a
minute figure forming part of an ensemble of human traces—a crucifix, some
dwellings, fields, human measuring rods to that which the picture portrays as
sublime, which is but the picturing limit of that divine nature which is beyond
the picture. Optical testimony transcribed as writing inscribes the testimony of
sight. 36 In the ekphrasis of American transcendentalist poetics, there is no
landscape without an ocular witness; the testimony takes place at the site of the
wilderness and the wilderness is the discursive interface, the bar, both signifier
and signified, for the ekphrastic conversion to take place. 37 The Emersonian
subject in the testamental writing to Nature is identical with the testamental
figure in Church’s The Heart of the Andes. 38
Overall, the nineteenth century romanticist landscape taught the Group what
evidences and traces of human presence had to be eliminated as pictorial signs
to achieve a fully reduced image, a reduction as it were to the Fifth Day of
Creation, an emptying that required the voiding of the subject as a witness
figure. Thus the inscribed, figural witness (in/at/to) the wilderness had to be
effaced to purify the Canadian wilderness symbolic. The passage toward that
further emptying occurred through the Aboriginal in part because for the
American transcendentalist, the Aboriginal was the favoured European figure
to bear witness to the condition of wilderness. The Aboriginal as figural
presence was not only a common but an exalted thematic in 19th century
Northern new world art, be it as picturesque idealization and/or ethnographic
documentation (Figure 6).
Henry David Thoreau elucidates the arcadian and archeological complexity of
the Aboriginal figure in the emptying of the landscape for the 19th century
wilderness picturesque:
At first perchance there would be an abundant crop of rank garden
weeds and grasses in the cultivated land,—and rankest of all in the
cellar holes,—and of pinweed, hardhack, sumach, blackberry,
thimble berry, raspberry, etc. in the fields and pastures. Elm, ash,
maples, etc., would grow vigorously along old garden limits and main
streets. Garden weeds would soon disappear. Huckleberry and blue
berry bushes, lambkill, hazel, sweetfern, barberry, elder, also shadbush,
chokeberry, andromeda, and thorns, etc., would rapidly prevail
in the deserted pastures. At the same time the wild cherries, birch,
poplar, willows, checkerberry would reestablish themselves. Finally
the pines, hemlock, spruce, larch, shrub oak, oaks, chestnut, beech and
walnuts would occupy the site of Concord once more. The apple and
26

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
Figure 6
Thomas Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill.
Courtesy of the Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Alabama.
27

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perhaps all exotic trees and shrubs and a great part of the indigenous
ones named above would have disappeared, and the laurel and yew
would to some extent be an underwood here, and perchance the red
man once more thread his way through the mossy, swamplike,
primitive wood. 39
Thoreau’s deconstructive reverie terminates with the red man treading
“through the swamplike, primitive wood.” It might have ended as it will later
end in Agassiz’s inspection of the contents of rocks and in the birth of the
dinosaur museum testifying to extinct cultures not in arcadian but in geological
time. But it stopped almost conveniently at the moment just before the arrival in
some mythic archaic past, just before the Arbella advent. Thoreau’s beginning,
before the advent, becomes the next place to explore the meaning of the
symbolic emptying of landscape called “wilderness.” In this respect one might
say that the American pursuit of the dinosaur moves the wilderness imaginary
back from the just “before” (of the landing) to the “before of the before.” The
wilderness drops into geological time40 where the fossil record contains the
evidence of a prior history which enforces the Puritan fear of communal
extinction. Extinction lies not only on the surface of the land with the vanishing
of Aboriginal peoples; it lies beneath the land with the discovery of extinct
forms of life, most recently the mastodon still in the memory of Aboriginal
peoples and most remotely the dinosaurs. 41
Wilderness’ New World Genealogy
The 19th century American Renaissance was unerring in its archeological
retracing of wilderness back to the Plymouth Rock foundation of 1626. The
wilderness, that vague space, became the frame for the descent—both a descent
and an apotheosis. While Thoreau elevated the wilderness as the apotheosis of
the Other, it was Hawthorne who excavated it as the very symptom of an
impossible foundation. Wilderness sublime became the terror of the wilderness
as other. The City on the Hill was erected and justified its instauration precisely
by separating and elevating itself from the terror of the wilderness. Hawthorne
reworks the Calvinist wilderness of his own recent ancestors into the
wilderness as the virtually interchangeable alterities of Indigen, woman and
child. 42
Between the vague space—wilderness—as primordial terror and the
apotheosis of wilderness as a sublime beyond the picture, an intervening
symbolization surfaces, where the myth of wilderness erupts at the foundation
of community. Perry Miller noted the void character of the wilderness as
comprising the core of the “Puritan metaphor” en passant without fully
realizing the potency of it as symbolic apparatus:
But if they had set it up in America—in a bare land, devoid of already
established (and) corrupt institutions, empty of bishops and courtiers,
where they could start de novo and the eyes of the world were upon
it—and if then it performed just as the saints predicted of it, the
Calvinist internationale would know exactly how to go about
completing the already begun but temporarily stalled revolution in
Europe. 43
28

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
As an afterthought in a footnote, Miller then detects the systematic character of
the Puritan “concoction” that made up their “metaphor” of the wilderness. It
made it “all the more striking a concoction because they attached no
significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To begin with, it was
simply a void.” 44
The very naming of the wilderness as that vague space, the void, creates the
compulsion for covenanting as an actus foundatio from the named abyss itself.
The terra nullius of wilderness is a covenant of the land that finds itself
endlessly repeated in representational practices. One such family of practices is
landscape pictures as devices of colonial legitimation. Speaking not about the
wilderness but about “Columbus’ formalist” declaration of possession of New
Spain, Stephen Greenblatt views it as trying “to make the new lands
uninhabited—terra nullius—by emptying out the the category of the other. The
other exists only as an empty sign or a cipher...” 45 Wilderness is the name of
that empty sign or cipher in the Calvinist project. To bring the second epigraph
into the text, if one substitutes “wilderness” for “landscape” one might say with
W.J.T. Mitchell that wilderness “is both a representation and presented space,
both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what frame contains.” It comes
to invent real places, as this author has shown elsewhere (e.g., wilderness
parks). Wilderness performs all three semiotic roles—signifier, bar, signified.
The treatments here are to show it as the in-between, as the slippage, the spacing
or difference itself.
Wilderness names the prior condition, temporal, ontological of the European
displace called the New World. One might say that under certain historical and
cultural conditions “wilderness” is the name of the prior symbolization that is
the imagining out of which “an imagined political community” of the nation
emerges. Wilderness is utterly unlimited and yet out of it the political
community of the nation territorializes limit, makes a claim about territory, etc.
just as it is the source from which it makes its claim to being sovereign. Colonial
landscape pictures perform both those roles. 46 To enact a kind of landscape
requires that a voidal condition of the imaginary be posited already in advance.
Wilderness is thus prior to the landscape picture that occasionally names its
content “wilderness” 47 (Figure 7).
The ordering for the Puritan political theological project of the nation is thus:
out of Wilderness, the City on the Hill; from the City on the Hill as precinct, the
Wilderness as the excluded part, la part maudite, the Other. Wilderness is the
myth at the very foundation of North American community—it is both
foundation and fiction. The myth of wilderness erupts as the expression of the
groundlessground,intheabsenceofground,theabyss,themyth:Wilderness.
How did the Puritan rediscovery of “the new world in scripture” become a
pivotal episode in the constitution of modernity? And what relationship did it
have to wilderness? Further, what made the New England politico-theological
project of occupation and settlement not only a pivotal moment but also the key
to understanding why this colonialist actus foundatio was not only an original
version of modernity but what made the New England experiment, as Sacvan
Bercovitch has recently claimed, “exceptional.” A text from Bercovitch
outlines the symbolic and scriptural basis for the American claim to cultural
29

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Figure 7
A.Y. Jackson, Terre Sauvage.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
30

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
exception. Speaking about the Puritans’ “three lasting contributions to the
American Way,” Bercovitch describes the first in terms of the innovative and
successful strategy of appropriating the new land which was intimately tied to
the textual inscription of the geographical metaphor:
They justified the New World in its own right. Other colonists and
explorers brought Utopian dreams to the New World, but in doing so
they claimed the land (New Spain, New France, Nova Scotia) as
European Christians, by virtue of the superiority of Christian
European culture. In short, they justified their invasion of America
through European concepts of culture. The Puritans denied the very
fact of invasion by investing America with the meaning of progress
and then identifying themselves as the peoples peculiarly destined to
bring that meaning to life. “Other peoples,” John Cotton pointed out in
1630 “have their land by providence; we have it by promise.” The next
generation of New Englanders drew out the full import of his
distinction. They were not claiming America by conquest, they
explained; they were reclaiming what by promise belonged to them,
as the Israelites had once reclaimed Canaan, or (in spiritual terms) as
the church had reclaimed the name of Israel. By that literal-prophetic
act of reclamation the Puritans raised the New World into the realm of
figura. 48
Post-contact “New England” is the “new world” with Plymouth Rock as the
originating monument. The clock started ticking with the arrival of the Arbella
in the New World and the declaration of William Bradford. This is the absolute
beginning point, not the terrible voyage and the wilderness of the sea, not the
Calvinist prolegomena, not the dissenters and the puritan sects of Christopher
Hill’s English Revolution, there is no English-New English condominium
here. Pilgrim Rock is the Uhr site, the Uhr-text is the Bible. 49 “Errand in the
Wilderness” refers to Miller’s original formulation. Bercovitch deploys the
formula first of all to name the New England foundational project, specifying as
it were, the state or condition of the geographically fixed topos of the New
World. Modernity unfolded in the wilderness state or condition of the New
World. Wilderness thus names, as it were, the condition of the Calvanist project
of New World foundations.
Bercovitch affirms that the American exception—what distinguishes it from
Nova Scotia or New Zealand—is intimately tied to this symbolic
refiguration— to the way that the Puritans as New Israelites biblically inscribed
their occupation of new lands, not through a justification in terms of cultural
superiority,butintermsofa“promise.”Isthis,indeed,wheretheexceptionlies?
The Wilderness in Terra Nullius
The symbolical inscription of wilderness, coupled with the notion of an
emptied sign, seems to bear a strong family resemblance to other European
declarations of right to possession that link Columbus to Jacques Cartier to the
Puritans and the Nova Scotians and James Cook at Botany Bay in 1788. Is there
a discursive analogy between Miller’s metaphor of “wilderness as void” and
the speech acts of occupation whose performances declare and emblematics
seal such “new world” space to be void, to be terra nullius?
31

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Indeed the Puritan “wilderness” is the scriptural refiguring of these juridicotheological
declarations and emblems of terra nullius. By symbolically
refiguring terra nullius as wilderness, the Puritans fashioned an emblem with
terra nullius on one side and wilderness as the zero degree of the sign on the
other. “Wilderness” is the scriptural figure of terra nullius for the New England
Puritans. Dallenbach notwithstanding, such declarations are juridicotheological
mise-en-abîme. 50 The wilderness was a sign in that domain of
“New World” as capture and appropriation. Once again, how then were the
New England Puritans different from the Spanish or the French or the Nova
Scotia English or the English at Botany Bay in 1788 since they all deployed a
variety of juridico-theological formalizing devices to reduce inhabited land to
terra nullius? The crucial difference might lie in the fact of the symbolic
refiguring of the juridico-theological operations of terra nullius into
wilderness—of an aestheticizing of the legal and political devices, of a double
operation, a mimetic doubling of the zero.
At least this seems to mark the difference between Catholic and Protestant
historia but does it mark the difference within the project of what Miller calls
the “Calvinist Internationale”? Many examples weaken such a claim to
distinction. One need only consider the Calvinist claims of the Dutch in South
Africa who also claimed to hold the land by promise. The word “bush” is often
traced to Afrikans “bosch.” Indeed British North America is coincidental with
having a source in or deriving from and running parallel to the New England
experiment until it splits off with the American Revolution. The Group of
Seven’s symbolic of the wilderness might well be the remarkable eruption of
that original Massachusetts Bay wilderness fragment—a fragment preserved
by the United Loyalists taking a hike North and away from the American
Revolution. 51 On this conjecture, the British North American wilderness splits
in two from an original source. Such an insight receives confirmation from the
image of the Northern Pine itself. In its austere, stark and solitary resoluteness,
it passes over the visual grandiloquence of the American transcendentalists, an
echo back to Bradford’s wilderness of terror. With Thomson’s Jack Pine, the
fifth day of creation and deep ecology converge. And by that same token one
might also say that the contemporary wilderness of deep ecology is the myth of
the American errand refigured. 52
To summarize, it is useful to draw a distinction between “wilderness” as miseen-abîme,
positioned as the Saussurean bar itself at the site for the emergence of
the symbolic, and wilderness as a “tableau,” as content and referent. The error
of the Americanist is to treat wilderness exclusively from the side of the
signified, as tableau. Thus the distinction between wilderness as mise-enabîme
and wilderness as tableau allows one to identify what comprises the
“radical” and “original” modernity of “America” while finding a way of
articulating just what is improbable and counter-intuitive about Americanist
claims for wilderness as being what marks the American exception. In the
foundational project of America, wilderness and terra nullius are inextricably
bound together, politically and aesthetically. Indeed for the American project
wilderness is terra nullius sublimed.
32
***

The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridicolegal
declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for
Australia was initiated by these very devices. The Royal Proclamation of 1763,
which recognized the prior title over the lands by indigenous North Americans,
was confirmed in the Quebec Act of 1774. These legal recognitions of prior
Aboriginal title are often understood as the causis belli of the American
Revolution in 1776. 53 It might be said that the history of Canada has always
been a negotiation between the settler culture and its first inhabitants about title.
Yet the dominant cultural project of Euro-North Americans came to articulate
itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of the emptying of wilderness initially
by the Massachussets Bay colonists, then by the post-Constitution, American,
nineteenth century transcendentalists, followed by Euro-Canadians during the
first third of the twentieth century with Thomson and the Group of Seven. The
emptying of deep ecology with the imaginary of wilderness at its source marks
the close of the twentieth century. These North American colonialist visions,
intimately configured the landscape imaginary to what might be called an
aestheticizing or subliming of terra nullius. The Australian imaginary came to
articulate a hybrid space that contradicted the official operations of voiding. In
other words, the landscape imaginary overcame the declaration of terra nullius
as preparation for the recent legal judgment on Wednesday, June 3, 1992 in the
the case of Eddie Mabo vs. Queensland, two hundred and four years after the
declaration of 1788.
Acknowledgment
* This paper is among the results of two seminars given at the Humanities Research Centre at
the Australian National University over 1993-94 . The outline of the paper was given as the
overview for the paper I delivered “On the Line: The Rehanging of Australian Art,” June 11
1994. An earlier and extended version of part 3 was published as a critical notice of Sacvan
Bercovitch Rites of Assent under the title “Cultural Symbology,” Semiotic Review of Books
5.1, Spring 1993. For the problematics of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven and the
iconology of the Northern Tree see my “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of
Aboriginal Presence from the Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 1992-
1993) pp. 98-128 abbreviated to “Jack Pine”. The paper is a reworked version of a fragment
from, Terra Nullius Sublimed—The Trauma of Wilderness, an Essay (Forthcoming). The
author wishes to thank D.J. Mulvaney, Paul Duro, Yves Thomas, Douglas McLean, Bruce
Hodgins, Ian McLachlan, John Wadland, Terry Smith, Molly Blyth, Tom Mitchell and
Doreen Small.
Notes
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
1. W.J.T. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994) p. 7.
2. Perry Miller, Errand in the Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976)
p. 12.
3. Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape,” in Wilderness Tips (Toronto: Seal Books, 1992)
pp. 103-104.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. “Wilderness” is the very name of that which denies the event, that something has happened,
while trauma clinically refers to the blow that denies to consciousness that something
happened. One might say that wilderness is the idealized site of trauma, a correlation
addressed in “Picture and Witness at the Site of the Wilderness” given at the 4th International
33

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Word & Image Conference in Dublin in August 1996 and at the Conference, “Refiguring
Wilderness,” Lake Temagami, September 2 1996.
7. Jonathan Bordo, “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of Aboriginal Presence
from Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 1992-1993) pp. 98-128.
8. Guy Boulizon, Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec (Éditions Marcel Broquet, 1984)
p. 25.
9. See the essay by Esther Trépanier, “The Expression of a Difference: The Milieu of Quebec
Art and The Group of Seven,” in Michael Tooby, ed., The True North (London: Lund
Humpries, 1991) pp. 99-116.
10. Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Éditions Vrin, 1990) p. 20.
11. Ibid., p. 30.
12. Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Australia: Penguin Books, 1987) especially chapter
2.
13. de Tocqueville, op. cit. p. 21.
14. For a comprehensive overview of the whole issue of indigenous Australians and the impact
that colonisation had on the land, see D.J. Mulvaney, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Australia under the entry “environmental issues.”
15. Marcus Clarke, “The Weird Melancholy of the Australian Bush 1874,” in Bernard Smith,
ed., Documents on Art and Taste in Australia: the Colonial Period 1770-1914 (Melbourne:
Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 135f. I am indebted to Sasha Grishin for having brought
this passage to my attention.
16. See Tim Bonyhady, Images in Opposition: Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890
(Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985), Bernard Smith European Vision and the South
Pacific 1768-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Wally Caruana, Aboriginal Art
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1994).
17. In the latter chapters of The Road to Botany Bay, Paul Carter carefully considers how the
traces of Aboriginal presence came to disappear into a palimpsest of roads, fences and
property came to run along and form over the aboriginal network of dreamings. [Static
monuments on top of and effacing the original fluid tracks of transmission.] In a paper
delivered at the conference, “Re-Hanging Australian Art,” Carter returned to that
palimpsest, reproblematizing it as a kind of Derridean writing, hybrid scribblings that allow
for cultural co-existence. See P. Carter The Lie of the Land (London: Faber, 1996).
18. Pedder Lake in its ecologically pristine condition as “wilderness” was saved by the
intervention of archeologists one of whom was D.J. Mulvaney. They discovered over forty
thousand years of Aboriginal traces, which provided the primary justification for the eco
system’s preservation.
19. Canadian political theorist Peter Kulchyski problematizes the “north” as an imaginary of the
bush which has many parallels to the Australian symbolics of the bush. See for example, his
essay, “bush culture for a bush country: an unfinished manifesto,” Journal of Canadian
Studies 31, 3 (Fall 1996) pp. 192-196.
20. So the decision by Charles Hill, the curator of the recent The Group of Seven — Art for a
Nation Exhibition and Catalogue, to cut Tom Thomson off from the Group of Seven has the
effect of dispersing the iconic target of the style, facilitating its dispersion and deflating its
iconic power. This is the subject of a separate treatment in Terra Nullius Sublime. See M.
Brower, “Framed by History,” Journal of Canadian Studies 31, 2 (Summer 1996) pp. 178-
182.
21. On the Heidelberg School, see Bonyhady 1985 chap. 8.
22. See Matthew Teitlebaum’s, “Siting the Single Tree—Siting the New found land,” in
Augaitis and Pakasar, eds., Eye of Nature (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1991) which
strikes out on the path of a post-colonialist re-evaluation of Canadian art. See also Albert
Boime, The Magisterial Gaze: American Landscape Painting... (Washington and London:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
23. See “Jack Pine” esp. pp. 112-115.
24. Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
especially chap. 2.
25. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1990).
26. Ibid.
34

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
27. W.J.T. Mitchell’s essay “Imperial Landscape,” appeared after the writing of the Australian
manuscript of this text. Two observations: (1) I hope my approach confirms some of the
theoretical ambitions of Mitchell’s analysis when he writes “my aim in this essay as taking a
harder look at the framework in which facts about landscape are constituted—the way, in
particular that the nature, history, and semiotic or aesthetic character of landscape is
constructed in both its idealist and skeptical interpretations,” ibid., p. 7; (2) Mitchell chooses
to delineate British colonialist landscape in a way that insulates the most obvious instance of
his analysis, namely the American landscape tradition of the Hudson River School. There is
a telling aside with respect to that omission: Speaking about Australia and New Zealand as
colonial landscape exceptions, Mitchell writes “Unlike North America, it did not quickly
develop its own independent pretensions to be an imperial metropolitan centre.” (Mitchell,
p. 18) What would be more “colonial” than that westward expansion? On the other hand,
Mitchell’s manner of ekphrastic treatment is pitched in such a way that it would make
“wilderness” which he does not mention, a genre of landscape art, a kind of tableau, rather
than the driving force of an imaginary, the site itself for “landscape.”
28. The argument is worked out in the early sections of “Jack Pine,” ibid.
29. Elizabeth Mulley, “Lucius O’Brien: A Victorian in North America,” Journal of Canadian
Art History XIV, 2 (1991):74-81; Dennis Reid, Lucius O’Brien: Visions of Victorian
Canada. See Doreen Small, “Picturing Grand Manan: 19th Century Painting and the
Representation of Place” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1997.
30. See Robert Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition (Harper
1988) and Roald Nasgaard, The Mystic North (University of Toronto Press, 1984); see “Jack
Pine” especially pp. 114-118.
31. See “Jack Pine” p. 110 ff. for a treatment of these European themes.
32. “Witness and Picture at the Site of the Wilderness” problematizes the witness and picturing,
and the question of what is meant by site. Cf. Note 6.
33. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Richard Poirier, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1990) p. 6.
34. Op. cit. p. 19.
35. Emerson, op. cit. p. 6 “Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the
dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the savior rode. It offers all its kingdom as the
raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up.
He forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious words, and gives them wing as
angels of persuasion and command. One after another, his victorious thought comes up with
and reduces all things, until the world becomes at last, only a realized will—the double of
man.”
36. See my essay, “The Witness in the Errings of Contemporary Art,” in Paul Duro, ed., The
Rhetoric of the Frame (New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) esp.
pp. 190-197 where I sketch out this logic of testamentaly as a feature of early modern
picturing.
37. I work this argument out in detail in the paper “Picture and Witness at the Site of the
Wilderness.”
38. I am grateful for the conversations with Tom Mitchell and a recent reading of Picture Theory
which have suggested ekphrastic routes for advancing this testamental epistemology. See
W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) esp. chap. 5.
39. Cited in Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1985) p. 74.
40. See for example Barbara Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting 1825-
1875. (Oxford 1983) esp. chap. 4.
41. See W.J.T. Mitchell’s forthcoming The Last Dinosaur Book, University of Chicago Press,
where he links Jefferson’s observations of the imminent vanishing of indigenous peoples
with his zoological interests with the mastodon whose disappearance was recollected by
indigenous peoples, revealing a chain of extinctions that lead up to a sense of the
precariousness of early American settler consciousness. On the mastodon, see Laura Regal,
“Teale’s Mammoth,” in David Miller, ed., American Iconology (Yale University Press,
1993) p. 18-38.
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42. See Trinh Minh Ha, The Language of Nativism (Indiana University Press, 1990). On the
modernity of wilderness, see especially Hayden White “The Forms of Wildness” in Tropics
of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Stephen Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
p. 60.
46. Here I am rephrasing Anderson’s elaboration of his definition of the nation as an imagined
community, Anderson, op. cit. p. 6f.
47. See Angela Miller’s penetrating analysis of Church’s “Twilight in the Wilderness,” in
Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and Cultural Politics, 1825-1875 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell, 1993) esp. chap. 3, and also Franklin Kelly, Frederick Edwin Church and the
National Landscape (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988) chaps 5 & 6.
48. Sacvan Bercovitch, The Rites of Assent (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 81.
49. I am indebted to conversations with the historian Alastair Maclachlan who opened up this
important path of thought to me. The crossing becomes a conceptual and historiographical
no man’s land between the rival versions of the seventeenth century puritan revolution.
50. Dallenbach, Le Récit spéculaire (Paris: Seuil, 1977).
51. See Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper
Canada/ Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982).
52. In this regard I am thinking both of Robert Pogue Harrison’s, Forests mentioned above, but
most naively and stridently in Max Oelschlager, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1990) which claims to succeed Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the
American Mind. For a critique of Deep Ecology see Peter van Wyck, “Deep Ecology and the
Absent Subject” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1993, forthcoming as Primitives and
Wilderness: Deep Ecology and the Absent Subject (State University of New York Press
1997).
53. I am indebted to a conversation with the commonwealth historian John Milloy for a
clarification on this point.
36

William J. Buxton
Time, Space and the Place of Universities in
Western Civilization: Harold Innis’ Plea 1
Abstract
Many discussions of Harold Innis’ work are based on the assumption that he
viewed the media as determining the time-space configuration of societies by
virtue of their inherent properties. This paper takes a different approach,
arguing that Innis’ main concern was how civilizations addressed the
problems of ensuring territorial control (in space) and duration (through
time). It examines Innis’ account of how the dialectical interaction of spaceand
time-binding media provide the motor of history with particular attention
given to how the modern era has become obsessed with the control of space
accompanied by “present-mindedness.” After addressing the points of
resistance to this trend that Innis outlined, the implications of his theory for
understanding Canada are explored.
Résumé
De nombreuses discussions portant sur les travaux d’Harold Innis partent de
l’hypothèse suivante : ce dernier estime que, vu leurs propriétés inhérentes,
les médias déterminent la configuration spatio-temporelle des sociétés. Le
présent article aborde le sujet sous un autre angle : la principale
préoccupation d’Innis était de savoir comment les civilisations abordaient la
question du contrôle territorial (espace) et de la durée (temps). Cet article
examine l’explication que fait Innis de la façon dont les échanges dialectiques
par la voie des médias qui lient l’espace et le temps constituent le moteur de
l’histoire, en insistant tout particulièrement sur la façon dont l’ère moderne
est obsédée par le contrôle de l’espace et par une « propension au présent ».
Après avoir abordé les points de résistance à la tendance que soulignait Innis,
l’article passe en revue les répercussions de la théorie proposée par ce
chercheur pour comprendre le Canada.
Innis on Time and Space
Issues of time and space are commonly recognized as central to Harold Innis’
work in communications. Largely based on the widely quoted summary
statements from Empire and Communications and The Bias of
Communications2, these accounts have developed their own form of bias.
Above all, they have been preoccupied with Innis’ claims about how the
inherent properties of early communications media left their mark on ancient
civilizations. 3 Strikingly, the closer Innis’ analyses approach the present, the
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

IJCS / RIÉC
less they emphasize the bias inherent in the properties of the media. In his
analysis of ancient civilizations, this mode of interpretation predominates.
However, in his discussion of the Middle Ages and of the early modern period,
the properties of the media work in tandem with other factors, and vary
according to the particular contexts. Finally, when Innis comes to discuss the
modern period following the onset of printing, the nation-state system and
capitalism, the role played by the properties of media is almost negligible.
When Innis considers the development of later media such as the book, the
newspaper and radio, he makes only scant reference to how their inherent
characteristics (such as their weight, durability or flexibility) are linked to
biasing time or space.
The properties of communications media become increasingly incidental to the
structuring of time and space as Innis’ analyses move closer to the present.
Indeed, in his explanation of what accounts for patterns of change in societies,
the physical characteristics of the media, if discussed at all, are considered only
in relation to broader social and political factors. 4 Innis’ approach is not to
begin with the media and to understand how they biased societies; his point of
departure is civilizations and how they addressed the problems of ensuring
territorial control and achieving duration. “Large-scale political organization,”
he noted, “implies a solution of problems of space in terms of administrative
efficiency, and of problems of time in terms of continuity” (Innis, [1950]
1986:168-169). Innis gives particular attention to how civilizations tend to
create monopolies of knowledge in order to deal with the problems of time and
space. 5
Concentration on a medium of communication implies a bias in the
cultural development of the civilization concerned either towards an
emphasis on space and political organization, or towards an emphasis
on time and religious organization. (Innis, [1950] 1986:169)
As these forms of organization developed, however, they set in motion the
emergence of new, countervailing tendencies at the margins of society. These,
in turn, served as a check on the prevailing monopoly of knowledge, giving rise
to composite forms of political organization: “Introduction of a second medium
tends to check the bias of the first and to create conditions suited to the growth of
empire” (Innis, [1950] 1986:169). Innis views history, then, as a dialectical
dance of time and space as civilizations seek to deal with the problems of
political control and durability. In discussing how empires and civilizations
rise, fall and succeed one another, he gives particular attention to the formation
of binary political organizations through the fusion of prevailing monopolies of
knowledge with a countervailing tendency which serves to check the
limitations of the dominant medium of communication:
Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in
relation to the medium of communication on which they were built,
and tended to alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization,
andtime;orforce,centralization,andspace.(Innis,[1950]1986:166)
As Innis observed, these hybrid forms have differing degrees of success
depending upon the particular circumstances giving rise to the combination in
question (Innis, [1950] 1986:166). In his view, the optimal society was one able
38

Time, Space and the Place of Universities
to achieve some kind of balance between its time- and space-binding media. 6
Greece of the fifth century B.C., for instance, combined its “powerful oral
tradition” with “the flexibility of the alphabet” in such a way that it was able to
resist the tendencies of empire in the East towards absolute monarchism and
theocracy (Innis, [1950] 1986:81). According to Innis, this attainment of
harmony between time and space enabled Greece to make notable advances in
artistic and literary creativity (Innis, [1950] 1986:79). However, when Innis
discusses the modern era, this pattern of development is no longer in evidence.
Rather than examining how space- and time-binding media emerge, decline
and come into balance within empires and civilizations, he now turns his
attention to the forces set in motion once the binary relationship between
church and state was severed, and to the way in which commercialization and
the print revolution emerged as a result of this breakdown. The Church’s
monopoly on time increasingly conflicts with “the demands of the bureaucracy
centring on space,” leading to the eventual decline of the church and the
consolidation of the state. Without the “check” provided by the time-oriented
church, the state became increasingly rigid and was unable to withstand the
growth of commercial interests. The growth of printing was particularly
significant in this respect and, according to Innis, “marked the first stage in the
spread of the Industrial Revolution” and led to “savage religious wars of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” More generally, the “application of
power to communication industries hastened the consolidation of vernaculars,
the rise of nationalism, evolution, and new outbreak of savagery in the
twentieth century” (Innis, [1951] 1991:29-30).
Accompanying the development of nationalism, Innis argues, is increasing
fragmentation and misunderstanding, as the emergent nation-states embarked
on different trajectories, attendant upon how they chose to deploy post-print
communications: “The varied rate of development of communication facilities
has accentuated difficulties of understanding. Improvements in
communication ...make for increased difficulties of understanding” (Innis,
[1951] 1991:28). Indeed, Innis seems to even suggest that the new forms of
communication no longer operate as “checks” to the prevailing monopolies of
knowledge; they owe their form and nature to the broader transformations in
theorganizationofknowledgeandculturalproductionthathavetakenplace.
This meant, it turn, that the definition and structuring of time underwent
profound transformations as a result of the new forces unleashed.
[I]ndustrial demands meant fresh emphasis on the ceaseless flow of
mechanical time. Establishment of time zones facilitated the
introduction of uniformity in regions. And advance in the state of
industrialism reflected in the speed of the newspaper press and the
radio meant a decline in the importance of biological time determined
by agriculture (Innis, [1951] 1991:74).
These tendencies were accentuated by scientific developments which sought to
“apply...measurements of space to time, ie. astronomy, and destroy concept of
time in myth and religion” (Innis, 1980:133). This suggested a loss of ability to
understand what time had meant in a previous era. Much of the loss of a sense of
time could be attributed to the press, which “[insisted] on time as a uniform and
39

IJCS / RIÉC
quantitative continuum. [This] ...obscured qualitative differences and its
disparate and discontinuous character.” Innis contends that “under the guise of
democracy freedom of the press has led to the defence of monopoly. These
monopolies exert an important influence on the news. News can be selected and
even made by a powerful journalist.” This results in a chronic sense of present
mindedness and a preoccupation with the immediate. Moreover, oral and aural
communications—once linked to questions of time—had been subsumed
under the new space-binding communication:
The disastrous effect of the monopoly of communication based on the
eye hastened the development of a competitive type of
communication based on the ear, in the radio and in the linking of
sound to the cinema and to television. Printed material gave way in
effectiveness to the broadcast and to the loud speaker (Innis,
1991:81).
As he argued, with mechanization, printing became geared toward meeting the
demands of increasingly large numbers of people. Such a tendency was
particularly evident in the radio and cinema, in which emphasis upon the
“ephemeral” and the “superficial” accompanied the drive for entertainment
and amusement.“The demands of the new media,” Innis argues “were imposed
on the older media, the newspaper and the book. With these powerful
developments time was destroyed and it became increasingly difficult to
achieve continuity or to ask consideration of the future” (Innis, [1951] 1991:82-
83). Indeed, the act of thinking itself became more difficult as a result of the
printing press and the radio. The endemic present-mindedness detected by
Innis was not confined to industry, science and the media; it was also evident in
professional and educational practices. Law, for instance, which he
characterized as “brittle, brilliant type work” tended to neglect “continuity in
time” and to ignore “long-term factors.” Lawyers concentrated instead on the
detailed intricacies of whatever case was before them, rather than considering
more transcendent philosophical issues (Innis, 1952:56-57). Closer to home,
Innis was dismayed at the degree to which “present-mindedness” had taken
hold in the universities which were “menaced by specialization and the belief
on the part of specialists that no other interest than their own is important”
(Innis, 1946:viii). University teaching, like other professions, had become
“narrow and sterile.” It was almost impossible to develop “a broad interest in
the complex problems of society.” This meant that “student and teacher are
loaded down with information and prejudice,” and “the capacity to break down
prejudice and to maintain an open mind are seriously weakened” (Innis, [1951]
1991:208).
Drawing on the work of his former colleague, Eric Havelock (1951), Innis
maintained that the application of intelligence to the solution of problems was
jeopardized by the wide-spread present-mindedness that had taken hold in
Western civilization. In this regard, “the present—real, insistent, complex, and
treated as an independent system...haspenetrated the most vulnerable areas of
public policy.” This means that human action is unable to move beyond the
present, resulting in war. Hence, “power, and its assistant, force, the natural
enemies of intelligence, have become more serious as “the mental processes
activated in the pursuit and consolidating of power are essentially short range”
40

Time, Space and the Place of Universities
(Innis, 1952:v). It is evident that in his discussions of modern life, Innis is
obsessed with the endemic “present-mindedness,” and the lack of concern with
issues related to time and temporality. This was not simply an analytical
concern on his part. As the scathing tone of Innis’ commentary reveals, he
believed that the loss of time-consciousness represented an unmitigated
disaster for contemporary Western societies. By grasping the extent to which
Innis was disturbed by the trends in twentieth-century civilization, one can
begin to understand why he so obsessively scanned the past in order to detect
patterns of bias and processes of change in monopolies of knowledge. By doing
so, he believed that we would be better equipped to understand and overcome
biases in the present. By becoming “alert to the implications” of the bias of
other civilizations, this would “enable us to see more clearly the bias of our
own.” Innis was acutely aware that given the tendencies of mechanization and
present-mindedness at work in contemporary civilizations, rigidities and
inflexibility would make critical reflection increasingly difficult. He noted that
“the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent
determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its
pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and
flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain. . . .” (Innis, [1951]
1991:34). It was through the hermeneutic act of retrieving the wisdom of past
cultures whose sense of time had not yet been subject to objectifying and
spatializing tendencies, that Innis sought to help create a temporal sensibility
that could serve as a countervailing current to the massive wave of presentmindedness
sweeping the contemporary world. Through the process of
subjecting the past to this kind of scrutiny, Innis sought to gain perspective on
where time-binding forms of communication and practice could still be
detected, with a view toward strengthening and encouraging them. Innis’
recovery and reactivation of earlier forms of time-sensibility could be seen as
an effort to help establish a new, time-binding form of communication. In the
same way that time-binding forms of communication had arisen in the past to
serve as checks upon the monopolies of knowledge based on space-binding
forms of communication, this inchoate tendency would act as a countervailing
force to mechanization, commercialization and present-mindedness, thereby
giving contemporary society more balance.
Points of Resistance
Innis’ remarks on the form this tendency would take are sketchy at best, and in
no way constitute a coherent and well articulated vision. Had he not died an
untimely death, he may well have sought to provide a detailed account of the
form and nature of this movement. For the most part, in a manner akin to the
negative dialectics of the Frankfurt School (Wernick, 1986; Stamps, 1995),
Innis offered few specifics of an alternative vision, preferring to critically
assess the then current trends in thought, communication and culture.
Nevertheless, he did reveal glimpses of what he had in mind in some of his
essays written during the last years of his life. By piecing them together against
the backdrop of his critiques, it is possible to get some sense of what Innis saw as
a possible corrective to the cataclysmic directions of contemporary life.
41

IJCS / RIÉC
“The first essential task,” as he saw it, was “to see and to break through the
chains of modern civilization which have been created by modern science.” In
particular, words have been produced “on an unprecedented scale” and have
become powerless. Moreover,“[o]ral and printed words have been harnessed to
the enormous demands of modern industrialism and in advertising have been
made to find new markets for goods. Each new invention which enhances their
power in that direction weakens their power in other directions” (1946). In his
view, this perversion of language was simply an aspect of the destruction of
culture which accompanied the mechanization and commercialization of life.
Culture, in his view “is concerned with the capacity of the individual to appraise
problems in terms of space and time and with enabling him to take the proper
steps at the right time.” However, “the tragedy of modern culture has arisen as
inventions in commercialism had destroyed the sense of time” (Innis, 1991:85-
86). Indeed, “States are destroyed by lack of culture...andso,too, are empires
and civilizations. Mass production and standardization are the enemies of the
West. The limitations of mechanization of the printed and the spoken word
must be emphasized, and determined efforts to recapture the vitality of the oral
tradition must be made” (Innis, 1986:168).
What Innis suggested, then, was that a balance between time and space could be
restored through the development of cultural forms in which orality was
revitalized. A formation of this kind would restore the former power of the
printed and oral word. And where was such a tendency to be found? In the same
way that Innis looked to the margins for signs of revitalization in the past, he
turned his gaze to an institution whose traditions were at odds with the
spatializing tendencies of contemporary societies in the present, namely the
universities of the West. 7 Here one could find the vanishing species of the
scholar, whose influence had all but been destroyed by “the industrial
Revolution and mechanized knowledge.” Not only were dominant interests
based on force “no longer concerned with his protection” but were “actively
engaged in schemes for his destruction.” Indeed, even science, mathematics
and music as the last refuge of the Western mind have come under the spell of
the mechanized vernacular (Innis, [1951] 1991:30-31).
This attack on the scholar was part of a much broader onslaught against the
university and the traditions it represented. Reflecting the deterioration of
Western civilization, it was now assumed by “businessmen and ...by
university administrators trained in playing for the highest bid” that
“universities can be bought and sold” (Innis, 1946:75). This recurrent
“business and political exploitation of universities by bribes” had led to “the
descent of the university into the market place” (Innis, 1946:76). In Innis’ view,
this had grave implications for scholarly and intellectual life: “The
mechanization of modern society compels increasing interest in science and the
machine, and attracts the best minds from the most difficult problems in
western civilization” (Innis, 1946:74). Innis was particularly dismayed that
knowledge had become prone to specialization as a result of bureaucratic
demands (Innis, 1946:141). The university, moreover, had become
increasingly susceptible to the influences of mass media such as the newspaper,
the cinema and the radio, which “demand the thinning out of knowledge to the
point where it interests the lowest intellectual levels.” Since higher education is
42

Time, Space and the Place of Universities
bound up with problems of communication, the university has difficulty
escaping the “demands of mechanization,” as revealed by the increasing
presence of state radio stations, adult education programs and university
extension courses (Innis, 1946:74). With its drive toward the popularization of
education, and “direct selling of their wares to the public,” the universities have
transformed the role of the professor from a scholar to a “particular type of
entertainer.” As Innis scathingly summed up his view of the trends in university
life, “we need a study of the professor as sandwich man—perhaps a doctoral
thesis” (Innis, 1946:74).
Despite these discouraging tendencies, Innis remained hopeful that the
university could recover its tradition of “humanities and learning.” This would
permit it to “resist the tendencies to bureaucracy and dictatorship of the modern
State, the intensification of nationalism, the fanaticisms of religion, the evils of
monopoly in commerce and industry” (Innis, 1946:66). It was imperative that
the university “continue its vital function in checking the dangerous extremes
to which all institutions with power are subject,” including “the rise of the
modern state and ...thetyranny of opinion” (Innis, 1946:141). Rather than
continuing its complicity with mechanization and present-mindedness, he
believed that “the University must play its major role in the rehabilitation of
civilization which we have witnessed in this century by recognizing that
western civilization has collapsed” (Innis, 1946:73). It was aptly suited to play
this role because of its “great tradition of freedom from state control.” This
means that it could serve as “a platform on which we may be able to discuss the
problems of civilization. We stand on a small and dwindling island surrounded
by the flood of totalitarianism” (Innis, 1946:73).
And how was the university to serve as a point of resistance to ongoing trends,
and the site for the rehabilitation of Western civilization? While Innis did not
elaborate on how it could play this role, he did put great stock in a particular
orientation towards the production of knowledge that challenged the trends he
detected in Western civilization. The university has served as a “stabilizing
factor” in “various periods in the history of civilization” because it has
“preferred reason to emotion, Voltaire to Rousseau, persuasion to power,
ballots to bullets” (Innis, 1946:141). More specifically, the tradition of the
university has included the search for truth, an “obsession with balance and
perspective” (as rooted in the Greek tradition of the humanities), “a constant
avoidance of extremes and extravagance,” and scepticism about proposals to
cure the world’s ills (Innis, 1946:141). Innis was particularly adamant about
this final point. He believed that the university “must steadfastly resist the
tendency to acclaim any single solution of the world’s problems at the risk of
failing to play its role as a balancing factor in the growth of civilization” (Innis,
1946:141).
Innis has often been characterized as championing pure and detached
scholarship as opposed to practical involvement (Creighton, 1957). This
account, however, is highly misleading. Innis disagreed with the efforts of
social scientists to be relevant because he felt it made them prey to the broader
trends of the instrumentalization of knowledge, specialization, endemic
quantification. However, his stance was practical in a much more profound
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IJCS / RIÉC
sense. He seemed to propose a much more dialogic and open-ended approach to
the production of knowledge, unbound to the demands and needs of particular
social interests. This would involve the recovery of a time-sensibility and
orality that he felt had been overwhelmed by the trends toward mechanization
and present-mindedness. 8 Behind Innis’ plea for time was another plea for the
university to recover its traditional role as a critical counterpoint to entrenched
and largely unchallenged monopolies of knowledge.
Time, Space and Canada’s Place in Innis’ Thought
In discussions of Innis’ work, it is often claimed that he abandoned his early
work on Canadian economic history in favour of global accounts of civilization
based on his analyses of communications technologies and their impacts. 9 To
be sure, some efforts have been made to demonstrate the continuity of Innis’
thought from his writings on political economy and Canadian economic
development to communications. But for the most part, commentators have
largely confined themselves to showing the primacy of a staples-oriented form
of thought in Innis’ work. They suggest that Innis’ later views on how the
physical properties of communications (such as lightness or durability) served
to bias civilizations in particular ways were derived from his earlier analyses of
how the characteristics of staple production had a determinative impact upon
culture and politics. 10 While accounts of this kind are suggestive, they largely
fail to closely examine the latter part of Innis’ sweeping historical narrative, in
which he gives particular attention to developments in Western civilization
ushered in by the advent of industrialization, and the print revolution particular
to the development of newspapers. In considering these trends, Innis’ point of
reference shifted away from ancient civilizations and Europe toward
developments in North America. In this respect, Innis’ vantage point was very
much Canadian, both in terms of the changing political, economic and cultural
landscape of his native country, and in relation to the increasing power of the
United States on the world stage. Innis was convinced that Canada’s neighbour,
whose very origins were founded on print culture and the principles of the “free
press”, had become the bearer of “space-biased” communications, with
devastating consequences for local culture and independent critical thought.
Canada had become increasingly absorbed into the American empire through
its pulp and paper industries and hydro-electric power resources.
Paradoxically, the same pre-Cambrian shield that had long been considered a
barrier to economic development had provided the basis for Canada’s
incorporation into a United States dominated continentalism. The cheap
newsprint and power which flowed from Canada to the United States was
reintroduced back into the country in the form of mass circulation newspapers
and cheaply produced magazines and books. In the same manner that Greece
and Scotland became corrective counterpoints to the space-biased imperial
designs of Rome and Britain respectively, Innis came to view Canada as a point
of cultural resistance to the expansionist tendencies of American empire. As
Arthur Kroker suggests, it was Innis’ most tragic insight that at stake in the
contest of Canadian culture and American economy was nothing other than the
possibility for an emancipatory recovery of the “heritage” of western
civilization itself ...Thereclamation, and defence, of an emergent cultural
44

Time, Space and the Place of Universities
practice in Canada against the ideological hegemony of the “commercial
empire” of the United States was also a sensitive political index of the struggle
between “time” (duration and extension) and “space” (discontinuity and
extension) in the modern mind (Kroker, 1984:97).
While Kroker’s account is rich in insight, he largely fails to examine what this
“emancipatory recovery” meant for Innis in terms of political and cultural
engagement. His account lacks any clear sense of which elements in Canada
Innis saw as providing the basis for reclaiming and defending “an emergent
cultural practice.” Specifically, he gives little attention to how Innis had come
to map Canada in terms of its time/space coordinates, a mapping that would
strongly influence his views on the prospects for cultural resistance. In terms of
how Canadian space had been controlled and organized, Innis’ analysis
differed from that which he offered for the United States. As Canada became
integrated into the American empire, regional and provincial power centres had
formed for the specific purpose of mobilizing natural resources for exploitation
by American interests (Innis, 1946:ix-x). This led to a fracturing and
decentralizing tendency within the country. At the same time, the federal
government was gradually increasing its capacity to administer the country, a
trend that had gained momentum during World War II. This tendency was
aided and abetted by the expansion of the civil service, which had developed an
insatiable desire for statistical material to support policies and programs. This
form of knowledge was provided only too willingly, in Innis’ eyes, by social
scientists, who had largely come to define their role as one of producing
quantitative studies that would be of potential use to policy-makers. In effect,
given his opposition to “present-mindedness,” Innis had become increasingly
disenchanted both with the federal government and with the social sciences.
The former, true to its counter-revolutionary roots, favoured authoritarian rule
and social control over dialogue and participation (Dorland, forthcoming). The
latter, largely abandoning its origins in moral philosophy and classical political
economy, had sacrificed its historicity on the alter of positivistic fact-grubbing.
Indeed, this trend within the social sciences was part and parcel of the direction
taken by Canadian universities. Caught up in the federal government’s designs
to expand its realm of control, they had become willing accomplices in the
strategic production of knowledge for instrumental ends. The autonomy of the
universities increasingly eroded as their boards of directors gained the upper
hand in questions of governance, a process that downplayed critical reflection
and scholarly debate in favour of applied work serving the needs of dominant
social interests. Unsurprisingly, then, in the latter decade of his life, Innis
resolutely aligned himself with the humanities in Canadian universities, an
academic sector which he saw as beleaguered if not under siege. His leadership
was largely responsible for derailing the plans to close humanities departments
during wartime (proposed by Cyril James and others). And through his efforts,
the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored Committee on Economic History
established a research agenda that included attention to changing conceptions
of time. While Innis’ angle of vision on the course of Western civilization was
profoundly Canadian, he was only too aware of the “twisted and distorted
cultural growth” in his homeland, a state of affairs that had been brought about
by a “fanatical interest in nationalism” and the excesses of the price system
45

IJCS / RIÉC
(1946:10). Yet he harboured the view that by interrelating “patterns of
Canadian development with those of the Western world,” the overall impact of
industrialism and mass communications upon knowledge could be better
addressed (Innis, 1946:xvi). 11 To this end, Innis’ Archimedean point became
the humanities in Canada. While they were weak and underdeveloped, by
virtue of their foundations in classical thought and their propensity to reflect
upon the cultural growth of civilizations, they provided the basis for balancing
and correcting the fashionable present-mindedness that threatened to rob
humanity of its collective memory and sense of time. “With imperfect
competition between concepts,” Innis argued, “the university is essentially an
ivory tower in which courage can be mustered to attack any concept which
threatens to become a monopoly” (Innis, 1946:xvii).
Notes
1. Harold Innis is recognized as one of Canada’s leading intellectual figures. He was born in
Otterville, Ontario in 1894 and studied at McMaster University (then located in Toronto).
While serving with the Canadian expeditionary force during World War II, he was injured in
battle at Vimy Ridge (Gwyn, 1992). During his convalescence in England, he completed his
master’s degree at McMaster. Following his return to Canada, he pursued doctoral work in
economics at the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on the Canadian Pacific
Railway. He began his academic career at the Department of Political Economy of the
University of Toronto in 1920, remaining there until his death (of cancer) in 1952. Innis
became best known for his studies of how the production of staple products such as fur
(1930), fish (1940), lumber ([1938] 1956) and wheat ([1939] 1956) shaped and directed the
path of Canadian economic development. In the later years of his life, he turned his attention
to the history of communications, with particular attention to the relationship between forms
of media and broader patterns of power and social control ([1950] 1986; [1951] 1991). This
focus represented a lifelong concern with the role played by universities and intellectuals in
helping to sustain and nourish Western Civilization (1943; 1944). Reflecting this interest,
Innis was closely involved with numerous academic and funding bodies including the Royal
Society of Canada, the Canadian Social Science Research Council, the Canadian
Humanities Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim
Foundation. Despite his abiding suspicion of academics who participated in the policy
process, he was a member of such consultative bodies as the Nova Scotian Royal
Commission of Provincial Economic Enquiry (1934) and the Royal Commission on
Transportation (1951). For biographical accounts of Innis’ life and career, see Berger
(1976), Creighton (1957), Christian (1988, 1989), Cooper, (1979), Havelock (1982), Neill
(1972) and Watson (1981). For collected commentaries on Innis’ work, see Journal of
Canadian Studies, (1977); Melody, Heyer, and Salter (1981); Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (1994), and Acland and Buxton (forthcoming). For bibliographies of Innis’s
writings, see Innis (1953) and Innis Foundation (1973).
2. For instance, in Empire and Communications, Innis writes that:
The concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to
civilization. Media that emphasize time are those that are durable in
character, such as parchment, clay, and stone. The heavy materials are
suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that
emphasize space are apt to be less durable and light in character, such
papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to wide areas in administration and
trade (Innis, [1950] 1986:5).
3. See, for instance, Drache (1995:xlvi) and Melody (1981:6). As Patterson points out, the
account of Innis is far from deterministic. Rather, the same medium has much different
effects in different situations (Patterson, 1990).
46

4. That Innis’ history of communications was bound up with his political theory has been
remarked on by numerous commentators including Christian (1977), di Norcia (1990), Pal
(1977), Watson (1977; 1981), Whitaker (1983), and Noble (forthcoming).
5. An excellent discussion of Innis’ views on time and space can be found in Patterson (1990).
6. Indeed, he even suggested that civilizations that had achieved a balance sought to maintain
this state (Innis, 1964:75).
7. As Noble (forthcoming) points out, Innis also looked to such institutions as the commonlaw,
the court system, parliaments and churches as “vestiges of the pre-modern era,” which
served as the basis for the continuation of the oral tradition.
8. Innis’ own work could also be seen as an effort to approximate this oral tradition. What he
did was to juxtapose quotes from various authors, taken out of context, with only minimal
attention given to the exact sources of the quotes, as I can attest. It was up to the reader to fill
in what this all meant, to establish the connections between observations. Innis was
particularly fond of quoting from the memoirs of observers on modernity, such as Benda,
Mark Pattison, or Lord Morley. One of his favourites was Graham Wallas, who, according to
Innis, “emphasized the importance of the oral tradition in an age when the overpowering
influence of mechanized communication makes it difficult to even recognize such a
tradition” (Innis, 1952:78). This tendency, as noted by McLuhan (1964) and elaborated on
by Angus, could be likened to “a modernist technique of writing, through a plurality of
glimpses and montage, to encourage the perception of patterns and thereby, an oralist
intervention in the system of writing” (Angus, 1993: 31).
9. See, for instance, Melody, 1981:8.
10. Creighton, for example, maintains that Innis’ interest in newspapers derived from his
previous work on pulp and paper (Creighton, 1957:112). Salter argues that his early interest
in transportation represented a particular concern with the “transportation of ideas,” an
orientation that foreshadowed his later writings on communications (1981:194). Wernick
claims that “Innis turned from pulp and paper to the publishing industry itself, and thence, on
the one, to the more general analysis of industrialised communication and, on the other, to
the place of publishing within the history of communication as such” (1986:141).
11. Innis suggested that the influence of American imperialism could be effectively resisted by
Canada “by adherence to common-law traditions and notably to the cultural heritage of
Europe” (Innis, 1986:168).
References
Time, Space and the Place of Universities
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Reflections and Refractions. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Angus, Ian and Brian Shoesmith (eds). 1993. Dependency/Space/Policy: A Dialogue with Harold
A. Innis. Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media and Culture. Vol. 7, No. 1.
Angus, Ian. 1993. “Orality in the Twilight of Humanism: A Critique of the Communication
Theory of Harold Innis,” pp. 16-42 in Angus and Shoesmith.
Berger, Carl. 1976. The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical
Writing since 1900. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
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Dorland, Michael. Forthcoming. “The Expected Tradition: Innis, State Rationality and the
Governmentalization of Communication” in Acland and Buxton.
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Drache, Daniel (ed). 1995. Staples, Markets, and Cultural Change. Selected Essays, Harold A.
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New World Perspectives).
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Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex).
Melody, William. 1981. “Introduction,” pp. 3-11 in W. Melody, L. Salter and P. Heyer (eds.),
Culture, Communication, and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis. (Norwood, N.J.:
Ablex).
Neill, Robin. 1972. A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H.A. Innis. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press).
Noble, Richard. Forthcoming. “Harold Innis’ Whig Conception of Liberty”, in Acland and Buxton
(eds)., Harold Innis in the New Century.
Pal, Leslie. 1977. “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 12, no. 5:
32-44.
Patterson, Graeme. 1990. History and Communications: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the
Interpretation of History. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
Report of the Royal Commission, Provincial Economic Inquiry, Province of Nova Scotia. 1934.
(Halifax: King’s Printer).
Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation. 1951. Ottawa:
Salter, Liora. 1981. “Public and Mass Media in Canada: Dialectics in Innis’ Communications
Analysis,” pp. 193-207 in W. Melody et al (eds).
Stamps, Judith. 1995. Unthinking Modernity: Innis, McLuhan and the Frankfurt School.
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Watson, A. John. 1977. “Harold Innis and Classical Scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies,
Winter.
____________. 1981. “Marginal Man: Harold Innis’ Communication Works in Context.”
Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.
Wernick, Andrew. 1986. “The Post-Innisian Significance of Innis.” Canadian Journal of Political
and Social Theory, vol. X, no. 1/2: 128-150.
Whitaker, Reg. 1983. “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing: The Political Ideas of
Harold Innis,” Queen’s Quarterly, Autumn.
48

Randy William Widdis
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity:
A Canadian Perspective
Abstract
Borders—internal and external, socio-economic, geopolitical and
psychological—have always played a role in developing Canadian identity.
Yet borders and borderlands are organic; they evolve over time and space to
become different kinds of places. This paper examines the relationship
between the development of identity and changing dimensions of space and
place over time, placing particular emphasis on the border and borderlands
metaphors. It maintains that identity and place, both interdependent
concepts, are defined by borders and borderlands. Yet these concepts present
a paradox which both frames and complicates the Canadian identity. While
borders separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional
relationships are established. The paper concludes that while the
Borderlands Thesis supporters are justified in emphasizing the importance of
cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also recognize that, over
time, Canada developed national economies and political-cultural
institutions which transcended internal regional boundaries and provided a
counterbalance to the North-South integrative forces existing within
transborder regions.
Résumé
Les frontières (qu’elles soient internes ou externes, socio-économiques,
géopolitiques ou psychologiques) ont toujours joué un rôle dans le
développement d’une identité canadienne. Pourtant, les frontières et les
régions limitrophes sont de nature organique : elles évoluent de façon spatiotemporelle
pour former divers types de lieux. Le présent article examine le
rapport entre le développement de l’identité et l’évolution des aspects « lieu »
et « espace » au fil du temps, en insistant particulièrement sur les métaphores
que sont les frontières et les régions limitrophes. Il est connu que l’identité et
le lieu — deux concepts interreliés — sont définis par les frontières et les
régions limitrophes. Cependant, ces deux concepts constituent sur les deux
plans, un paradoxe qui complique l’identité canadienne. D’une part, les
frontières divisent; d’autre part, les zones limitrophes favorisent les échanges
menant à des relations fonctionnelles. Selon le présent article, même si les
fervents de la théorie des zones limitrophes ont raison d’insister sur
l’importance des échanges et de la synthèse inter-frontières, ils doivent
également reconnaître que, au fil du temps, le Canada a permis la mise en
place d’économies et d’établissements politico-culturels de nature nationale
outrepassant les frontières régionales internes et contrebalançant les forces
d’intégration nord-sud au sein des régions transfrontalières.
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

IJCS / RIÉC
If the national mental illness of the United States is
megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.
Margaret Atwood
It is fashionable in socio-psychological history to look back and discover or
invent identifications and attachments to place. Individuals and groups
conceptualize their identity within the context of place—the household, the
community, the region, the nation. Conceiving a feeling of “who-ness” in terms
of a sense of “where-ness” is a voyage of discovery everyone takes. In this
passage, the voyageur searches for frames of reference which facilitate the
development of attachments to place and, in doing so, creates structural and
psychological boundaries. These boundaries, in turn, delineate territories
which are deemed necessary to both physical and psychic survival. And
survival is dependent on the strength or vulnerability of the borders that
separate the individual or group (“us”) from others (“them”) (Group for the
Advancement of Psychiatry, 1987: 11).
Borders—socio-economic, geopolitical and psychological—have always
played a role in the development of a Canadian identity. 1 These boundaries
represent structural centripetal and centrifugal forces that both unify the
country and pull it in different directions. Such contradictory energies have
created a country which is in itself a paradox. And trying to make sense of this
paradox is in many ways an impossible and even schizophrenic task. Yet try we
must for this is a responsibility that Canadianists cannot shirk. This paper
attempts to examine the relationship between the development of identity and
changing dimensions of space and place over time as symbolized by the
metaphorical concepts of border and borderland.
Space, Place, Identity and Borders
While critical theorists such as Giddens (1976, 1978, 1981) and Foucault
(1980, 1982, 1986) recognize that space is basic to experience and action, it is
place that captures the imagination of the geographer. “Place is space to which
meaning has been ascribed” (Carter, Donald and Squires, 1993: xii) and “place .
. . [is] seen as the foundation of ...identity” (Eyles, 1985: 72). Geographers
have increasingly rejected abstract spatial relations in favour of elucidating
place associations, a trend, one could argue, that reflects the growing
importance of postmodern geography. In the context of specific places,
geographers attempt to understand the spatiality of social life. In terms of
identity, “it is not spaces which ground identifications, but places” (Carter,
Donald and Squires, 1993: xii). Identity develops as people engage in
placemaking, i.e., “the way all of us as human beings transform the places in
which we find ourselves into places in which we live” (Schneekloth and
Shibley, 1995: 1). Placemaking occurs within particular, socially constructed
realities which range over different spatial scales, including the space of
housing, the space of the community, and the space of the nation-state.
For Charles Taylor (1989: 35), questions of identity are bound up with the
spacesweinhabitandassignmeaningto—theplaceswithwhichweidentify:
50

I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree, in
social space, in the geography of social statuses and functions, in my
intimate relations with the ones I love, and also crucially within which
my most important defining relations are lived out.
Both place and identity are interdependent and defined by borders. “Place is
bounded,” states Robert Sack (1992: 13), and “thus can be seen literally and
imaginatively from within and from without.” Identity provides boundaries for
individuals, bearings with which they need to function.
The practice of placemaking and the development of identity in Canada has
necessarily involved the creation of territories which serve to strengthen and
retard association with place at different levels. The interconnections between
space and behaviour hinges on territoriality (Sack, 1986: 25). Territoriality, as
Sack (1986: 216) explains:
as the basic geographic expression of influence and power, provides
an essential link between society, space, and time. Territoriality is the
backcloth of geographical context—it is the device through which
people construct and maintain spatial organizations.
Socially constructed territories are expressed by the use of borders which
functionasadeviceinwhichtoviewthedevelopmentofaCanadianidentity.
Borders, the one shared with the United States and those created internally,
frame the Canadian identity. Identity is a concept that is both discovered and
invented. The Canadian identity is extremely complex and therefore is not
easily understood even by those who attempt to identify or create it. The fact
that the country exists in a dialectic of regional and ethnic tensions further
complicates the search for identity. These internal borders of religious and
ethnic division are reinforced by geographical separation and socio-economic
distinction both within and between regions.
A pan-Canadian identity has always been countered by the panoply of
attachments existing in this country: allegiances to region, to ethnic group, to
religion, to outside interests. While not a collection of warring tribes,
Canadians have always erected boundaries that have shaped the contours of the
Canadian identity. The effects of these borders are the subject of much debate
and confusion.
Internal Borders
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
Regional Borders
While regionalism is a narrow prism through which to view a political
landscape, history teaches us that regional differences in this country are the
consequence of distinct historical development and geographical realities. The
regional dimension of Canadian life has been and continues to be a major factor
in the development of a Canadian identity, as noted by many observers never
more eloquently than by the recently deceased giant of Canadian literary
criticism, Northrop Frye.
Through a lifetime of study, Northrop Frye became one of the foremost
students and interpreters of Canadian culture. In doing so, it might be argued, he
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unconsciously adopted an historical geographical approach to the study of
Canadian identity. He views the elusive question of identity as nothing more
than an expression of culture including the human imagination. Since the
imagination—that is, the ideas by which we live—is so shaped by personal
experience and perception, Frye maintains that in a country as large and diverse
as Canada, identity is not a “Canadian” question but a “regional” question. Frye
(1971: ii) insists that unity and identity in Canada, though quite different
concepts, are often confused in the minds of Canadians:
Identity is local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in words
of culture; unity is national in reference, international in perspective,
and rooted in political feeling.
The tension between national unity and regional identity, Frye (ibid: 220)
believes, means that the important question perplexing Canadians is not “Who
am I?” but rather “Where is here?” According to Villeneuve (1993: 9899), this
question gives “a definite geographical dimension to the paradox of Canadian
identity, [a paradox]...strongly anchored in the territorial experiences of the
people of Canada.” Frye emphasizes the fact, later elaborated upon by Cole
Harris (1982), that there was no temporally and spatially continuous settlement
experience as in the United States. Small communities and regions,
geographically isolated from one another, generated what Frye calls a
“garrison mentality” and Harris terms an “island archipelago.”
Both Harris and Frye express their views of the historical geographical essence
of Canada in the form of metaphors, the former seeing Canada as a collection of
islands in a stormy sea called Confederation, and the latter comprehending the
country in the form of a cartographical metaphor, that is using the legends and
conventions of a map (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1975). To Frye,
each voyageur (Canadian) in search of the national image (Here) is involved in
a journey that has no arrival; the map is not yet complete. The individual
identifies and interprets ideas, events and experiences largely within a
geographic frame, which enables him to orient himself in time and space. Selfidentity
can only be discovered in the context of community yet is not
ontologically prior to community. Individual values are both enabled and
constrained through those of the community, however defined. Yet it is this
ambiguous process of definition or placement that creates an ontological crisis
for the individual.
He asks himself “Where is here?” but this leads him still into uncharted
territory. In this quest, the voyageur must recognize that a body of cultural
assumptions, framed by regional/local consciousness, influences an
appreciation of the nature of Canada and filters its imagery. Frye reasons that an
individual’s “Here” is neither static nor complete but continually evolves as
new ideas, events and experiences permeates one’s consciousness.
To Frye (1982: 59), every part of Canada is a separation, segregated from each
other along several grounds. Complicating matters for the voyageur is a
pluralistic ethos which admits the possibility of a multiplicity of communities.
Canada as a “community of communities,” a society where differences do not
have to be adversarial, where unity in diversity is seen to be the essence of a
collective identity, poses conceptual challenges to its members who more
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Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
readily and easily align themselves with the immediate—the group, the
locality, the region. Separation doesn’t have to imply segregation but exclusion
or inclusion is often what results (Taylor, 1989, 1991, 1993).
What effect the physical environment, a factor considered very important by
geographers in any interpretation of regionalism, has had on both unifying and
dividing the country has been a subject of considerable discussion, much of it
centering on the theme of environmentalism. A tradition of cultural
environmentalism evident in Canadian literature attributes both national and
regional character to the shaping forces of terrain and climate. It is the reality of
Canada’s geography, many argue, that has nurtured strong regional identities
which act as barriers against national unity and retard national identity
(Malcolm, 1985; Westfall, 1993). The role of geography in Canadian life was,
in fact, recognized by the country’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A.
Macdonald, who described Canada as having “too much geography and too
little history.” The immense size of the country combined with its relatively
small population even today constrains the possibility of economies of scale
from internal markets. Those communities on the periphery are still
marginalized and isolated from the mainstream.
Canada’s earliest European agriculturalists were limited to patches of suitable
farmland, fishermen were huddled in protective coves, and lumbermen were
scattered in isolated camps. This discontinuous settlement experience, which
produced isolated communities and retarded the development of a common
identity, created a different frontier experience in Canada than in the United
States, one in which “European social formations were bent ...bynon-
European space” (Harris, 1987: 207).
Cultural Borders
Regional separation within Canada, however, is not just related to geographical
isolation; cultural plurality based on language, religion and ethnicity also serve
as centrifugal forces. To most Canadians, the search for identity is complicated
by the fact that the country has been divided by what Hugh MacLennan (1945)
terms the “two solitudes.” Culture is shared and transmitted between
generations through the medium of language. Through much of Quebec’s
history, language, faith and the family have acted as a “triad” of French-
Canadian culture and have served to protect both the interests and identity of
this group (Barkan, 1980: 392). The English-French duality is a basic reality of
Canadian existence, but even among Canadians who share the English
language, religious and ethnic differences, often exacerbated by geographical
isolation, have created boundaries both between and within regions.
The whole question of ethnicity and ethnic identification is extremely
problematical. Scant literature addresses the problem of distinguishing
between ethnic and cultural boundaries. It is difficult to discern, for example,
the degrees of Irishness and Canadianness in the second- and third-generation
Irish-Canadian. Developing theories of relationship between individual
behaviour and ethnic background is very difficult. Ethnicity is an abstract,
heuristic device defined on both objective and subjective grounds used to create
boundaries of inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Yet it is important “to
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distinguish the sense of boundary from what is enclosed by the boundary”
(Chun, 1983: 195); in other words, to separate ethnic identity (who am I?) from
the traits associated with ethnicity (what am I?). The lack of theoretical
guidance has meant that most researchers focus simply on the ethnic, i.e. those
aspects of culture (speech, dress, custom) that people recognize as setting one
group apart from the rest.
Economic Borders
Well into the nineteenth century, “preindustrial methods of production and
distribution still fostered a strong localism in British North American life”
(Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 323). Differences in settlement policy, resource
base, social organization and level of urbanization and industrialization
contributed greatly to local and regional variations in economic development.
The link between economic development and the formation of identity at the
national, regional and local scales has most often been understood from the
functional approach which adheres to the metropolitan/hinterland
interpretation of staples theory. In this approach, “Canada is organized into a
series of regions that link together strong metropolitan centres of capital and
hinterlands of staple exploitation” (Westfall, 1993: 338-339). The fact that
investment from foreign and domestic metropolises was never effectively
coordinated under a national policy of economic development only served to
exacerbate regional differences associated with history and geography (Bell
and Tepperman, 1979: 249).
European powers saw profit in the New World in the exploitation of staple
resources, native wealth and labour, and a barter trade. Because exploitation
was the primary objective, exploration was aimed at this end. The development
of the Maritimes took place in a mercantilist/metropolitan context in which its
staple resources (fish, timber, furs) were exploited for European markets.
Access to Europe, the West Indies and America significantly counteracted a
limited hinterland and small local markets. Maritime settlements developed as
small colonial links in a metropolitan chain with no one centre asserting its
dominance within the region. Small urban centres with limited regional
hinterlands were more closely linked to outside metropolises than to each other
(Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 170).
As was the case for the Maritimes, the National Policy has been interpreted as
an economic instrument of metropolitan interests based in central Canada to
develop the West as a colony of central Canada (Francis, 1993: 453). The
economic troubles of the 1880s tarnished the image of “Eden” associated with
the West, and many felt betrayed by the Eastern interests who promoted such an
impression (Owram, 1992: 178). Western farmers sold grain on an unprotected
world market but were forced to buy expensive goods produced in central
Canada. This cost-price squeeze, the monopoly power of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, and federal control of Prairie crown lands all fostered anger and a
sense of regional alienation in the West.
With the improvement of the economy in the 1890s, regional tensions declined
and confidence grew that Canada was economically strong enough to survive.
The Maritimes, however, did not share in the general turn-of-the-century
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Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
prosperity, and a legacy of regional antipathy towards central Canada was
firmly established.
Attempts to Create Cultural Bridges
While Confederation brought the colonies together in a political alliance, it
could not unite them spiritually. That could only take place over the course of
time with the development of economic linkages and the evolution of an
indigenous culture shared by the inhabitants of all regions. Regional
differences at the time of Confederation were arguably most pronounced in the
cultural realm. The major problem with Confederation, according to Frye, was
its impoverished cultural basis. Instead of relying on a native cultural base,
Canada instead “was thought of, however unconsciously, as a British colony
and a Tory counterpart of the United States, with French and indigenous groups
forming picturesque variations in the background” (Frye, 1991: A17). At
Confederation, Canada outside Quebec did not really have an indigenous
national culture either in the sense of a shared heritage of historical memories
and customs or in terms of artistic creation through literature, music,
architecture, scholarship and the applied arts.
Culture needs roots from which to grow. At Confederation, the roots of culture
were confined largely to regions and locales. Through a combination of
exogenous metropolitan influences and indigenous social processes, regional
cultures had developed over time. People were moulded by both what they left
behind and what they experienced in the new world. Many view this process as
a “simplification” of Europe overseas. While Hartz (1964) argues that the
mechanism of simplification was the emigration of fragments of the larger
European society, fragments whose backgrounds facilitated their adjustment to
their new environments, Harris (1977) and Meinig (1986) believe that the
simplification of Europe overseas had to do more with the nature of the
environments immigrants encountered rather than their own backgrounds.
Regional cultures were not simple transplants but developed over a
considerable period through processes of adaptation to the local environment,
culturalselectionandinteractionswithpeopleofotherracesandethnicgroups.
No strong national culture existed to provide citizens of the new country with a
common frame of reference. For Anglo-Canadians, heritage was primarily of
British rather than native origin, a point often noted in the literary journals of the
period. A poor development of social communication among the regions
contributed largely to this lack of clarity in Canada’s self-conception. As
Deutsch (1966: 172) maintains, “national consciousness...istheattachment of
secondary symbols to primary items of information moving through channels
of social communication, or through the mind of an individual.”
Symbols lie at the core of culture but they first have to be created and then
communicated to others. Anglo-Canadians in the late nineteenth century could
only draw upon a meagre reservoir of national symbols and myths for guidance
in the act of placemaking. Symbols help us to interpret who or what we are and
what we can be and myths are particularly important because they transform
secular history into sacred legends. Yet powerful obstacles existed in late
nineteenth century Anglo-Canada which retarded the development of myths,
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IJCS / RIÉC
symbols and ideals that would serve to articulate a national experience. Most
fundamental was the element of time. Not enough time had passed by the turn of
the twentieth century for the infant country to develop a strong sense of history
and a set of traditions which reflected a national rather than a colonial
experience.
The sluggish development of literature and arts also impeded the establishment
of national symbols. Post-Confederation literature, according to Marchak,
ignored non-British groups, racism and poverty and presented romantic and
unrealistic portraits of Canadian life. This was due to “the fact that Canada
remained a colony long after [its] ‘declaration of independence”’ (Marchak,
1978: 180). Colonial symbols continued to dominate despite increased efforts
among Canadian writers to develop indigenous symbols, myths and themes in
novels and journals. Anglo-Canadian writers operated within two literary
frames of reference: the British and the American. By mid-century, influenced
by their distinct environment and close proximity to the United States,
Canadian writers were more committed to revitalizing British civilization
within a New World setting. Yet the passion for all things British diminished
overtime,althoughmanywereunwillingtobreakalllinkswiththeOldWorld.
The Canadian West never gripped the imagination of Canadians as the
American West had captivated the minds of Americans. The initial ingredients
of an Anglo-Canadian national identity were based primarily on a British
cultural tradition. In this heritage, there was little passion for a frontier myth
more closely associated with an American vision. Yet imperialist sentiment
and British tradition were not enough to counteract strong regional sentiments
and increasing American penetration.
Most of the Canadian-developed literature was regional as opposed to national
in character, a quality Cappon (1978: 60) argues to be “an extension of the
economic and social reality of Canada’s situation as ‘hinterland’ to first the
British and then the American ‘metropolis’.” Many of the Canadian-born
writers of the period were attached geographically and emotionally to their
region which, for most of this group, was a colony during their formative years.
Any ideas that developed about a national identity were shaped by the writer’s
regional and, if applicable, colonial contexts.
Most importantly, Canadian literature had relatively little influence on the
public because most during this period had little time for reading and reflection.
Unfavourable copyright laws, a small readership, cheaper and more readily
available American and British literature, and a high illiteracy rate resulted in
hardship for Canadian writers and a restricted capability for developing and
communicating native ideas, interpretations and symbols (Altfest, 1979: 235-
238).
Margaret Atwood (1972) believes that the central symbol for Canada is
survival, survival in a harsh environment and in the struggle to find an identity.
The border is another, perhaps complementary, symbol for this country. We
are, as Russell Brown (1991: 13) states, a country “encoded by borders.” As we
have seen, many types of borders exist within the country to support the
regional dimension of Canadian life. While identity is moulded to a significant
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Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
extent by a regional consciousness shaped by cultural plurality and
geographical isolation, the frame used by the voyageur to orient himself in
territory is bounded east and west by the rest of Canada and north and south by
his transborder relationship with the United States.
Borders and Borderlands
Canada as an historically contingent society, developing within the context of
its own internal evolution, has always framed its “becoming” through its
changing political, economic and cultural relationships with the United States.
That the relationship with the United States functions as a barometer by which
Canadians, particularly Anglo-Canadians, measure their evolving identity is
not surprising given the complex and varied nature of the ties linking different
transborder regions. French Canada identifies with its distinctive language,
religion, art, literature and other indigenous cultural traits and has developed its
own cultural boundaries within the country, shields serving to strengthen its
own sense of national identity. The fact of being “non-French” and the
perception of being “non-American” have been the principal characteristics
identifying Anglophone Canadians. At the same time, regional separation
within Canada resulting from cultural plurality and geographical isolation,
producing in effect internal borders, combined with different kinds of
relationships with American border regions to create a variable settlement
experience, produce different levels of identification with the idea of Canada,
and elicit different interpretations of the symbolic meaning of the border
separating Canadians (“us”) from Americans (“them”).
That different meanings have been offered regarding Canadian-American
relations is evident upon an examination of metaphors used to describe the
border. Canadians, particularly Anglophone Canadians, in their fiction and
popular culture have tended to view the border as a dividing line or shield,
protecting a fledgling culture from a dominating presence. The metaphor of the
border as shield symbolizes that for Canadians, our relationship with the
United States has played a major role in developing what symbols we do have,
an important consideration given the reality of living in an environment
dominated by American symbols, icons and myths.
A discontinuous and disjointed settlement experience, combined with the
overwhelming American presence, have restricted efforts to create national
symbols. Quebec exists largely as a nation because of its unique culture,
reinforced by language, and its association with a distinctive historical
geography, but Anglophone Canada has always struggled to find its niche
within the continent. For this group, the Canadian-American border takes on an
even greater meaning. It is understood as an interpreted emotional experience, a
symbolic marker defining a Canadian community, at least an Anglo-Canadian
community.
The most striking aspect of the border as shield metaphor is its oppositional
character. As Anthony Cohen (1985: 58) wisely states, “boundaries are
relational rather than absolute; that is, they mark the community in relation to
other communities.” The border serves as the basic reference point for
historical, literal, symbolic and psychological interpretations of an Anglo-
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Canadian identity. Yet as discussed, identity is a problematical concept; it is
heavily contextual, difficult to measure, differs from place to place, and
changes over time. But what is constant in the Canadian experience is that all
groups in different regions and at different times have interpreted their identity
vis-à-vis their relationship with the United States. And in this context, the
border is the emotional and ideological focal point for the never-ending debate
over the nature of these relationships.
Yet the border as symbol should not blind us to the importance of place. In this
context, we can distinguish between borders as lines symbolizing
differentiation and as places or zones of mediation. It is the latter view in which
the concept of borderland is included. The borderlands concept, developed
years ago in other settings but only adopted recently by scholars interested in
Canadian-American relations, serves as a worthwhile albeit polemic
framework in which to view the complexity of this relationship. While borders
separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional relationships
are established which are acceptable for intercourse. Borderlands are created
by various economic, social and family networks which serve to integrate
communities on both sides of the boundary. The idea of borderlands takes on a
decidedly geographical flavour, given that its primary features “are revealed in
the dialectic between boundary as a political demarcation, and region as a
geographic entity . . .” (McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: 2).
Within North America, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands has long been the focus of
attention by a large number of scholars. This school of “southern borderlands
history” (egs. Bolton, 1921; Bannon, 1964; Nostrand, 1968; Martinez 1994,
1996) view this transborder region as an overlapping territory resulting from
functional interrelationships. Members of this school and those studying other
borderlands typically depict the two constituent spatial units of these regions as
peripheral within the context of their respective nations and therefore
particularly subject to foreign influences emanating from the adjacent country.
The border itself is seen as a determining force in the sense that all of those who
live along such a geopolitical boundary share a common experience resulting
from geographical propinquity and functional interdependence. It is this
transnational interaction that sets borderlands apart from interior zones.
These ideas have been adopted by the organizers of the Canadian-American
Borderlands Project, an interdisciplinary research and compiling effort whose
basic premise is that “North America runs more naturally north and south than
east and west...”(McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: ii). In the first of a series of
publications which include a modest number of monographs, regional
compendia and an anthology, the originator of the project, Lauren McKinsey,
and its major proponent, Victor Konrad, chair of the Fulbright Scholarship
PrograminCanada,provideaworkingdefinitionoftheborderlandsconcept: Borderlands is a region jointly shared by two nations that houses
people with common social characteristics in spite of the political
boundary between them. In a more narrow sense, borderlands can be
said to exist when shared characteristics within the region set it apart
from the country that contains it: residents share properties of the
region, and this gives them more in common with each other than with
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Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
members of their respective dominant cultures. More broadly, the
borderlands is an area in which interaction has a tempering effect on
the central tendencies of each society (1989: 4).
While borderlands proponents concentrate on similarities occurring within this
transborder region, selecting those features which are evident of “resistance to
an artificial division imposed by a political border” (ibid: 2), others focus on
expressions of difference. Borderlands are regions of both similarity and
difference, a duality of dualisms; what is emphasized often reflects underlying
ideology.
Most important in the contribution of the borderlands concept to an
understanding of the historical geography of Canadian-American relations is
that it returns the symbol of border to the fact of place. Our propensity in
this country to discern the border as a shield should not blind us to the powerful
and sometimes overwhelming forces which bridge us with the United States.
Yet at the same time, the Canadian-American border/borderland is a complex
line/place. Borderland communities certainly are “spatially proximate” as
Victor Konrad (1992: 199) states, but the degree of economic and social
integration varies both spatially and temporally, a fact that is recognized by
Borderlands scholars but is largely ignored in the research so far conducted.
Borderlands are organic; they evolve over time to become different kinds of
places.
Investigations of Canadian-American borderland interactions along different
transborder regions supports many of the arguments made by proponents of the
Borderlands Thesis (e.g. Coats, 1937; Hansen and Brebner, 1940; McInnis,
1942; Brebner, 1946; Lipset, 1950; Podea, 1950; Sharp, 1952; Bicha, 1962;
Preston, 1972; Brookes, 1976; Brookes, 1977; Hareven and Langenbach,
1978; Palmer, 1982; Breen, 1983; Louder and Waddell, 1983; Hammer and
Gartrell, 1986; Widdis, 1987; Fedorak, 1988; Widdis, 1988; Gibbins, 1989;
McKinsey and Konrad, 1989; Widdis, 1989; Wynn, 1987; Lipset, 1990;
Granatstein and Hillmer, 1991; Everitt, 1991; Lecker, 1991; McIlwraith, 1991;
Widdis, 1992; Ramirez, 1994; Shepard, 1994). Peoples, ideas and institutions
rarely have clear, precise identities. These elements of identity are mobile; they
begin from somewhere else and move across borders. To assess national and
regional identities in Canada, we must identify those historical-geographic
forces operating both from within and outside these units. Besides describing
similarities that occur on both sides within the borderland region, the
borderlands concept focuses on those shaping forces extending from and into
the United States. Economic, social and family relationships across the border
serve to integrate regions, cultures and communities.
Yet borderland regions were and are integrated at different levels and in
different ways. The variance in borderland experiences emphasizes that
borderlands are zones of difference and divergence as well as similarity and
convergence. The Canadian-American borderland is a parallax; the
ideological position from which it is viewed certainly influences the ways in
which it has been addressed. Proponents of the Borderlands Thesis view
integration as determined largely by geographical proximity, migration and
capitalist forces. As the frontierists did in the past, they look for those north-
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IJCS / RIÉC
south linkages that resulted in a synthesis within border regions. To a
considerable extent this argument is valid; geography and capitalism have
produced linkages that have resulted in considerable synthesis. Yet this in no
way implies that the border is either “meaningless” or “undesirable” (Buckner,
1989: 156).
Even though the core-periphery model is useful because it describes the
development of a relationship that has characterized all borderlands, the nature
of north-south linkages have varied over time and among borderland regions. It
seems to me that many, but not all, Borderlands supporters show little regard for
characteristics and events which differentiate people on both sides of the
border. Critics of the Borderlands Project see geography shaping a country very
different from its southern neighbour. Following the arguments of Innis and
Creighton, Harris (1990a: 152) maintains that the emergence of Canadian
regions, regional identities and even a national consciousness had more to do
with the east-west transcontinental expansion of trade and settlement than
proximity to American regions. Regional borders in Canada, he insists, are
more the result of distinctive European encounters with different Canadian
settings than simply being peripheries of American core regions (1990b: 1).
Both Harris and the Borderlands proponents overstate their case; the truth lies
somewhere in the middle of this dialectic. Harris and others cannot deny the
importance of integrative forces taking place within trans-border regions. The
existence of borderlands, zones of interaction, mediation and some degree of
integration, is obvious. At the same time, while Borderlands supporters are
justified in emphasizing cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also
recognize that, over time, Canada developed national economies and politicalcultural
institutions which transcended regional boundaries. Confederation
served to formalize the differences between Canada and the United States and,
accordingly, the border acquired a greater symbolic significance to Canadians.
To ignore this significance, Buckner (1989: 158) argues, unwittingly promotes
continentalism and supports “a variant of an even older American
concept—Manifest Destiny.” 2
Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations, edited by Robert
Lecker (1991), is the most ambitious product of the Borderlands Project to date
and noteworthy not only for the material presented in its fourteen essays but
also for the fact that the collection conveys some dispute over the manner in
which borderlands are to be interpreted. Most of the contributors share the view
of the first presenter, Victor Konrad (1991: viii), that borderlands “have a
tempering effect on the centralizing tendencies of each society, and these
regions reveal the ways in which the nation-states blend into each other.” Yet
five essays express a profound sense of Canadian-American difference in
various contexts. This debate over the nature and extent of integrative and
divergent forces challenges the aforementioned view of Konrad. Yet Konrad
(1991: x), to his credit, recognizes and welcomes such dialogue, stating that
“the borderlands between Canada and the United States largely remain open to
interpretation and subject to debate.”
Yet while they were influenced greatly by American goods, technologies,
myths and ideas, Canadians did not see their place in North America in exactly
60

Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
the same way that Americans did. Canadians from different regions and groups
formed variable ideas about society and their relationship with the United
States. Many continued to espouse certain of the social and political principles
inherited from Britain, but realized that a strong Canada was necessary to
ensure the continuance of those same ideals. But their view of Canada
continued to be framed by island perspectives. The islands in the late nineteenth
century were shrouded in the fog of ignorance and the few bridges that had been
constructed were in danger of collapsing from too little structural support. Yet
this archipelago of solitudes, created within an institutional framework which
in many ways furthered division, slowly developed associations that
transcended differences and strengthened ties even in the face of developing
north-south integration. That this was a struggle, there is no doubt; yet it was in
this effort that Canadians discovered what they shared in common and
constructed bridges.
Conclusion: A Perspective on the Present
The turn-of-the-century voyageur, with his psyche of juxtaposed identities,
borders of division and bridges of association, belonged to a time and place in
which his thinking was situated. The culture that acknowledged this belonging
was none the less real for being poorly articulated. The few but potent symbolic
identifications with “here” and symbolic differentiations from “there” were
fundamental to a collective sense of identity in the face of powerful forces of
integration. Contingency and situatedness were and still are the qualities of the
voyageur. It is through these frames of reference that he took his identity.
The voyageur was, is, and always will be, confronted by a series of paradoxes
which complicates his search for identity and the border metaphor symbolizes a
collective struggle with an existence that has a multitude of contradictory or
inconsistent qualities. To a significant extent, comprehension of these
paradoxes was and still is beyond the capabilities of the ordinary voyageur. For
various reasons, the complexities and dimensions were not well articulated to
the average Canadian in the late nineteenth century. The primary goal was to
maximize life chances of survival. For many, that meant leaving familiar
waters for what was perceived as more hospitable shores in other regions of
Canada or south of the border. Yet the voyageur was not simply an economic
animal driven by desire for wealth and security. He was related, however
tenuously, to a symbolic realm of culturally relative values. The voyageur took
with him the values, experiences and memories of his particular island and his
archipelago.
It is worthwhile to inquire as to the place of the voyageur now as this century
draws to a close. Some things have not changed much. Canada still exists as a
country with many layers of identity and possessing the same internal regional,
cultural and economic divisions. Local places continue to provide the most
important frame of reference and structure wider networks of economic,
political and social interaction. Canada can still be described as “a reluctant
partnership composed of two separate nations sharing a single state, or as a
series of regions, each with their own identities, not denying each other’s
distinctiveness but attempting to establish a frame whereby the efforts to secure
61

IJCS / RIÉC
their own separate identities is juxtaposed against the desire to find grounds for
integration” (Thorsell, 1995: D6).
Yet while the voyageur is still on his journey, the map has changed
significantly, a transformation that has been decoded in different ways. For
some, Canada represents the archetypal postmodern society. The noted
Canadian novelist, Robert Kroetsch (1989), portrays Canada as a fragmented,
postmodern country because it lacks unifying meta-narratives such as
revolutionary genesis or a single, unifying National Dream. Canadians, he
believes, do not exist in a tight matrix of ideals; they come together because of
the threat of death and disintegration. “If it is correct that postmodern culture
thrives on irony, parody, and paradox”, the geographer Paul Villeneuve (1993:
99) reasons:
[T]hen Canada has been postmodern for quite some time. The
postmodern attitude seeks to transgress boundaries, and it emerges at
a time when the cultural boundary between Canada and Quebec seems
to be getting thicker and thicker. The same events do not have the same
meaning in Canada as in Quebec. To transgress a cultural boundary,
one literally has to “balance the boundary.” And balancing on the
boundary is the same, in this case, as staying in a paradox. This is the
only vantage point from which to question spatial metaphors built on
binary oppositions.
In such a postmodern society, “the forces of new technologies, globalization
and ‘time-space compression’ have together created a sense of information
flows, fragmentation and pace replacing what is ...perceived [even in
Canada’s case] to be a previous stability of homogeneity, community and
place” (Carter, Donald and Squires 1993: viii). In this world of expanding
horizons (for some) and dissolving boundaries, where space becomes less
important in a society where accessibility via the satellite dish and the Internet
is freed from propinquity, places are no longer clear supports of identity. In this
new world order, regional differences are increasingly diminished in the face of
homogeneous economic forces and a global culture which promotes
simplification. Although regional circumstances continue to shape the impacts
of broader forces, a gradual convergence is taking place and regional identities
are vanishing.
Some may point to the reemergence of place expressed in postmodern culture
as evidence of a strong reaction against the homogenizing forces of modernity.
Yet the creation of renovated warehouses, pedestrian malls, and nouveau-deco
architecture that reflect something of the history and geography of the places in
which they are situated and stand in direct contrast to the utilitarian, universal
landscapes produced in the postwar period are actually part of a culture and
philosophy that is “the latest...expression of the transition from rationalist/
Modernist . . . capitalism to an emergent, globalizing advanced capitalism”
(Knox 1991: 203). A material culture imposed from a disorienting
global/American space is replacing local spaces or moulding them into
landscapes of consumption. Increasingly, places of consumption are as
important as the items being purchased, and visits to these places take on an
almost ritualistic flavour. It almost seems as if individuals and groups are
deriving some sense of identity as they shop, eat and drink in these shrines.
62

In this new global environment, place is no longer the defining element of our
new identity. Where is here? The geographic compass points which enable the
voyageur to orient himself in time and space are disappearing. The promise of
arrival that was such an important part of the journey no longer seems possible.
Without the legend and conventions of the map, without the symbol of the
border, the voyage is cancelled and the voyageur is left adrift searching for a
frame of reference.
Notes
1. The meaning and symbolism of the border, particularly that separating Canada and the
United States, is discussed in greater detail in my article: A Canadian Geographer’s
Perspective on the Canada-United States Border. In D. Janelle, ed. Geographical Snapshots
of North America, Commemorating the 27th Congress of the International Geographical
Union and Assembly (New York: Guilford Press, 1992). A discussion of Canadian-
American borderland regions is included in my forthcoming book entitled With Scarcely A
Ripple: Intracontinental Anglo-Canadian Migration At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998).
2. I plan to write a synthetic overview which compares and contrasts the historical geography
of Canadian-American interactions within borderland regions that were and are integrated at
different levels and in different ways. This research will not adhere to either extreme view
discussed in this paper but will attempt to sensitively explore the changing relationships
between Canada and the United States as manifested in different borderland regions.
Specifically, it will explore migration flows, the diffusion of technologies and ideas, the
common transformation of landscapes, and the evolution of industrial and capitalist
relations across the border. As such, it will attempt to deal with the criticism made by
Worster (1992: 226) that there exists “no real school of northern borderlands history, no
Herbert Bolton or John Francis Bannon for these parts.”
This inquiry will recognize, however, some fundamental differences between the northern
and southern borderlands, particularly the fact that the former is in many ways more diverse
and therefore more puzzling than the latter despite the fact that a far greater percentage of
people living on both sides of the Canadian-American border share the same language and
culture and interact within social and economic contexts than do those who live along the
Mexican-American boundary. The complexity of the northern borderlands is due to regional
variations that, when viewed through an historical-geographical perspective, are seen to be
more pronounced than those along the southern borderlands. While Oscar Martinez (1994:
303), a notable member of the southern borderlands school, argues that “notwithstanding
local variations...the[U.S.-Mexico] borderlands constitute a single transnational system
that focuses essentially the same from Brownsville-Matamoros to Tijuana-San Diego...”,
the same statement cannot be made for the Canadian-American borderlands where regional
differences in the historical geography of cross-border interactions have produced a picture
that is much more paradoxical than is commonly believed. Yet at the same time, this research
will recognize that developments within the borderland regions were shaped to a
considerable extent by larger processes of a developing global capitalist system. In this
context, the analysis will examine core and periphery relations within and among borderland
regions as a means of assessing differences in borderlands experiences.
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66

Guildo Rousseau
La descente du continent
Résumé
Le transfert dans l’ordre de l’imaginaire et du mythe des solutions aux
problèmes que l’homme ne parvient pas à résoudre effectivement est un
phénomène commun à toutes les sociétés du monde. La persistance d’un tel
phénomène dans l’univers mental du temps renvoie nécessairement à une
vision du monde et du sujet humain dans le monde. C’est en quelque sorte
l’étude mythocritique de ce « passage » du Temps à l’Espace — voire leur
nécessaire confluence — que l’auteur cherche ici à mettre en lumière à partir
d’une double hypothèse d’interprétation du Mythe de l’Amérique dans la
littérature nord-américaine. L’analyse comparée d’un certain nombre
d’œuvres littéraires américaines, canadiennes-anglaises et québécoises
l’amène à examiner les polarités spatiales (Nord/Sud, Est/Ouest) comme
autant de pôles inducteurs du pluralisme cohérent qui traverse les grandes
images culturelles du temps, du lieu et de l’espace. La géographie imaginaire
nord-américaine est d’abord pour l’auteur une « descente du continent » qui
conduit à l’ultime anamnèse : au Léthé mythique dont la représentation
symbolique, réactualisée à travers celle des grands fleuves du continent (le
Saint-Laurent, le Mississippi, le Columbia, le Mackenzie, le Rio Grande...)
constituerait l’une des topiques fondamentales de l’imaginaire géographique
nord-américain.
Abstract
Transferring solutions to the problems humankind is unable to effectively
resolve from the realm of the imaginary and myth is a process common to all
societies of the world. The persistence of this phenomenon in the mental
construct of time necessarily references a vision of the world and of human
beings in the world. Here, the author engages in what might be termed a
mythical-critical study to shed light on this “passage” from Time to
Space—their necessary convergence even—based on a two-fold hypothesis
for interpreting the Myth of America in North American literature. A
comparative analysis of a certain number of American, English-Canadian
and Québécois authors leads to an examination of spatial polarities
(North/South, East/West) as the inductors of a coherent pluralism apparent in
the major cultural images of time, place and space. For the author, the North
American geographic imaginary is above all a “descent of the continent”
leading to the final analysis: the mythical river Lethe and its symbolic
portrayal, evoked by the continent’s major rivers (the St. Lawrence, the
Mississippi, the Columbia, the Mackenzie and the Rio Grande), is a
fundamental theme of the North American geographic imaginary.
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

IJCS / RIÉC
Les notions d’imaginaire et de culture souffrent d’ambiguïté. Les deux termes
sont tantôt opposés, tantôt juxtaposés, quand ils ne s’englobent pas
mutuellement. Le fait majeur est que leurs rapports se fondent sur un matériel
sémiotique fort complexe. C’est en effet dans et par un ensemble de « signesdiscours1
», et ceux propres à la manifestation des « sémiotiques verbales2 »
que l’univers mental d’un individu ou d’une société se réalise le plus souvent et
le plus intensément. Discours, langue et culture ne se conçoivent pas non plus
sans rapports entre eux, sans une structure sociosémiotique qui anime leurs
interrelations. Plus encore, toute sémiotique verbale ou culturelle répond à une
situation géographique, historique et civilisatrice, où se débattent non plus des
faits bruts mais des hommes. Si bien que les traits culturels d’une société ne
s’additionnent pas arbitrairement les uns les autres. Ils prennent place dans un
monde naturel, dans un milieu humain, dans des rituels et des pratiques
sociales, dans des institutions qui les véhiculent; ils s’adaptent encore aux
nécessités et aux circonstances ou subissent les érosions du temps. Ces traits
culturels se présentent aussi sous la forme de relations interpersonnelles, donc
d’échange de besoins, de sentiments ou de paroles, qui instaurent l’événement,
la crise, ou encore le changement. De ces réalités géohistoriques, naissent les
topiques socioculturelles de l’imaginaire, certes peu nombreuses, mais grâce
auxquelles, comme le soutient Bachelard, « le monde vient s’imaginer » de
façon nouvelle dans la vie imaginative d’une société.
Ainsi il ne saurait y avoir de découpage statique des réalités imaginatives et
culturelles qui enlèverait à l’événement sa valeur d’événement. Pour avancer
dans cette direction, il suffit d’ailleurs d’interroger, à titre d’exemple, la culture
géographique répandue dans les littératures américaine, canadienne et
québécoise. Une géographie d’abord mythique, où les lieux de l’identité et de
l’altérité ne cessent de puiser aux mêmes confluences la pluralité de leur
pouvoir de représentation; une « géographie de l’imaginaire », pour reprendre
une expression chère à Gilbert Durand, où la narration de « l’Amérique
introuvable », celle d’un Jack Kerouac, d’un Leonard Cohen ou d’un Louis
Hamelin, fait ressortir des « cartes mentales » jamais accidentelles ou
différenciées, mais qui épousent plutôt des territorialités à partir desquelles les
sociétés actualisent dans le temps leurs expériences imaginatives sous forme de
discours ou de représentations symboliques. Mais voilà! L’espace imaginaire
une fois supposé, il reste le temps comme fabrique d’images. Aussi parler de
l’Amérique imaginaire, c’est d’abord renouer avec le temps primordial; c’est
encore réfléchir longuement sur la mémoire de l’espèce et sur ses engagements
dans des mythologies, des utopies, ou tout simplement dans des « images du
monde ». Le questionnement proposé ici sera donc forcément incomplet.
Impossible, en effet, d’en faire entièrement le tour sans se soumettre, entre
autres, à un long débat sur les déterminants géographiques nord-américains qui
se trouvent, encore aujourd’hui, au centre des interprétations dominantes de
l’histoire canadienne et québécoise; il faudrait également s’interroger sur les
imaginaires sociaux et leurs ancrages fondamentaux dans les mémoires
collectives; il faudrait, pour que ce questionnement ait du « sens », réfléchir
encore sur cette « mentalité de garnison » (on est soit un guerrier, soit un
déserteur) dont parle Northrop Frye et qui est assez curieusement une vision du
monde commune aux discours culturels canadien et québécois. Notre ambition
68

est plus modeste. Elle s’articule autour de deux hypothèses d’interprétation de
l’espace imaginaire nord-américain dans les littératures canadiennes
d’expression anglaise et française.
* * *
Première hypothèse
La descente du continent
« Le mythe est vécu à l’Ouest mais raconté à l’Est »
La première question de fond, qui nous vient, lorsqu’on s’interroge sur la
sensibilité culturelle des écrivains canadiens d’expression anglaise et française
à l’égard du monde naturel nord-américain, est de savoir « de quoi ici est-il
fait »? Or, pour peu que l’on fréquente leurs œuvres, il nous apparaît vite
évident qu’ils n’ont pu réussir à formuler une mythologie littéraire vraiment
imaginative, c’est-à-dire une mythologie à partir de laquelle il est possible
d’imaginer autrement le monde réel; au contraire, ils ont dans une très large
majorité produit des œuvres qui demeurent conformes à la mythologie sociale
de leur époque. Sans doute trouve-t-on chez les écrivains américains des XIXe
et XXe siècles le même phénomène. Plus encore, à bien considérer les
contextes interculturels dans lesquels les littératures américaine, canadienne et
québécoise se sont développées, il est même banal de dire que ces trois
littératures ont en commun un corpus d’œuvres où triomphe une telle
mythologie qui a comme point d’appui un mythe pastoral.
Rechercher l’articulation de cette mythologie sociale, qui médiatise un pan
certain de la mémoire collective nord-américaine, y compris celle des
Québécois d’expression française, c’est d’abord s’interroger sur les « trajets
anthropologiques » à partir desquels émergent et finissent par se rationaliser les
grands mythes antagonistes propres à une aire géographique particulière. Or,
c’est avec l’image centrale du fleuve Saint-Laurent que l’on peut, croyonsnous,
le mieux saisir la « fonctionnalité québécoise » de notre première
hypothèse qui, soit dit en passant, se retrouve aussi comme mythe social dans
les cultures américaine et canadienne3. Sur le plan géographique et culturel, le
Saint-Laurent est un véritable symbole : on y pénètre comme Jonas dans la
baleine, en ressentant un sentiment d’engloutissement; puis, le « mouvement
laurentien » nous pousse vers l’Ouest par des voies d’eau qui conduisent aux
mystères du continent4. Voilà, nous semble-t-il, l’espace primordial du désir
qui circule à travers toute l’histoire géographique et culturelle québécoise et
canadienne : un espace pénétré et traversé par des savoirs oniriques et
rationnels hérités du monde européen5, mais aussi soumis à des
déstructurations et restructurations politiques, économiques et sociales qui ont
provoqué au cours de l’histoire des « déplacements » de sens.
S’ilyaeneffet une certaine logique dans l’élaboration du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale, cette logique est éminemment profane. Ici, la métis humaine, c’est-àdire
l’intelligence pratique et technique6, fonde et nourrit les représentations
collectives. Énoncé comme espace sacré et comme discours que la société (de
l’Est) tient sur elle-même, l’Ouest — entendons surtout celui de la Nature
sauvage et amérindienne — est soumis à la temporalité, au discours historique,
plus exactement, à la durée existentielle. Il se présente comme « l’objet »
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culturel de l’Est par excellence. Les figures légendaires du Canadien
découvreur de terres neuves, du Pionnier civilisateur de la Frontière, ou encore
du Coureur de bois, frère de sang de l’Indien, ne commencent ni ne finissent
avec le pattern imaginé par Turner; leurs épiques parcours et errances dans le
monde fictif de l’Ouest se révèlent davantage le produit culturel et imaginatif
des sociétés urbaines de l’Est que le fruit d’une expérience humaine réellement
vécue au sein de contrées inconnues7. L’espace narratif du mythe de l’Amérique est donc tendu entre deux pôles :
l’Est, lieu de l’émission et de la réception du mythe, et l’Ouest, l’objet
d’énonciation du récit lui-même, le tiers interposé entre le destinateur et le
destinataire. Plus justement, le discours mythique ne vient pas « d’ailleurs »,
plongeant profondément ses racines dans les rêves culturels importés
d’Europe8,ilestrevécu et redit par une ou plusieurs consciences en même
temps qu’il devient un lieu d’échange culturalisé et culturalisant.
*
Un tel discours mythique prolifère dans l’histoire culturelle et littéraire nordaméricaine.
Tissé et retissé à partir de légendes et de contes, il envahit au XIXe
siècle le roman, le cirque, les récits de voyage, voire encore des formes d’art
comme la peinture et la musique, et apparaît dans le répertoire théâtral où il
trouve parfois sa forme la plus achevée. Or, c’est notamment le cas avec la pièce
de théâtre La Dalle-des-Morts (1965) de Félix-Antoine Savard, dont le contenu
dramatique énonce un « rêve culturel » éminemment itératif. Voilà, en effet,
qu’au beau milieu de la Révolution tranquille, le thème de la course aux
fourrures « fait retour » et redit le mythe de l’Amérique pastorale, française
cette fois, sous une forme toute particulière : la vision de la grandeur historique
(disparue) qu’aurait été la geste passionnée et courageuse des Voyageurs des
Pays-d’En-Haut. Ici encore, le « Grand-Ouest » renaît et meurt par l’utilisation
excessive du langage et de la culture savante (de l’Est). Le jeune Gildore, le
fiancé de Délie (la Femme-Terre), n’en finit plus de demander à son père José-
Paul, lui-même coureur de bois, de lui nommer les lieux de passage vers
l’Ouest : « Et, au-delà, qu’y a-t-il, mon père? ». En fait, ilyalaMort9, et c’est ce
à quoi pense le père. Or, c’est bien ce projet d’énonciation des lieux comme
savoir technique et rationnel10 qui définit ici la quête du héros épique et qui, en
même temps, le perdra, non pas à ses yeux, mais aux yeux de ceux qui voient à
l’Ouest l’Ailleurs de l’Autre. De fait, la cartographie empirique et descriptive
du père, bien que liée à l’activité profane de la course aux fourrures, sous-tend
ici une organisation discontinue et sacrée de l’espace historique canadien.
À vrai dire, la culture géographique, intériorisée et savante, de José- Paul11 est
doublement signifiante : elle l’est pour son fils Gildore et pour tous les autres
acteurs du drame qui la reçoivent objectivement comme l’Ailleurs de leur Ici;
elle l’est pareillement pour Félix-Antoine Savard qui, en tant que lecteur et
énonciateur du Mythe, éprouve en lui cet Ailleurs de l’Autre comme
narrativement le sien12: Ces hommes que j’ai toujours considérés comme le plus pur produit
de la grande nature de mon pays et son expression la plus authentique,
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La descente du continent
Paul Kane, La Dalle-des-Morts
Source et droits de reproduction accordés : Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
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m’ont fait comprendre, admirer et aimer l’une des plus belles et des
plus riches époques de notre histoire.
C’est grâce à leur contact fraternel, à l’observation sans cesse
émerveillée de leur finesse, de leur force et incroyable endurance, de
leur amour de la véritable liberté, que j’ai pu reconstituer en moi une
sorte de carte vivante et parlante non du seul Québec, mais de tout le
grand pays français de jadis [. . .].
La seconde source, je l’ai trouvée dans l’histoire de mon pays; et
d’abord dans cette sorte de conflit qui, dès les premiers temps de la
Nouvelle-France, n’a cessé d’opposer les paysans sédentaires aux
découvreurs, explorateurs et coureurs de bois [. . .] 13 .
Ainsi, c’est par le détour de l’Ailleurs que Félix-Antoine Savard nous présente
le lieu actif et productif du Mythe. C’est effectivement pour le lecteur de l’Est14 qu’il écrit sa mise en œuvre, dramatique et narrative, de La Dalle-des-Morts15. Que dire! Pendant qu’il compose son œuvre, il n’a de cesse, lui aussi, qu’il
parte. . . Tel le jeune Gildore, Savard prend l’ordre du récit pour l’ordre du
monde, tel qu’il fut et tel qu’il devrait être encore grâce à la force illocutoire du
mythe. Qu’il suffirait de croire au récit, de faire en quelque sorte, dans l’ordre
du temps narratif, un certain voyage vers l’Ouest pour vivre à nouveau ce que
l’Ancêtre a vécu une fois et ainsi retrouver, dans son lieu d’accomplissement,
les gestes héroïques qui façonnent l’identité de l’homme. . . En tournant son
regard vers l’eau du Fleuve, c’est bien vers la profondeur du continent nordaméricain
que « descend » l’auteur de Menaud et de L’Abatis.
*
Cet entrecroisement de la mémoire individuelle et collective, tel qu’il apparaît
chez Félix-Antoine Savard, constitue une forme d’expression largement
répandue dans la littérature nord-américaine. Il arrive cependant que le mythe
de l’Amérique pastorale s’exprime sous une forme plus imaginative et
autonome et qu’il soit ainsi à l’origine d’une véritable mythologie littéraire.
Une mythologie où le phénomène de l’identification du sujet (le héros ou
l’écrivain) à l’objet se situe à l’intérieur des formes littéraires elles-mêmes, et
non plus séparé de l’objet, comme cela se produit dans toute mythologie
sociale, produite par la société, et dont la finalité est de nous persuader
d’accepter les valeurs sociales existantes. Ces formes d’expression plus
imaginatives du mythe, où le processus d’identification est renversé, nous
pouvons les retrouver, par exemple, dans le roman de Philip Grove, A Search of
America (1927), où le narrateur est à la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique, non
plus dans ses formes sociales (la petite maison de campagne, l’univers heureux
de la ferme, les vastes horizons de la Frontière. . .), stéréotypes qu’il rejette
d’ailleurs, mais dans ses formes d’expression verbale. Aussi voyons-nous
celui-ci parcourir plutôt le Walden (1854) de Thoreau, ou encore suivre le héros
de Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn, 1885) se laissant aller au fil du Mississippi.
L’Amérique de Grove se réactualise dans les rituels et les rêves que constituent
en quelque sorte les œuvres littéraires elles-mêmes et dont la lecture, par
l’écrivain ou par le lecteur, rend possible l’avènement du mythe.
Travels With Charley (1962) du romancier américain John Steinbeck nous
conduit lui aussi d’est en ouest, dans une quête identitaire qui rappelle celle
72

entreprise par le héros de Philip Grove. D’ailleurs sous-titré « In Search of
America », le roman met en scène un écrivain fictif, Steinbeck lui-même, qui se
rend compte de sa méconnaissance du pays. Un long voyage le conduira donc
de Sag Harbor (Long Island) à San Francisco, en compagnie d’un chien —
Charley — avec qui il traverse une Amérique bien différente de celle qu’il avait
jusqu’à lors peint le tableau dans ses œuvres. Mais plus le voyage avance vers
l’Ouest, plus le narrateur voit dans le pays qu’il parcourt la représentation
désolante d’une société consommatrice de l’artifice et du clinquant16; bref, une
société aux mille et une contradictions, dont la vision imaginaire de son destin
n’a rien à voir avec celle des Pèlerins du Mayflower. Incapable de saisir la
réalité profonde d’une Amérique qu’il voudrait pourtant décrire, le narrateur se
remémore alors, suivant les étapes du voyage, des souvenirs de lectures faites
au temps de son enfance ou pendant sa période productive d’écrivain : The
Great Divide, Main Street (1920) de Sinclair Lewis, Heavenly Discourse
(1927) de Charles Erskine Scott Wood, You Can’t Go Home Again (1940) de
Thomas Wolfe. . ., et d’autres encore, dont le contenu mythique est, à ses yeux,
l’expression même des grandes images reliantes (ou archétypales) de l’éternel
désir de l’Amérique. Travels With Charley est une géographique du mythe
américain à la recherche de son éternel voyageur.
Plus près de nous, Jacques Poulin, dans son roman Volkswagen Blues (1984),
nous livre, d’une très belle manière, la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique chez
son héros. De Gaspé à San Francisco, l’écrivain Jack Waterman17, l’un des
personnages à qui l’instance narrative à la troisième personne prête la parole,
est à la recherche de son frère aîné, en compagnie d’une métisse surnommée la
Grande Sauterelle. Or, lui aussi, à l’instar du héros de Grove, prend (ou est
obligé de prendre à cause de son contrat énonciatif) la contrepartie imaginative
du Mythe, s’arrêtant dans les musées et les bibliothèques, et se livrant à toutes
sortes de lectures, dont celle toute particulière de The Oregon Trail, dans
l’espoir de percer le mystère qui entoure son désir inconscient de l’Amérique. Il
n’y arrivera pas. Contrairement à celle du jeune Gildore dans La Dalle-des-
Morts, sa quête le ramène vers l’Est. Le roman Volkswagen Blues apparaît
comme une anti-épopée liquidant la figure du héros mythique telle qu’elle est
déployée dans La Dalle-des-Morts18. Volkswagen Blues est le récit de la perte
définitive des origines nord-américaines19. Seule la Grande Sauterelle, la
femme métisse, retrouve à l’Ouest le sens de l’éternel recommencement de
l’Histoire des Amériques. . .
* * *
Deuxième hypothèse
La descente du continent
« Le Nord et le Sud, ou la forme hétérologique du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale »
C’est encore en réfléchissant sur les lois et les conditions de l’histoire culturelle
canadienne et québécoise que l’on peut le mieux saisir la polarisation sur l’axe
Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale. Porte d’entrée à l’intérieur du
continent, le Saint-Laurent n’apportait pas précisément la possession du
Nouveau-Monde. Quelque chose se dressait entre lui et le continent et qui le
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désavantageait : le littoral de la mer. Cette réalité géographique a marqué
profondément, croyons-nous, l’histoire culturelle du Québec et du Canada :
pénétrer et s’installer aux États-Unis furent le fait de traverser l’océan et de se
déplacer jusqu’à la Frontière; pénétrer et s’installer au Canada furent le fait
d’être englouti par un continent étranger et de sentir la frontière tout autour de
soi20. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que notre culture, et en particulier nos
littératures, tant canadienne que québécoise, soient traversées par des images,
des « fixations » sur le monde nord-américain qui interpellent sans cesse notre
sensibilité : les canaux contre les rivières, les chemins de fer contre les fleuves,
les voies maritimes contre les routes, le roc contre la plaine fertile. . . Véritable
tragédie! D’un côté Moby Dick, de l’autre l’impossible Passage du Nord-
Ouest. Au Sud, la « ceinture dorée du soleil » (le Sunbelt), au Nord les pays de la
neige et du froid (le Snowbelt et le Frostbelt).
Perçue et ressentie suivant des structures affectives ou imageantes qui courent
de l’Est vers l’Ouest21, la géographie du pays est ainsi soumise à une autre
forme de mentalité continentale plus critique et plus idéologique : une mentalité
plus portée à considérer le monde (naturel) canadien ou québécois comme étant
destiné à d’autres fins. C’est que l’axe Nord/Sud permet la division des
contraires, d’introduire la coupure, le partage — l’acte culturel par excellence
— qui produit un espace séparé et délimité où s’inverse le sens de toute chose.
Alors tout est possible. Le mythe peut se métamorphoser pour s’adapter à un
nouveau temps et à un nouvel espace mental, et ainsi répondre à de nouveaux
besoins, à un plus grand consensus social, voire à de nouvelles quêtes des
origines22. Ainsi ce qu’on a appelé « le Mythe du Nord » serait d’abord, dans sa dimension
idéologique, la polarisation sur l’axe Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale23. Plus exactement, la vision d’un idéal social dont les
représentations imaginatives se retrouvent d’ailleurs dans la majorité des
cultures ou des civilisations : la nostalgie d’un monde paisible et protecteur,
étroitement lié au monde animal et végétal; « la vie simple, libre et ordonnée24 »
du défricheur ou de l’habitant enraciné dans sa terre; la cité habitée par des
hommes naturellement bons, ignorant le péché et vivant une vie pleine d’aise. . .
Que ce mythe domine notre culture, autant savante que populaire, qu’il prenne
ses appuis sur des images spatiales et sur des habitudes de pensée enveloppées
dans les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, la raison en est qu’il permet une «
commune manière de penser » les enjeux de la société. Par conséquent,
s’employer à la compréhension de ce mythe, c’est entrer de plain-pied dans le
va-et-vient des représentations mentales en ce qu’elles se découvrent dans et
par la société. En ce sens, il n’est pas du tout certain, comme on l’a prétendu, que
l’image profonde du Nord soit dans l’inconscient des Québécois un « calque »
de « l’image de la féminitude25 ». Les mythes sociaux ne se collent jamais, «
comme des plantes desséchées, sur l’herbier de l’imaginaire26 ». Ils sont plutôt
des efforts pour réorganiser une vision du monde troublée, ou ils se veulent une
réponse à l’angoisse du changement.
*
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La descente du continent
Certes, l’axe Nord/Sud se constitue en représentations imaginaires ou
symboliques de toutes sortes27. Selon les périodes de l’histoire canadienne ou
québécoise, il recouvre un jeu d’oppositions qui débordent de tous côtés, tantôt
au gré des réalités sociales et économiques28, souvent tragiquement vécues,
tantôt selon les déplacements de sens, les pulsions ou les répulsions, qui
éprouvent la quête épique ou identitaire du héros canadien ou québécois29. Du
Mémoire sur les mœurs, coustume et relligion des sauvages de l’Amérique
septentrionale (entre 1710-1717?) de Nicolas Perrot à Né à Québec (1933)
d’Alain Grandbois, de La Longue traverse (The Conjuror’s House, 1903) de
Stewart-Edward White à La Rivière sans repos (1970) de Gabrielle Roy, de The
Foreigner (1909) de Raph Connor aux Fous de Bassan (1982) d’Anne Hébert,
la géographie imaginaire du continent nord-américain se fait antinomique, se
renverse sur elle-même, comme pour libérer le Nord et le Sud de leurs prélogiques
et de leurs mythes irréductibles : le Sud, espace du péché, de la faute,
de la punition, de la souillure ineffaçable; le Nord, espace de la rédemption, de
la folie créatrice, de l’innocence native, de la quête spirituelle. . . La formule
est elliptique! Nous en convenons. Elle permet néanmoins de saisir les deux
axes du monde qui interpellent sans cesse les héros des œuvres que nous venons
de citer. La quête nordique de Pierre Cadorai dans La Montagne secrète (1961)
de Gabrielle Roy a son centre dans la « nuit arctique », dans l’éblouissement de
la Montagne qui devient pour le jeune peintre le symbole même de sa lumière
intérieure : « . . . elle était devenue son âme30 », écrit la romancière. La descente
vers le Sud de Berthold Mâchefer dans Oh Miami, Miami, Miami (1973) de
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu se fait pour sa part sous le signe d’une américanité
refoulée : miroir de sa sexualité infantile et de son homosexualité ignorée, mais
aussi et — par-dessus tout — expression de l’ultime Grand Retour (interdit)
vers la Mère31 par laquelle le héros brûle d’être introduit dans le monde de la
sexualité32. Impossible régénération, comme si Éros et Thanatos
convergeaient trop vers la même errance androgyne, vers le même Deep South
faulknérien.
D’autres Suds imaginaires sont aussi possibles, qui dédoublent la quête d’un
Grand Sud obsessionnel. Des Suds soumis aux fureurs de l’inconscient ou
livrés aux profondeurs de la Night of America : celui des Fous de Bassan
d’Anne Hébert, qui est un va-et-vient intérieur entre Griffin Creek, Montréal et
Key West; celui du Premier mouvement (1987) de Jacques Marchand : récit
mimétique d’une nouvelle fantastique d’Edgard Allan Poe intitulé William
Wilson; celui encore du Cœur éclaté (1993) de Michel Tremblay, dont la
texture s’écoule semblable à un triste lamento sur la mort; ou celui tout récent de
Pâques à Miami (1996) de Claude Jasmin, avec ses exils burlesques et ses
licencieuses mystiques. Voilà donc autant de Suds, qui n’existent que par
rapport au Nord : « The South is what I want! », aimait à dire Jack Kerouac. À
dire vrai, la « vastitude » du continent se perd en quelque sorte dans ces
descentes fictives du Nord au Sud, dont les parcours se mêlent parfois aux eaux
du Mississippi, sur les rives duquel l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain rêvait,
autour des années 1850, de voir se réaliser le mythe de La France américaine;
descente cardinale, mais aussi vision perdue d’un monde, dont Alain
Grandbois dans Né à Québec (1933) et William Carlos William dans In the
American Grain (1925) nous donnent la juste mesure. L’aventure américaine
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qu’ils prêtent à leurs « conquérants sans conquête33 » — pour l’un, Louis
Jolliet; pour l’autre, Ferdinand De Soto — est une lecture des commencements
des Amériques.
*
L’axe Nord/Sud génère des paysages mentaux inscrits dans les formes
expressives même du continent34. Un écrivain de talent comme Félix-Antoine
Savard l’a bien compris; au lieu d’user du symbolisme traditionnel européen de
la hache ou de la charrue pour signifier toute la valeur mythique du Nord, il fait
plutôt appel au vol des oies sauvages, métaphore extrêmement riche de sens.
Sans doute l’idéologie colonisatrice y est-elle encore affirmée, mais elle
s’exprime entièrement dans l’aventure éternellement recommencée de la
grande vie sauvage nord-américaine :
Elles s’avancent par volées angulaires, liées ensemble à l’oie capitale
par un fil invisible. Inlassablement, elles entretiennent cette
géométrie mystérieuse, toutes indépendantes, chacune tendue droit
vers sa propre fin, mais, en même temps, toutes unies, toutes obliques,
sans cesse ramenées, par leur instinct social, vers cette fine pointe qui
signifie : orientation, solidarité, pénétration unanime dans le dur de
l’air et les risques du voyage.
C’est une démocratie qu’il nous serait utile d’étudier pour le droit et
ferme vouloir collectif, pour l’obéissance allègre à la discipline de
l’alignement, pour cette vertu de l’oie-capitaine qui, son
gouvernement épuisé, cède à une autre, reprend tout simplement la
file, sans autre préoccupation que sa propre eurythmie, sans autre
récompense que le chant de ses ailes derrière d’autres ailes et la
victoire de l’espace parcouru [. . .].
ADMIRABLES, admirables, intrépides et fidèles, que vous
m’enseignez de choses! 35
Dans sa polarité systémique avec le Sud, le mythe du Nord serait donc
comparable au vol des oies sauvages toujours fidèles à leur destin. La migration
qu’elles accomplissent ainsi du Nord au Sud fait figure d’un rituel qui n’est pas
sans rappeler la quête du héros mythique; comme ces oiseaux migrateurs qui
s’envolent à chaque automne vers le sud américain, le héros doit en effet
descendre, passer par l’autre monde, pour effectuer sa naissance, puis remonter
vers la mort-résurrection36, vers l’Ancêtre qui lui a donné la vie. . . Ainsi se
trouve résolu, il nous semble, l’épuisement du désir que symbolise dans
l’imaginaire nord-américain, le parcours vers l’Ouest. Parcours solaire, l’axe
Est-Ouest constitue à la fois une quête de la transcendance et une perte de
l’énergie dépensée37 par le héros civilisateur, une entropie du destin inscrit
dans l’immanence et dans sa durée existentielle. L’homme de l’Ouest est, en
effet, l’étranger : celui qui est dépourvu d’ascendance et de descendance.
« Pays de l’obscurité et du déclin », pour reprendre une expression de Gilbert
Durand, l’Ouest symbolise le couchant de la vie38 : il est le lieu où s’accomplit
la descente vers la mort absolue, c’est-à-dire une mort retranchée du monde des
siens, comme la reçoivent le vieux trappeur Bas-de-cuir de Fenimore Cooper
ou encore Tristan Bonhomme, le héros de L’Homme qui va (1929) de Jean-
Charles Harvey. Et c’est sans doute parce qu’un tel parcours est livré aux forces
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La descente du continent
de la nuit que nos héros légendaires et romanesques, après avoir parcouru le
continent d’Est en Ouest, remontent vers le Nord, c’est-à-dire vers l’Est, vers le
lieu de leur origine. Encore une fois, seul l’Amérindien, parce que né dans la
Sauvagerie de l’Ouest, a le pouvoir de traverser la Mort américaine et d’y conaître
l’achèvement du Mythe.
L’ultime rencontre de l’homme Blanc avec les Amériques ne se réaliserait donc
qu’au prix d’une identité avec l’Autre de l’homme...UnFélix-Antoine Savard,
poète de la profondeur et de la nuit américaine, en a saisi toute la portée
mythique39. À Gildore, son jeune héros, il accorde un corps de sagesse dont
celui-ci ne trouvera cependant la signification que dans une dissolution dans «
la Dalle-des-Morts »:«[...]dalle funèbre où l’eau se précipite avec violence
entre des rochers abrupts40 », mais par-delà de laquelle se trouve l’Origine de
toutes les origines. Descendre le fleuve Columbia, pour y vaincre « la Dalledes-morts
», au prix d’une mort certaine, voilà la quête finale du jeune Gildore,
une quête qui le conduit définitivement vers l’Autre, vers le Père amérindien
dont il est par le sang l’arrière-petit-fils. . .
* * *
L’imaginaire n’a rien d’imaginaire. Il s’inscrit dans les styles multiples de
l’histoire et de la mémoire collective. Il s’enracine dans les cultures et les
civilisations. Loin de résulter d’une construction cristallisée, il est une
nourriture qui s’adapte sans cesse à la dynamique des sociétés et des individus.
Mais, par-dessus tout, l’imaginaire est une géographie onirique, une carte
mentale, « grandeur nature », sur laquelle s’entrecroisent les rêves culturels et
les apories du temps.
L’imaginaire nord-américain résulte des mêmes « alogiques41 ». Il vit à travers
des héros-culturels dont les actions dépassent toujours les limites de la Nature:
« les illusions collectives ne sont pas illusoires », affirme avec justesse Pierre
Bourdieu, qui ajoute:«[...]lesmécanismes les plus fondamentaux — ceux de
la vie et de la mort — ne pourraient fonctionner sans le secours de la
croyance42»; ajoutons, sans les discours que les sociétés tiennent elles-mêmes
sur leurs croyances, sur leurs rêves culturels contés ou rapportés, discours
choisis non plus en fonction seulement des investissements affectifs, mais pour
leur caractère d’événement frappant, leur valeur d’échange collective, leur
capacité de ressasser l’ordre culturel. Certes, tout imaginaire est réducteur, et
l’imaginaire nord-américain n’échappe pas non plus à cette loi. C’est pourquoi
il faut démêler les entrecroisements de ses parcours, repérer les strates
culturelles à travers lesquelles il nous donne à voir les modes de production et
de représentation des mentalités. Ces approches intradisciplinaires, il suffit de
les poser pour que surgissent les « résidus » de la chose sociale et culturelle, les
écarts différentiels que l’intelligibilité historique essaie de combler par sa
théorie. Mais l’histoire culturelle — et en particulier celle des représentations
mentales — n’est jamais réductible à l’objectivité du code. La culture n’a de
sens véritable qu’à travers sa pluralité : « les différences culturelles peuvent
être placées n’importe où », soutient avec raison Edmond Ortigues : « entre
deux individus, entre deux professions, entre deux régions, entre deux
continents, et ainsi de suite par degrés infinis de variations43 ». La culture est
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fondamentalement un échange de significations, de signes et de symboles, une
communauté d’images, de pratiques et d’usages, d’attitudes et de discours.
« Le Mythe est raconté à l’Est et vécu à l’Ouest », avons-nous soutenu. Ce qu’un
tel Mythe donne d’abord à raconter, c’est le naturel des Amériques épiques :
celles des Conquistadors, des Explorateurs français ou anglais, des
Missionnaires, des Engagés du Grand-Portage, des Émigrants vers la frontière,
etc. L’Histoire elle-même est naturalisée, celle surtout de l’Ouest, qui devient
« surnaturel44 ». Mais il faut aller plus loin. En tant qu’il permet le récit de toutes
les Amériques, l’imaginaire nord-américain est une descente vers les fleuves de
l’Oubli45. Voilà le mouvement instinctif du Mythe. Chateaubriand en dresse
magistralement les tracés géographiques dans son Prologue d’Atala; quatre
grands fleuves, « nés dans le même berceau », écrit-il, qui coulent
inexorablement leurs eaux vers d’autres eaux — vers leur embouchure — dans
une unité primitive avec la terre américaine : le fleuve Saint-Laurent « se perd à
l’est dans le golfe du même nom », la rivière de l’Ouest46 « porte ses eaux à des
mers inconnus », le fleuve Bourbon47 « se précipite du midi au nord dans la baie
d’Hudson » et le Meschacebé « tombe du nord au midi dans le golfe du
Mexique48 » où, selon le texte de l’édition originale, il « s’ensevelit49 ».
Fleuves de la Chute ou de la Perte50! Fleuves d’Amérique dont les eaux vont
rejoindre les eaux primitives : celles de la Mer de Champlain. Sans doute est-ce
à de semblables eaux que pense le narrateur des Anciens Canadiens, lorsqu’au
début de son récit, il convoque son lecteur à méditer avec lui sur la marche du
monde. Tout naturellement, c’est vers « l’immense fleuve Saint-Laurent » qu’il
lui dit de regarder. Une direction alors s’impose : celle qui va de l’amont vers
l’aval. Soit, non plus celle de l’Ouest — de la Descente du continent — qui
donne à l’homme la possibilité « de vivre une autre fois51 », ou une autre vie,
mais celle tournée vers l’Est, où le lit du fleuve finit « par s’engloutir dans le
gouffre de l’éternité52 ».
Notes
1. Nous empruntons cette expression à L. Hjelmslev, pour qui le signe est le résultat d’une
sémiosis, autrement dit d’un enchaînement de signes; voir à ce sujet A.J. Greimas et J.
Courtés, Sémiotique : dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette, vol. I,
1979, p. 349-350; aussi M. Arrivé, F. Gadet et M. Galmiche, La Grammaire d’aujourd’hui,
Paris, Flammarion, 1986, p. 615.
2. On entend habituellement par « sémiotiques verbales » les systèmes de signification qui
utilisent pour leur manifestation une langue naturelle; c’est notamment le cas de la littérature
et de différents types de discours d’ordre religieux, mythique, folklorique, historique,
juridique, scientifique, etc. (M. Arrivé et coll., op. cit., p. 615).
3. À consulter : Robert Edson Lee, From West to East. Studies in the Literature of the American
West, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1966, 172 p. Voir aussi : Laurence Ricou, Vertical
Man/Horizontal World: Man and Landscape in Canadian Prairie Fiction, Vancouver,
University of British Columbia Press, 1973, 152 p.; Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants,
Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario, Toronto, University of
Toronto Press, 1982, 160 p.; Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian
Imagination, Toronto, Anansi, 1971, 256 p.; Edwin Fussel, Frontier: American Literature
and the American West, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1965, 45 p.; Élise
Marienstras, Les Mythes fondateurs de la nation américaine, Paris, François Maspero, 1976,
377 p.; Henry Nash Smith, The Virgin Land. The American West as Symbol and Myth, New
York, Random House, 1950, 305 p.; Robert Viau, L’Ouest littéraire : vision d’ici et
d’ailleurs, Montréal, Éditions du Méridien, 1992, 170 p.; « L’Amérique des langues »,
78

La descente du continent
numéro spécial de la revue Études françaises, vol. 28, nos 2-3, automne 1992-hiver 1993,
186 p.
4. Voir Donald Creighton, The Commercial Empire of St. Lawrence, Toronto, MacMillan of
Canada, 1957, 619 p.
5. Citons, à titre d’exemple, l’« île de Thevet » — île fictive — dessinée par André Thevet
(1516-1592) lui-même, à titre de cosmographe du Roi, sur l’une de ses cartes du Golfe Saint-
Laurent, et dont on retrouve notamment l’illustration dans son ouvrage le Grand insulaire
(environ 1590); voir à ce sujet André Thevet’s North America. A Sixteenth-Century View,An
Edition-Translation with Notes and Introduction by Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P.
Stabler, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1986, p. XLIX et 272.
Sur la cosmographie imaginaire de la Nouvelle-France, voir Frank Lestringant, « Nouvelle-
France et fiction cosmographique dans l’œuvre d’André Thevet », Études littéraires, vol. 10,
no 1, 1977, p. 145-173.
6. Voir Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America,
New York, Oxford University Press, 1964, 292 p.
7. Il s’agit en quelque sorte des processus mentaux à partir desquels l’homme catégorise le
monde réel. Selon Annamaria Lammel, « les objets réels, identiques, donnés dans le monde
indépendamment de la culture, peuvent être universellement catégorisés, les objets
mentalement construits qui n’ont aucune chance d’être confrontés à une réalité externe,
semblent au contraire être regroupés, classés et nommés de manière arbitraire et variable
selon les cultures » (« Connaissance culturelle et catégorisation du monde réel », L’Individu
et ses cultures (sous la direction de F. Tanon et G. Vermes), Paris, L’Harmattan, 1993,
p.119).
8. Voir à ce sujet : Fernando Ainsa, « L’Invention de l’Amérique », Diogène,no145, 1989, p.
104-117; Miguel León-Portilla, « Le Nouveau Monde, 1492-1992. Un débat
interminable? », Diogène, no157, 1992, p. 3-26; Pierre Chaunu, L’Amérique et les
Amériques : de la préhistoire à nos jours, Paris, Armand Colin, 1964, 470 p.; Thomas
Gomez, L’Invention de l’Amérique. Rêves et réalités de la Conquête, Paris, Aubier, 1992,
332 p.; Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of America, Bloomington, Indiana University
Press, 1961, 178 p.
9. Située sur le fleuve Columbia (approximativement à 51 o , 45’ de latitude nord et à 118 o , 45’
de longitude ouest), la Dalle-des-Morts, dont le site et l’histoire ont inspiré l’artiste et
l’illustrateur Paul Kane (voir la reproduction de son tableau en page suivante), était à
l’époque de la course aux fourrures un passage extrêmement dangereux pour les brigades de
voyageurs qui osaient affronter ses rapides. Elle était aussi un lieu de campement et de
rencontre, comme le rappelle Paul Kane (1810-1871) lui-même, qui fit deux voyages dans
l’Ouest, de 1845 à 1848, au cours desquels il a peint cette funèbre Dalle-des-Morts. Son
tableau La Dalle-des-Morts n’évoque cependant que très partiellement les faits historiques
survenus en cet endroit au cours des années 1800. Dans son journal de voyage du 4 octobre
1847, il souligne sommairement les circonstances qui auraient été à l’origine des
événements tragiques. Voici le premier paragraphe de son récit :«Wecamped at night
below the “Dalle des Morts”, or the Rapids of the Dead, so called from the following
circumstance. About twenty-five or thirty years ago, an Iroquois, a half-breed, and a French
Canadian, having charge of a boat, had to descend this frightful rapid. Fearful of running it,
the affixed a long line to the bow, and being themselves on the shore, they attempted to lower
her gradually by means of it down the foaming torrent. The boat took a sheer and ran outside
of a rock, and all their efforts to get her back, or reach the rock themselves through the boiling
surge were unavailing. The rope, chafing on the sharp edge of the rock, soon broke, and she
dashed down among the whirling eddies, ans broke to pieces, with their whole stock of
provisions on board » (Paul Kane’s Frontier, Including « Wandering of an Artist the Indians
of North American », edited with a Biographical Introduction and a Catalog raisonné by J.
Russell Harper, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1971, p. 127-128). On retrouve le
toponyme « La Dalle-des-Morts » sur plusieurs cartes anciennes ou récentes; voir, entre
autres, Tackabury’s Atlas of the Dominion of Canada with General Description, by T. Sterry
Hunt and coll., Drawn, Compiled and Edited by H.F. Walling, C.E., Published by George N.
Taskabury, Montreal, Toronto, and London, 1876, p. 107; New Map of British Columbia by
R.T. Williams, Publisher, Victoria,; reproduite à la même grandeur que l’originale de la
Collection nationale de cartes et plans, Archives publiques du Canada.
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10. La Dalle-des-Morts, Montréal, Fides, 1965, 154 p. Voir en particulier le deuxième acte,
scène 1.
11. Il faut souligner que le père ne répond guère aux questions de son jeune fils; ce sont plutôt ses
compagnons de voyage — Théo la Corneille, Michel dit Trompe la Mort, Rossignolet,
Kanaoui, un vieil indien outaouais — qui apprennent au jeune homme les parcours et les
lieux géographiques qui mènent les coureurs de bois jusqu’aux confins de l’Ouest canadien.
12. Il s’agit en quelque sorte de l’identité narrative, telle que la définit Paul Ricœur. Pour
l’auteur de Temps et récit, « la voie de l’identification de soi » (du sujet réel) passe en effet
par « l’identification avec l’autre »; « la réception du récit par le lecteur, écrit encore
Ricœur, est le lieu d’une multiplicité de modalités qui s’intitulent identification » (Paul
Ricœur, « Identité narrative », Revue des sciences humaines, no221, 1991, p. 35-47; voir
encore du même auteur : Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1990, 424 p. et,
naturellement, Temps et récit, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1983- : vol. I (Temps et récit), vol. II
(La configuration dans le récit de fiction) et vol. III (Le temps raconté).
13. « Préface » à La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 17-18. L’italique est de nous.
14. Les intentions de Félix-Antoine Savard sont d’ailleurs tout à fait explicites. À ses yeux, les
voyageurs des Pays-d’En-Haut étaient une race d’hommes extraordinaires : « leur valeur, le
pittoresque de leurs mœurs et allures, écrit-il, les traditions de contes, de chansons, de
légendes grâce auxquelles ils poétisaient, si je puis dire, les plus durs travaux, ont forcé
l’admiration de beaucoup d’auteurs anglais. La connaissance, hélas bien fragmentaire, de
cette geste extraordinaire m’a fait regretter qu’on n’ait pas, dans l’une de nos quelconque
universités françaises, pour la recueillir, un centre de documentation, de recherches et
d’études. La jeunesse trouverait là, il me semble, un objet de légitime et saine fierté et, pour
une littérature nationale, une source inépuisable d’inspiration et d’information » (« Préface » à
La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 19).
15. La pièce fut également présentée pour la première fois le 20 mars 1966, à Montréal, au
théâtre Orpheum.
16. À son compagnon de voyage, le narrateur fait un jour cette remarque : « Let’s go a little
farther into other fields, Charley. Let’s take the books, magazines, and papers we have seen
displayed where we have stopped. The dominant publication has been the comic book. There
have been local papers and I’ve bought and read them. There have been racks of paperbacks
with some great and good titles but overwhelmingly outnumbered by the volumes of sex,
sadism, and homicide. The big-city papers cast their shadows over large areas around them,
the New York Times as fas as the Great Lakes, the Chicago Tribune all the way here to Norh
Dakota. Here, Charley, I give you a warning, should you be drawn to generalities. If this
people has so atrophied its taste buds as to find tasteless food not only acceptable but
desirable, what of the emotional life of the nation? (Travels With Charley. In Search of
America, New York, The Viking Press, 1962, p.127).
17. La quête qui conduit Jack Waterman de Gaspé à San Francisco ressemble fort étrangement à
celle qu’accomplit Steinbeck dans Travels With Charley; voir à ce sujet Jonathan M. Weiss,
« Une lecture américaine de Volkswagen Blues », Études françaises, vol. 21, no 3, 1985-
1986, p. 90. Dans son dernier roman Petit homme Tornade (Montréal, Stanké, 1996, 284 p.),
Roch Carrier reprend à peu près le même scénario; son héros, qui répond au nom de Robert
Martin, est un historien dont le voyage dans l’Ouest américain se transforme peu à peu en une
quête initiatique des Canadiens français partis chercher fortune aux États-Unis. À l’instar de
Jack Waterman, Robert Martin se met à la recherche de documents historiques (archives,
procès-verbaux, correspondance, etc.) susceptibles de lui dévoiler le fabuleux passé d’un
nommé Joseph Dubois qui, après avoir traîné sa misère de « Canadien errant » (p. 204) aux
quatre coins de l’Amérique, est tué d’une balle de revolver par son meilleur ami lors d’une
partie de cartes à Santa Fe. . . D’une façon parfois plus explicite que Volkswagen Blues, Petit
homme Tornade actualise un métarécit dont le contenu renvoie à des œuvres littéraires prises
comme mythèmes de la quête du héros : Moby Dick, Le Dernier des Mohicans, Le Tueur de
daims, Fils de Peau-Rouge, autant de titres dont la lecture dicte tantôt au narrateur, tantôt aux
personnages eux-mêmes, le sens et la finalité du Mythe de l’Amérique.
18. Sans doute est-il utile de distinguer ici le mythe de l’Amérique de sa reconfiguration
littéraire. Par-delà une recherche certaine du mythe « véritable » et « pur », le roman
Volkswagen Blues laisse voir une « nostalgie des origines » qui appartient davantage au récit
mythique lui-même qu’aux hommes de l’Histoire dont le(s) narrateur(s) ou les (la)
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La descente du continent
narratrice(s) nous rappellent sur un ton critique l’aventure peu glorieuse en terre
d’Amérique : celle notamment des découvreurs et des pionniers de l’Amérique française et,
très souvent, celle aussi des pionniers américains qui ont participé à la marche de la
Frontière. Voir aussi à ce sujet Leslie Fiedler, Le Retour du Peau-Rouge (1968), traduit de
l’américain par Georges Renard, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1971, 172 p.; Suzan J. Rosowski,
« La Femme, la frontière et l’écriture », Le Mythe de l’Ouest, Paris, Éditions Autrement,
1993, p. 145-162.
19. Volkswagen Blues n’est pas cependant le seul roman québécois contemporain à dériver ainsi
hors du Mythe d’origine. . . Depuis le début des années 1970, la littérature québécoise dans
son ensemble — et sans doute pourrait-on aussi affirmer à peu près la même chose de la
littérature canadienne-anglaise — se lit comme un flux étranger en tout sens : la Matrice de
l’américanité, métaphore miroir de nous-mêmes, accouche de nouveaux héros et, ce qui est à
notre avis très révélateur et postmoderne, de nouvelles héroïnes, dont la quête est une
recherche non pas d’une Amérique, mais des Amériques : celles amérindienne, féminine,
migrante, native, minoritaire, régionale, urbaine, intime. . . Nouveau mythe? Sur cette
dérivation mythique, voir notre article « L’Amérique comme métaphore », Écrits du Canada
français, vol. 58, 1986, p. 156-167; aussi Ian G. Lumdsen, Paysages de l’Amérique du Nord
Britannique, Toronto, The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1995, 76 p; et Marguerit E. Turner,
Imagining Culture: New World Narrative and the Writing of Canada, Montréal, McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 1995, 134 p.; Lucie Guillemette, « Femmes et Amériques dans
Une histoire américaine de Jacques Godbout : l’Ouest revisité », Canadian Review of
American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines, vol. 24, no 3, automne 1994, p.
121-135 et « Pour une nouvelle lecture des Fous de Bassan d’Anne Hébert : l’Amérique et
ses parcours discursifs », Voix et images, vol. 32, no 65, hiver 1997, p. 332-354.
20. Voir à titre d’exemple, les romans : Maria Chapdelaine (1914) de Louis Hémon, La Forêt de
Georges Bugnet (1935), Les Opiniâtres (1941) de Léo-Paul Desrosiers, ou encore
Wacousta : or, the Prophecy (1964) de John Richardson, où on peut lire : « The forest, in a
word, formed the gloomy and impenetrable walls of a prison...»(p.159). On trouve dans de
nombreuses monographies, tant d’expression canadienne-anglaise que française, la même
représentation symbolique d’un espace humain emmuré de toute part : « une forêt
d’épouvante, comparable à celle que le ciseau de Gustave Doré a gravée pour illustrer
certaines scènes de l’Enfer de Dante » (Estras Minville, La Forêt, Montréal, Éditions Fides,
1944, p. 13-14); voir aussi Richard Lippincott Williams, Les Bûcherons, Amsterdam, Time-
Life Books, 1980, 240 p. Enfin, sur les représentations culturelles de la forêt, on consultera
tout particulièrement l’ouvrage de Robert Harrison, Forêts : essai sur l’imaginaire
occidental, traduit de l’anglais par Florence Naugrette, Paris, Flammarion 1992, 396 p. Voir
aussi Northrop Frye, « Conclusion », Histoire littéraire du Canada. Littérature canadienne
d’expression anglaise, publiée sous la direction de Carl F. Klinck, traduit de l’anglais par
Maurice Lebel, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1970, p. 975.
21. Cette vision est déjà énoncée à grands traits dans L’Histoire véritable et naturelle des mœurs
et productions du pays de la Nouvelle-France, vulgairement dite le Canada (1664) de Pierre
Boucher. Percevant le pays canadien par l’intermédiaire du fleuve Saint-Laurent (le Hautdu-fleuve
et le Bas-du-fleuve), Boucher fait de la direction est-ouest l’axe primordial qui
traverse le monde de la géographie canadienne. L’axe Nord/Sud demeure chez lui un
agencement du premier : le Sud à la fois la rive sud du fleuve (l’Est du pays) et le Haut-dufleuve
(l’Ouest), tandis que le Nord renvoie plus précisément à la notion de Pays-d’En-Haut,
qu’il oppose au Bas-du-Fleuve. Nous résumons ici l’article de Léopold Leblanc sur
L’Histoire véritable...dePierre Boucher, paru dans Le Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires
du Québec (Montréal, Fides, 1978, p. 376-377); voir aussi Ramsay Cook, « Imagining A
North American Garden : Some Parallels & Differences in Canadian & American Culture »,
Canadian Literature, no 103, Winter 1984, p. 10-23.
22. Voir à ce propos Une frontière dans la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien,
Montréal, Éditions Liber, 1991, 274 p.
23. N’a-t-on prétendu plus d’une fois que les rigueurs du climat canadien jouaient un rôle
providentiel dans la lutte contre le mirage américain? Ainsi ces propos d’un ultramontain du
XIXe siècle semonçant ses compatriotes trop portés à dénigrer l’hiver canadien, alors qu’il
fuit lui-même vers le soleil californien! : « A-t-on jamais pensé [. . .] aux avantages
providentiels qui se rattachent particulièrement aux grands froids de cette partie du Canada
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et qui sont ceux-ci, l’empêchement d’une immigration étrangère aux instincts absorbants et
envahisseurs; le développement facile de la race canadienne-française et la garde intacte des
principes catholiques. Cela vaut la peine d’y réfléchir et de ne pas déplorer injustement la
sévérité du climat » (C.-M. Panneton, « Le Colorado en 1880 », Revue canadienne, vol XVII,
1881, p. 594). On trouvera la même vision du monde chez le Canadien Lawren Harris, autour
des années vingt :«WeinCanada [are] in different circumstances than the people in the
United States. Our population is sparse, the psychic atmosphere comparatively clean,
whereas the States fill up and the massed crowd a heavy psychic blanket over nearly all the
land. We are on the fringe of the great North, and its living whiteness, its loneliness and
replenishment, its resignations and release, its call and answers — its cleansing rhythms. It
seems that the top of the continent will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America,
and we Canadians being closest to this source seem destined to produce an art somewhat
different from our southern fellows an art more spacious, of greater living quiet, perhaps of
more certain conviction of eternal values. We were not placed between the Southern teeming
of men and the ample replenishing of North for nothing » (« Revelation of Art in Canada »,
The Canadian Theosophist, vol. 7, 15 July 1926, p. 85-86). Voir à ce sujet notre ouvrage,
L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise, Sherbrooke, Éditions Naaman, 1981,
p. 275-292.
24. Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis (1943), Montréal, Fides, 1960, p. 16.
25. Suivant Christian Morissonneau, l’image du Nord « est bien celle qui se substitue comme un
calque à celle de la nature, je veux dire celle de la Femme, tantôt accueillante, tantôt
intouchable, tantôt violée mais toujours l’image de la féminitude. Autrement dit, dans
l’inconscient québécois, le Nord serait-il Femme? » (« Le Nord qui est nature qui est
féminitude », Cahiers de géographie du Québec, vol. XXVI, no 68, septembre 1982, p. 242).
26. Roger Bastide, Le Sacré sauvage, Paris, Payot, 1975, p. 112.
27. Voir à ce sujet Jack Warwick, L’Appel du nord dans la littérature canadienne-française
(1968), Montréal, Éditions HMH, traduit de l’anglais par Jean Simard, 1972, 249 p.; Antoine
Sirois, Mythes et symboles dans la littérature québécoise, Montréal, Triptyque, 1992, 154 p.
28. Voir à ce propos Henry Forbes Angaus (Editor), Canada and Her Great Neighbor.
Sociological Survey of Opinions and Attitudes in Canada Concerning the United States,
New York, Russel & Russel, 1970, 452 p.; Carl Berger, The Sense of Power : Studies in the
Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1970,
280 p.; Alfred-Oliver Hero Jr et Louis Balthazar, Contemporary Québec & United States,
1960-1985, Cambridge (Mass.), Center for International Affairs, Harvard University,
University Press of America, 1988, 532 p.; Herbert Marshall, Frank Allan Southard et
Kenneth Wiffin Tayler, Canadian-American Industry : a Study in International Investment,
New York, Russel & Russel, 1964, 360 p.
29. Voir notre ouvrage L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise (1775-1930),
Sherbrooke, Édition Naaman, 1981, 360 p.; Ronald Sutherland, The New Hero : Essays in
Comparative Quebec Canadian Literature, Toronto, Macmillan of Canada, 1977, 172 p.;
Margaret Atwood, Survival : A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Toronto, Anansi,
1972, 287 p.
30. La Montagne secrète, Montréal, Beauchemin, 1961, p. 102.
31. Voir à ce propos Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, New
York, Pantheon Books, 1995, 380 p.; Wilma Garcia, Mothers and Other Myths of the Female
in the Works of Melville, Twain and Hemingway, New York, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.,
1984, 180 p.
32. À l’instar de maints romans américains, Oh Miami, Miami, Miami donne au mythe de la
Frontière une dimension anthropologique qui surdétermine celle que symbolise dans les
faits (réels ou imaginaires), la géographie nord-américaine elle-même; voir à ce sujet
Richard Slotkin Regeneration Through Violence.The Mythology of the American Frontier,
Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1973, 670 pages ; et aussi du même auteur,
The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890,
Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1986, 636 p.
33. Pierre-Yves Petillon, La Grande-route. Espace et écriture en Amérique, Paris, Éditions du
Seuil, 1979, p. 124.
34. Russell Brown, « La Frontière dans la littérature canadienne-anglaise », Une frontière dans
la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien, p. 151-226.
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La descente du continent
35. Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis, p. 16.
36. Sur la signification du rituel de la naissance et de la mort-résurrection respectivement
associées à la descente et à la remontée, voir Simone Vierne, Rite, roman, initiation,
Grenoble, les Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1973, 138 p.
37. Georges Bataille, « La Notion de dépense », La Part maudite, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, coll.
Point, 1967, p. 21-54.
38. En réalité, la vie naît de la mort. Voilà le sens même du mythe. La symbolique de « la mort à
l’Ouest » est la possibilité de recevoir l’illumination. C’est pourquoi certaines grandes
œuvres littéraires guident-elles leurs personnages vers la mort pour leur faire découvrir la
vie. C’est notamment le cas du récit De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Éveline? (1984) de Gabrielle Roy.
C’est en faisant son voyage depuis Winnipeg jusqu’à Bella Vista (Californie), où elle
retrouve son frère Majorique mort, que l’héroïne sera éblouie par la lumière suprême du
Pacifique. . . La mort du frère aimé, résolument acceptée, crée en quelque sorte en Éveline
la vie! Voir à ce sujet Lucie Guillemette, « L’Espace narratif dans De quoi t’ennuies-tu,
Éveline? : l’avènement d’un dire libérateur », Portes de communications; études discursives
et stylistiques de l’œuvre de Gabrielle Roy (sous la direction de Claude Romney et Estelle
Dansereau), Québec, PUL, 1995, p. 103-117.
39. Certes, l’œuvre de Savard n’est ni la première, ni la dernière à faire de l’Autochtone la figure
emblématique de notre imaginaire nord-américain. Des multiples versions de la légende de
L’Iroquoise aux romans québécois d’aujourd’hui (André Langevin, L’Élan d’Amérique,
Robert Lalonde, Le Dernier été des Indiens, Pierre Gobeil, Dessins et cartes du territoire,
Louis Hamelin, Cowboy, etc.), en passant par les romans d’YvesThériault (Ashini, La Quête
de l’ourse, Tayaout, etc.), la représentation symbolique de l’Amérindien fait maintes fois
état d’un passage entre deux cultures.
40. « Avant-Propos»àLaDalle-des-Morts, p. 17. Savard justifie ainsi le titre de sa pièce : La
Dalle-des Morts « est le nom que les Canadiens français avaient donné à un passage ou
couloir extrêmement dangereux situé sur le fleuve Columbia » (Ibid.).
41. Gilbert Durand, L’Imaginaire : essai sur les sciences et la philosophie de l’image, Paris,
Hatier, coll. « Optiques philosophiques », n o 208, 1994, 79 p.
42. Le Sens commun, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980, p. couverture (4).
43. « Situations inter-culturelles ou changements culturels? », L’Individu et ses cultures,p.10.
44. C’est le titre que Paul Louis Rossi donne à l’un de ses ouvrages : L’Ouest surnaturel. Les
écrivains du bout des terres vers les îles (Paris, Hatier, 1993, 184 p.). À son tour, l’auteur
cherche en effet à apprécier l’« intelligence de l’Ouest » qui préside à la découverte du
continent américain : « il ne s’agit pas seulement d’une direction géographique », écrit
Rossi, « Quand on l’examine, elle devient imaginaire, car, malgré la prose, l’Ouest est
surnaturel. C’est la contrée des brumes, du jardin des Hespérides, de l’Ultime Thulé
(découverte par Pythéas de Marseille), de l’île des Bienheureux, de l’Avalon de la Terre
promise »; Rossi écrit encore :«Iln’est pas étonnant que des contrées fabuleuses soient
désignées l’Ouest. S’y prête le contour indistinct des terres, ouvertes sur l’Océan, avec les
pluies, les tempêtes, le changement infini du ciel et des nuages. L’extrême Ouest, alors, n’est
pas seulement une terre d’asile, un réceptacle pour les migrations des peuples et des
civilisations. Il apparaît comme un véritable conservatoire des mœurs, des mythes, des races,
des arts et des langages qui se sont réfugiés à l’extrême Occident » (p. 11).
45. L’un de ces fleuves les plus connus est sans doute le « Léthé ». Considéré dans la mythologie
grecque comme un élément primordial du monde, le Léthé séparait le Tartare des Champs
élysées : « Les âmes des morts buvaient de ses eaux pour oublier les circonstances de leur vie.
De même, les âmes destinées à une nouvelle existence terrestre y buvaient pour perdre tout
souvenir de la mort » (Le Petit Robert 2, p. 1075).
46. Il s’agit de la fameuse « Rivière de l’Ouest » que le cartographe Guillaume Delisle situait, en
1717, au nord du Nouveau-Mexique et de la Californie. Pierre de La Vérendrye a vainement
recherché cette rivière qui devait le conduire vers la « Mer de l’Ouest ». La découverte des
premiers contreforts des Rocheuses états-uniennes l’obligent, lui et ses fils, à rebrousser
chemin. Sur le sujet, voir Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à l’étude de
l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, Québec, Université Laval, Institut d’histoire et de
géographie, 1948, p. 52 et Marcel Trudel, Atlas de la Nouvelle-France / An Atlas of New
France, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1968, p. 126-129.
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47. La nomination du fleuve ou de la « Rivière de Bourbon » sur les cartes des terres arctiques et
de la Baie d’Hudson remonte sans doute au milieu du XVIIe siècle. Guillaume Delisle fait
état d’un tel cours d’eau qui va du midi au nord, sur l’une de ses cartes, vers 1690. Une autre
« carte de la Baie d’Hudson », établie en 1744 par N. Bellin, Ingénieur de la Marine,
mentionne encore l’existence d’une « Rivière de Bourbon ». Il s’agit sans doute aujourd’hui
du fleuve Nelson; voir à ce sujet : Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à
l’étude de l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, p. 53 et Marcel Trudel, op. cit., p. 124.
48. Atala, dans Œuvres romanesques et voyages, texte établi, présenté et annoté par Maurice
Regard, Paris, Gallimard, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade », tome I, 1969, p. 33. Sur le même
sujet : Pierre Glaudes, Atala: le désir cannibale, Paris, PUF, 1994, 128 p. Sans doute
pourrait-on aussi retracer des représentations géographiques similaires à propos d’autres
fleuves; nous pensons tout particulièrement à l’Amazone, le premier du monde par la
superficie de son bassin et par son débit, et le second, après le Nil, pour sa longueur; au
Colorado, fleuve de l’Ouest des États-Unis, qui prend sa source dans les Rocheuses, pour se
jeter dans le golfe de Californie, après une course de 2 250 kilomètres à travers différents
États américains; enfin, au fleuve Mackenzie, qui coule à travers les Territoires du Nord-
Ouest canadien, pour finir son cours dans l’Océan Arctique.
49. Dans les cinq premières éditions d’Atala, la dernière représentation géographique du
Mississippi est celle d’un fleuve qui « descendant du nord au midi, s’ensevelit dans le golfe
du Mexique »; voir Atala, édition critique établie par Armand Weil, Paris, Librairie José
Corti, 1950, p. 27.
50. Outre Atala de Chateaubriand, d’autres œuvres développent la même finalité mythique;
citons, à titre d’exemple : Henry David Thoreau, Une semaine sur les fleuves Concord et
Merrimac (1849); Jean Cocteau, Le Potomak (1913-1914); Alain Grandbois, Né à Québec
(1933).
51. Joseph Campbell, « La Descente au paradis : le Livre des morts tibétain », Les Mythes à
travers les âges (1990), traduit de l’américain par Marie Perron, Montréal, Éditions Le Jour,
1993, p. 179.
52. Les Anciens Canadiens (1863), Montréal, Fides, 1961, p. 10.
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Patricia Vervoort
Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Abstract
Joe Fafard’s reputation as a sculptor continues to grow, yet attention is
focused on his ceramic portraits of people whereas his cows have not merited
similar consideration. By using cows as a form, Fafard explores varieties of
spatial representation and challenges viewer’s expectations about looking
and seeing. His contorted cows are responses to theories of perspective in art
history as related by E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion and by Clement
Greenberg’s rejection of all spatial illusion in painting. Both Gombrich and
Greenberg addressed their ideas to painters, but Fafard’s cows demonstrate
these ideas in three-dimensions. The resulting spatial illusions straddle the
world of ideas in association with mathematics, physics, science fiction and
art.
Résumé
La renommée de Joe Fafard en tant que sculpteur continue de croître.
Pourtant, le centre d’attention demeure ses portraits de gens en céramique.
Ses portraits de vaches ne se sont cependant pas mérités une attention
similaire. En utilisant les vaches comme mode d’expression, Fafard explore
toute la gamme de la représentation dans l’espace et remet en question les
attentes des spectateurs au sujet du regard et de la perception. Les
contorsions de ses vaches se veulent une réponse aux théories de la
perspective en histoire de l’art tel que les décrit E.H. Gombrich dans son
ouvrage Art and Illusion et par le rejet qu’exprime Clement Greenberg face à
toute illusion spatiale en peinture. Tant Gombrich que Greenberg ont
transmis leurs idées aux peintres, mais les vaches de Fafard démontrent ces
idées dans un univers tridimensionnel. Les illusions spatiales qui en résultent
chevauchent l’univers des idées (les mathématiques, la physique de même que
la science-fiction) et le monde des arts.
Cows may seem like an unlikely topic for a discussion of space and time, but Joe
Fafard’s (b. 1942) cows are not ordinary ones and his cows caught in space
wrinkles are most appropriate. Although Fafard’s reputation as an artist is
growing rapidly, he is generally regarded as a sculptor of portraits. However,
throughout his career, Fafard has maintained two parallel subjects in his art:
people and cows. Critics, curators and art writers consistently explore his
human subjects whereas the cows receive far less attention. In all their shapes
and variations, cows form a large portion of Fafard’s artistic output and, for the
most part, dumbfound Fafard’s critics and attract admirers. He is said to be
“almost obsessively attached” to “the rural image of the cow” (Teitelbaum and
White 1987: 4). However, cows as a subject and form have allowed this
Saskatchewan artist to experiment with ideas about space, its representation
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and its dislocations. As this paper intends to demonstrate, Fafard’s sculptural
depictions of cows in space wrinkles and other eye-catching phenomenal
situations reveal a sophisticated and unique interpretation of the laws of
perspective created as guidelines for artists representing three-dimensional
objects on a two-dimensional surface. The novelty of Fafard’s work is his
application of these ideas to three-dimensional work. These depictions of cows,
manipulated and distorted, delineate an intense exploration of vision and how
we interpret what we see.
Fafard did not arrive at his spatial manipulations through mathematics or
physics, but from various sources in the art world and ideas pertinent to
painting. Three of the sources in art that played a part in providing Fafard with
the basis for his contorted cows were E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion,
examples from the history of art, and some of the theories of Clement
Greenberg (1909-1994), the American art critic.
Place plays an important role in Fafard’s art because he depicts what he
knows—from friends and associates to heroes he admires, and the animals.
Fafard, in his practice as an artist, emphasizes that art can be produced
anywhere without requiring an artist to migrate to a large city. This attitude,
along with Fafard’s increasing success, still prompts art critics to mention his
geographical background or his “rural subjects” which often is the only
comment about his work (Mays 1988: C4). Early in his career, Fafard merited
uncomplimentary labels, such as a “talented prairie weirdo” (Jonson 1978:
170). More recently, a critic complained of Fafard’s art: “People are reluctant to
discuss it, they are too busy simply ‘liking’ it.” And, “there is also,” as Chris
Gallagher wrote, “the delight of not needing all the baggage of contemporary
art discourse before getting to the art” (Gallagher 1988: 38). Fafard’s art is
accessible and appeals to viewers from the general public and now to those in the
art world. But whether people like his art or not, there is a dearth of discussion
about Fafard’s cows.
An example of Fafard’s unorthodox treatment of cows is Daisy III (1980) (Figs.
1-2), who is represented in a “space wrinkle,” a massive fold which encloses
and conceals much of her body. When viewed from the front or from the rear,
the clay and glazed cow appears to be an ordinary farm animal. The detail and
the particular facial expression suggest that this is a portrait of a specific cow
and that the entire cow has been fully represented. But, on moving around to the
side, the viewer discovers the depth of Daisy III has been compressed. The
distance between her legs, and indeed her whole body, has been foreshortened
to such a great degree that it evokes a “space-wrinkle.” Fafard treated her body
asifitwere hollow likeaballoon instead ofsolidlikeacow, anexample of“play
on the idea of space and our perception of it” (Fafard and Whitney 1997). From
front and back, there is only the illusion of a whole cow. This unexpected
deception is a prime example of his use of perspective techniques intended for
two-dimensional artists. To most critics, this illustrates Fafard’s humour and
his role as a trickster of illusions (Walsh 1988/89: 21-22). How Fafard achieves
these illusions is the discussion here.
Visual artists throughout the twentieth century have been experimenting with
the concepts of time and space. Many artists have eliminated subject matter
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Figure 1
Daisy III. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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Figure 2
Daisy III. 1980. Side view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
altogether and concentrated on the elements of art, shape, colour and line to
produce non-objective works of art. In fact, in his early career Fafard was a
kinetic sculptor, but his manipulation of cows to explore spatial dislocations
and in particular his wrinkled cows challenge the viewer’s perceptions of mass,
space and time. However, the combination of the varieties of spatial illusions
and cows disconcerts the viewer and critic to the extent that the cows merit little
critical attention. Perhaps, the sophistication of the formal spatial aspects of his
art and the down-to-earth nature of the cow inhibits the viewer.
In order to discuss the spatial concepts employed by Fafard, this paper will look
at the existing critical response to Fafard’s work in order to realize the
confusion that exists between the bovine subject matter and the spatial concerns
of his art work. Secondly, an examination of some individual cows will identify
the varieties of dislocation that Fafard uses. And thirdly, observation of his cow
subjects in relation to the laws of artistic perspective will determine the unique
approach of Fafard’s use of time and space.
From the beginning of his career, Fafard has exhibited both cows and portraits.
However, critics and reviewers dealing with Fafard’s art have traditionally
emphasized his portraits of people. He has depicted ordinary citizens and
celebrities as well as historical characters and contemporary political figures.
He has also portrayed fellow artist friends and artists from the past such as Van
Gogh and Cézanne (Vervoort 1993: 30). In a review of an exhibition in 1973,
Fafard’s intimate portrait sculptures are described: “And, finally three of
Fafard’s bovine friends lie in a corner chewing their clay cuds. . . .” (Heath
1973: 68). For a sculpture exhibit in 1987 of both people and cows, Fafard used
the title Cows and Other Luminaries. And, as usual, critics and reviewers
concentrated on the “other luminaries.” The cows are mentioned in most of
these reviews but given little space or attention. For instance, the cows are
identified as Fafard’s “prairie icons” (Borsa 1985: 32) or “personal totem
figure” or “heraldic emblem” (Walsh 1988/89: 20). Also, “Fafard’s emblem is
the equally humble domestic cow” and “Fafard is considerably more than a
talented cattleman....”(James 1987: 69). Regarding the cows, it has been said
that “the ubiquitous creatures are the emblem of Fafard’s regionalism and
stand-ins for the landscape...”(Tousley 1988: 60). These comments indicate
that the subject matter takes precedence in the eyes of the critics and that the
cows show Fafard’s regionalism.
Cows are rural subjects, but certainly not limited to the prairies. In comparison,
Alex Colville in Nova Scotia has painted cows many times, but they are,
according to David Burnett, “among his most contemplative works” and impart
“the sense of unity in the natural world....”(Burnett 1983: 167). Admittedly,
Colville paints and Fafard sculpts, but there is a difference in the way critics
perceive their work. Colville only does cows occasionally whereas Fafard does
them constantly; yet, the subject seems to be “rural” only when it is produced in
Saskatchewan.
Historical Context
A further indication of the difficulty critics have with Fafard’s cows is the
attempt to place them within an historical context. Cows appear in numerous
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historical landscape paintings, but are unusual as subjects for sculpture. The
analogies drawn in the Fafard literature, however, do not provide satisfaction.
For example, “when you think of cows in art it would be unlikely that Paulus
Potter’s Young Bull [1647] would not come to mind.” But Potter’s “animals are
generic” while Fafard’s are “distinct, presenting a personality.” Further
searching for a sculptural analogy, the same writer compared Fafard’s cows to
the Etruscan She-Wolf [c.500 B.C.], a highly stylized animal and certainly not a
cow (Walsh 1988/89: 21). Another writer indicated that “the cows link him to a
history of pastoral landscape painting that is centuries old” (Tousley 1988: 60).
Also, Fafard is concerned with “cattle on the Prairies as an integral part of the
landscape. ...”(Pluralities 1980: 55). These analogies illustrate the lack of
precedence for the kind of art Fafard produces, and they demonstrate the
difficulties contemporary Canadian critics have in dealing with Fafard’s cows.
Fafard, himself, takes a disdainful attitude towards those who look at art with
“such motivations as discovering the artistic influences” which leads to
“academic sterility” (Mandel 1979: 19). But finding precedents is not the same
as identifying artistic influences, although both are a way of sorting, or
attempting, to position an artist within a larger context.
A few other twentieth century artists have produced works with the cow as a
subject, but these have been treated kindly in the critical literature for the
method of representation rather than for the subject matter; none of these have
been cited in the literature about Fafard. Alex Calder’s whimsical wire Cow
(1929), part of his circus series, was essentially a line drawing in space. Calder,
in fact, did a number of cows, but they are usually discussed as toys (Marter
1991: 83,92; Lipman 1976: 69, 244). Also from early in the century was the
three-panel painting titled Composition (the Cow) (1916-17) which Theo van
Doesburg used in his public lectures to demonstrate how to abstract a subject. In
the left panel was a naturalistic cow; in the centre, a cow distorted; and, the right
hand panel was a painting of shapes no longer recognizable as a cow (Barr
1977: 169). Van Doesburg’s subject and treatment was recycled on a huge scale
by Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, Cow Triptych (Cow Going Abstract) (1974)
(Coward 1981: 68-70). In 1965 and 1966, Andy Warhol produced his Cow
Wallpaper on the suggestion of Ivan Karp, director of the Leo Castelli Gallery,
because “they’re so wonderfully pastoral and such a durable image in the
history of art” (Ratcliff 1983: 54, 89-91). As these examples demonstrate,
Calder, van Doesburg, Lichtenstein and Warhol used the cow to manipulate
space and representation, ideas and techniques providing perhaps a more
suitablecomparisonwithFafard’sworkthantheYoungBull orthe She-Wolf.
Fafard has made various statements about cows to emphasize that he is not
interested in them as a subject, but only as a form. He has said, “[c]ows are an
animal I know well, but more than that, they’re a shape you can, you know,
study.” Fafard continued:
. . . what I’m trying to do there is just understanding shape and form
and using them as an art form. I can change the spots on a cow, the
colours, and it’s perfectly legal. Sometimes I think I’m using cows
like painters use this rectangular frame. My frames are not square,
they’re just the shape of a cow (Ursell 1975: 34).
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Fafard has also made other comments about cows to indicate his familiarity
with them as well as knowing some of them individually. “Cows,” Fafard has
said, “have a closer relationship with humans than any other animal” (Henker
1986: 52). Too, he has said:
Generally the cow has been much more useful to use as a motif for
solving sculptural problems. It’s a totally elastic thing that you can
stretch in one direction or the other, and you’ll never find cow critics
complain, either. They’ll never comment. Human beings are not so
elastic: they fight back (Enright 1988: 15).
These comments indicate that Fafard does care about cows and they are
subjects as well as forms. Commenting on his cow subjects, Fafard once stated:
“No one sets out to do thousands of cows” (Henker 1986: 53).
Fafard’s Early Career
After receiving his M.F.A. from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, Fafard
accepted a teaching position at the Regina campus of the University of
Saskatchewan, now the University of Regina, where there was a lively program
in both ceramics and sculpture. When Fafard arrived, he was a kinetic sculptor,
making abstractions which moved with the help of a motor. Later, he
commented on his kinetic works: “Masonite, paint, motorized foam rubber—
that sort of thing. I made flying French Fries, palm trees that waved in
nonexistent breezes, a high chair for adults” (Zwarun 1977: 24). He gave up
kinetic sculpture because “there is nothing more annoying than a work of art
that won’t work. And when you’re dealing with mechanical things, they’re
constantly breaking down” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47; Enright 1988:
11).
When Fafard joined the faculty at Regina, sculptor Ric Gomez and ceramicist
Jack Sures were teaching their students to model in clay and to emphasize this
modeling by leaving evidence on the surface (Fenton 1971: 19). Then the
Californians, David Gilhooly and David Zack, an art writer, joined the faculty
in 1969. Gilhooly was already well-known for his glazed clay frogs of
irreverent Funk art subjects. From observing Gilhooly’s art being produced and
particularly inspired by Gilhooly’s attitude that art is fun and that one can create
his own world, Fafard began producing plaster portraits and ceramic cows.
Eventually the portraits, first in plaster and later exclusively in clay, formed the
material for his exhibitions. From the beginning, Fafard modeled cows in clay,
but initially they were his “warm-up” exercises before working on the portraits.
Of his change in direction, from the kinetic to the ceramic, Fafard attributes to
his contact with Gilhooly: “Suddenly I realized it really didn’t matter what you
did as long as you did something that you felt was engaging and you didn’t have
to bother with this very heavy cerebral question about making ‘art’”
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47). After portraying his colleagues at the
university and his artist friends as well as his family, Fafard moved on to do
portraits of the people of Pense, the small town between Regina and Moose
Jaw, where he had lived from 1971 to 1984. He then expanded his community to
include prairie historical figures such as Louis Riel and Crowfoot. By 1982, he
was creating portraits of figures from art history such as Cézanne and van Gogh.
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Artists included in Fafard’s repertoire of portraits included those from the
Regina area who were like-minded with Fafard in rejecting the prevailing
interests of the art world in formalism. Importantly, from the time he first
portrayed his university colleagues, Fafard’s art friends included Russ Yuristy,
Vic Cicansky and David Gilhooly who, with Fafard, exhibited together as Six
Regina Artists in 1973, but were dubbed “Regina Funk” (Shuebrook 1973: 39-
41). This group along with a number of local “folk” artists shared the belief that
art should be personal by reflecting the artist’s immediate environment and that
it should reach out to the audience. In fact, the “fine” artists and the “folk” artists
collaborated on the Grain Bin in 1976 commissioned by The Saskatchewan
Olympics Art Committee as part of Saskatchewan’s display at the Montreal
1976 Olympic Games. The painted wooden “grain bin” contained a diorama of
rural farming in the 1920s and all its activities; the cows were by Fafard (Grain
Bin 1979: 6-7).
The links with California artists were important to the sculptors and ceramic
artists in Regina for the confirmation that clay was a suitable material for fine
art, an attitude that was new; previously clay was considered only as a material
for crafts (Gilhooly 1980: 4-11). In addition, the philosophy of art that
combined Pop art subjects with the implementation of the notion that art should
be fun and communicate with the viewers were crucial to Fafard’s development
as an artist.
Dislocations, Viewpoints and Perspectives
Cows, whether shapes or frames, provide a vehicle for Fafard’s experiments
with ideas about space and its representation. Because these ideas are explored
in the shape of cows, the timeliness and complexity of the images as well as
their aesthetic and conceptual qualities are often overlooked. However, the
spatial contortions are in step with developments in twentieth century art, but
also with ideas found in mathematics and physics, at least in popularized
science-fiction versions. Space is defined as “the intuitive three-dimensional
field of everyday experience” whereas space-time is “time and the threedimensional
space regarded as fused in a four-dimensional continuum
containing all events” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). The notion of time as
the fourth dimension challenges the idea of time as non-spatial whereas
dimension is a measure of spatial extent. Some art theorists early in the century,
for instance, attempted to link Cubist art and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a
connection denied by Einstein himself (Richardson 1971: 111-2; Henderson
1983: xiii-xix, 353-365). Nevertheless, art texts continue to discuss notions of
space and time as art united with science and particularly with Einstein (Janson
1991: 720). Space, then, and its interpretation occupy an important role in the
literature of art and, as Fafard’s work demonstrates, in the practice of art. His
experiments with the manipulation of space and the resulting contortions may
perhaps be more in tune with science fiction than with theoretical mathematics,
but nevertheless attest to Fafard’s acquaintance with theoretical ideas about
space in art. Fafard’s contorted cows are his personal response to the ideas
about space and time prevalent in the art world, ideas that invite a visual
expression. Cows are not expected to be complicated, so Fafard’s
manipulations are eye-opening and instructive as he teaches the viewer to look
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and then to look again. The cows may strike a note of humour in the viewer’s
response, but they also display a sophisticated approach to spatial problems.
Fafard has used cows in at least six different ways to experiment with spatial
dislocation.
First of all, there are the straightforward portraits of cows. Fafard’s early cows,
modeled in clay and displayed on top of boxes or pedestals, received individual
or generic names, colouring and particular facial expressions. Some of these
cows are standing, for example Daisy I (1980), but many recline as does the
Great White Bull (1970) in order to overcome the technical problem of
supporting a heavy body on thin legs.
Spatial dislocation occurs when these animals turn up in unexpected places. An
example is Pasture (1985). Among Fafard’s best-known works, a group of
seven cows are slightly over full-size, and cast in bronze (Henker 1986: 52).
Reclining and relaxed, each cow is distinguished by a different patina; this was
Fafard’s first major bronze work. The cows that form Pasture are not unusual in
a farmer’s field, but unexpected when found on a small patch of grass at the
Toronto Dominion Centre surrounded by high-rise office buildings. The
placement of Pasture jolts the viewer because the cows are in the “wrong”
place, an urban setting. The ground under the cows, the landscape, is a minimal
patch of grass. Pasture, claims John Bentley Mays, reminds Toronto residents
of the “pastoral history of the site with a playful vengeance” (Mays 1985: D17).
Recently, Pasture became a media event when the cows were moved to
Montreal for a major Fafard exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts,
Joe Fafard: The Bronze Years from November 1996 to February 1997 (Jordan
1996: 16).
Secondly, there are the cows with names that create unexpected associations.
For example, Albert and Victoria (1988), the title conjures up one image from
history, but the sculpture depicts a mother cow and her calf (Walsh 1988/89:
20). Two other bronze cows from 1989 are titled Lascaux and Dubuffet after the
painted cave and the French artist, Jean Dubuffet. That cows are the subject is a
surprise, but not if one is familiar with Fafard’s work. Other depictions of cows
with names that evoke incongruities of time and place are House Bull (1982)
and Pet Cow (1980) (Figs. 3-4) since bulls are not found in houses and cows are
not pets. The names and titles, along with the specificity of facial features and
stances, indicate that these are portraits too.
In addition to exploring contemporary cows, Fafard has experimented with
historical representations of cows, also, as seen in his Assyrian Cows (1987)
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 48). In Assyrian art, depth was suggested by
overlapping. To represent a row of overlapping animals, a single animal in
profile view was depicted, but the legs, heads and tails were multiplied. The
viewer was expected to determine the number of animals supposedly stretching
into the distance by counting the heads or legs. Here the representation of five
animals is in three-dimensions whereas the Assyrians who excelled at relief
sculpture presented the illusion of three dimensions. Fafard, in Assyrian Cows,
approached the same problem by depicting five animals in relief, each standing
on its own individual base, but positioned to form a staggered line. The cow in
front is seen clearly and each successive one has its head out in front of the
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Figure 3
House Bull. 1982. Back view. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm.
Pet Cow. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the Artist.
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Figure 4
House Bull. 1982. Side View. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm.
Pet Cow. 1980. Side View. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm.
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previous one and the rumps rise successively above the previous cow’s sagging
back. The patina of each cow also distinguishes one from another while the
number of legs and the individual bases confirm the presence of five
overlapping cows. Their overlapping positions allow the historical allusion to
succeed, but also allows the viewer to observe Fafard’s alterations.
Athird type of dislocation and manipulation isfound inFafard’s screenprints—
again with the subject of cows. These screenprints date from the 1970s, but
demonstrate again that Fafard’s concerns with the representation of space are
on-going, rather than a new development. In Bird (1977), the viewpoint is
experienced by a bird (and the viewer) flying over a farmer’s field where cows
are grazing (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 26; Moosehead 1987: 28). Seen from
above, the cows acquire unusual shapes, not unlike elongated but irregularlyshaped
bowling pins which cast cow-like shadows. The cows are clearly
defined and most are solidly coloured whereas the cow shadows are created by
small patches of parallel lines arranged in facets reminiscent of Cézanne’s
brushwork. As a result, the cows appear to be flat shapes echoing the flatness of
the paper; the viewpoint from above eliminates the legs of the cows while most
of the shadows have legs. Fafard here has transformed something ordinary into
something new and, at the same time, challenges the viewer to look more
closely.
Pursuing the same theme but from a far greater height is Bird’s Eye (1978),
another screenprint. Here, the earth is egg-shaped and its entire surface is
divided into fields and water separated by fences. Populated only by cows, this
earth-egg presents the cows as irregular spotted shapes due to the height from
which they are viewed. Again, they are flat like the paper. DC-Neuf (1978) also
presents the earth as an egg but from a higher vantage point (Teitelbaum and
White 1987: 26). As these prints from the 1970s demonstrate, Fafard is
interested in spatial illusions and has been for some time. By the 1980s, Fafard
was experimenting with similar ideas in three dimensions.
Fafard and Clement Greenberg
Fafard’s acquaintance with Greenberg was only second-hand, but Greenberg’s
influence on Saskatchewan painters was profound; many of the painters, such
as the Regina Five, were connected with the University of Regina. Fafard did
not attend the Emma Lake Workshop conducted by Clement Greenberg in
1962, but he did participate in the 1968 workshop with American sculptor
Donald Judd, also a formalist who created minimalist boxes in series. The
influence of Greenberg was pervasive (Hudson 1970: 45; Fulford 1993: 18-21;
Williamson 1963: 196). Greenberg’s formal interests stressed the flatness of
the canvas surface as he urged painters to eliminate all hints of spatial illusion.
Or as Greenberg wrote: “Modernist painting meets our desire for the literal and
positive by renouncing the illusion of the third dimension” (Greenberg 1961:
139). Greenberg condemned the use of subject matter because it took the
“emphasis away from the medium” (Greenberg 1961: 25). In Saskatchewan,
Greenberg’s influence was strong and he was instrumental in the success of the
Regina Five, a group of painters who embraced the concept of flatness. But to
Fafard, Greenberg’s impact had a reverse effect. Although Greenberg directed
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his comments to painters, Fafard reacted against the dictates of a critic from
elsewhere urging Saskatchewan artists to create like New Yorkers (Heath
1985: 27). As Robert Fulford phrased the issue: “In this controversy Greenberg
would be pictured as a doctrinaire imperialist dictating rigid and formalistic
theories to Canadian artists....”(Fulford 1993: 19). John O’Brian acknowledges
that Greenberg “created a controversy that simmers to this day. . . .” (O’Brian
1989: 35). In addition to conducting the workshop at Emma Lake, Greenberg
was commissioned to write a report of western Canadian art for Canadian Art
magazine. Here, Greenberg praised the “big attack” painters and particularly
“the specialness of art in Regina” by commending the work of Ronald Bloore,
Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Ted Godwin and Douglas Morton; all but
the latter were connected with the University of Regina. Also, in his article
Greenberg remarked on sculpture: “French Canada has a tradition of folk
sculpture, but somehow one doesn’t expect to find much in the way of sculpture
in Canada at large” (Greenberg 1963: 105). Ironically, Fafard is French
Canadian and very much in tune with folk art. But Fafard’s criticism of
Greenberg’s impact in Saskatchewan was not only a general one, but also
affected his workplace at the University of Regina with the painters and gallery
director favouring Greenberg’s views while Fafard and the other
sculptors/ceramists championing the Californian approach. New York and
California then, not Toronto or Montreal, supplied the contradictory
philosophies of art in Regina. Fafard left teaching in 1974 because the school’s
teaching emphasis, in his view, encouraged the students to tune into the newest
art fashions rather than to develop their own interests and skills (Heath 1985:
27). Thus, in the ideological battle about how one should teach art, the
Greenberg faction at Regina won.
Although Fafard disagreed with Greenberg’s ideas and his influence, the issues
must have seethed within Fafard until 1980 when he actually made four
portraits of Greenberg, full-length and head-and-shoulders; from the front,
these give the illusions of depth and three-dimensions, aided by the modelling
and colouring, but from the side view, these are revealed to be flat reliefs, giving
Greenberg a dose of his own philosophy. Clem stands with his hands in his
pockets and appears to be focusing on something in front of him, like a painting.
A smaller full-length figure is the maquette for Clem or Model of Clem with his
back left as unfinished, unpainted clay. Mark Cheetham says Fafard “puns with
the notions of surface and depth by literalizing them....”(Cheetham 1991: 27).
Fafard’s flat Greenbergs have been reproduced in many publications and
clearly demonstrate again Fafard’s use of illusion; from one direction they
appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits, from another they are
shallow reliefs (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 22-25). Peter White asserts in an
essay in the catalog of Cows and Other Luminaries that Fafard here makes
“flatness read as shallowness or narrowness” (Teitelbaum and White 1987:
24). That Fafard cared little for Greenberg’s ideas is legendary and when asked
by Robert Enright why he did “four pieces about a figure whose aesthetic has
been inimical to your own sense of how art is made?” Fafard’s response was: “I
think sometimes you have to work out your devils, get them out there so that
they’re no longer inside you.” On My Art Critic, the large, flat head of
Greenberg, Fafard said: “It was the first human face on which I used
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foreshortening, telescoping and flatness.” And, also that Greenberg was “an
appropriate person to flatten” (Enright 1988: 11-12). My Art Critic was fully
painted with acrylic paints to give Greenberg a life-like appearance whereas the
other Bust of Clem is monochromatic. The year 1980 was important for Fafard,
for in addition to his Greenberg portraits, he also flattened the Queen (Heath
1990: 26) and produced his wrinkled cows.
Because all of these works were created in a short span of time and the
Greenberg portraits were recognizable as well as able to recall the arguments
generated by Greenberg’s ideas and Fafard’s objections to them, the Greenberg
portraits have become “pivotal” in Fafard’s art (Teitelbaum and White 1987:
26). However, Fafard’s ideas about flattening figures and cows developed after
he read E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of
Pictorial Representation in 1980 as he prepared to teach at the University of
California at Davis for a semester. This campus was noted as the academic
home of California Funk art with artists such as Robert Arneson and William
Wiley on the faculty; David Gilhooly and Vic Cicansky were graduates of
Davis. Fafard remarked to Peter White that “art” to Gombrich meant painting
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28). Gombrich’s chapter on the “Ambiguities of
the Third Dimension” deals with the power of suggestion and explores the
“reading of images.” He noted “it is always hard to distinguish what is given to
us from what we supplement in the process of projection which is triggered off
by recognition” (Gombrich 1960: 242). From here, Gombrich focuses on
perspective and its tricks in the text and the illustrations, diagrams and art, but as
with most works on perspective, the emphasis is on two-dimensional art which
gives the illusion of three dimensions.
There are many types of perspective, but Gombrich emphasizes that developed
during the Italian Renaissance and which assumes a stationary viewer with one
eye. Most viewers of course have two eyes which perceive two slightly
different view points simultaneously and these are incorporated by the mind
into a single image. Further, the picture plane is assumed to be vertical, straight
in front of the viewer, but representations on the picture plane are actually
positioned perpendicular to the line of vision. Perspective drawing aims to
represent things as they are arranged in space, i.e., depth, and as if seen from a
single point of view. To draw an object in perspective requires the application
of geometry and mathematical measurement which in itself alters the object
being depicted by re-forming it, by distorting it for the sake of the internal
consistency of the picture. As viewers, however, we have been trained not to
notice these distortions and to read them as accurate portrayals of objects in a
“real” depicted space (Gombrich 1960: 250-58).
It is instructive to notice some of the examples used by Gombrich and to
discover that many of these challenge the prevalent Euclidean geometry. One
of these is Hogarth’s 1754 engraving called False Perspective which was the
frontispiece for a book about perspective. Hogarth’s engraving ridiculed those
who did not follow the rules by reversing the positions of the sheep and trees,
with the largest in the background and the smallest in the foreground. A
woodcut by M. C. Escher, Autre Monde (1947), appears to apply the laws of
recession, but the image is impossible. These and other examples in
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Gombrich’s text illustrate the “ambiguity of all images.” Gombrich also
confirmed Fafard’s view about subject matter when he stated: “Surely it is
artificial ...toseparate what we call ‘form’ from what we call ‘content’”
(Gombrich 1960: 99). Further, Gombrich reminds the reader that perspective
“rests on a simple and incontrovertible fact of experience, the fact that we
cannot look round a corner” (Gombrich 1960: 250). In two-dimensional art this
statement is true, but Gombrich does not deal with sculpture. Fafard takes these
ambiguities and the rules of perspective and applies them to his sculptures and
takes delight in the fact that, in his sculpture, one can indeed look around
corners. For example, Daisy III is “normal” from the frontal view, but the side
view partially consumed by a space wrinkle takes us around the corner to an
ambiguity of time and space.
Cows in Space Wrinkles
Most relevant in this context are the cows in space wrinkles, such as Daisy III,
which manipulate and distort the physical appearance of the cow. Returning to
Daisy III (1980) who is modeled in clay and glazed, there are also distortions or
alterations due to the medium. To support the weight of the cow’s body on four
thin legs is possible in nature, but not in clay. Fafard has adjusted Daisy’s
proportions, particularly the thickness of the legs, to enable them to support her
cumbersome bulk. From a frontal view, Daisy appears to be an entire cow with
all of her large bumpy body intact. The realism of detail from the tufts of hair on
her forehead to the emphatic eyebrows suggest a complete and intact cow. As
with My Art Critic, a slight shift in stance on the viewer’s part reveals that from
another viewpoint, Daisy has been compressed, the length between her legs
shortened considerably. She looks like she was squeezed between two hands,
one on her head and the other on her rump. Her body is all there, but the
proportions have been changed. The compression is due to the application of
foreshortening. This is a technique used traditionally by painters, to represent a
three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface, particularly when an
object is viewed from an angle. This was the device used by Paolo Uccello for
the horses and dead soldiers in his Rout of San Romano (c.1455). The
foreshortening suggests the entire horse or human figure is present, whereas in
actuality, the torsos have been compressed. This technique is well-known in
drawing and painting, but new to sculpture. We assume that Daisy III is whole
and complete, but as soon as we move and discover the illusion, we become
conscious of the tricks Gombrich described and that our sight is supplemented
by our recognition, our minds. Fafard’s applications of foreshortening and
other perspective devices to cows created a whole new phase of work.
Two other cows, created at different dates, but photographed together, are Pet
Cow (1980) and House Bull (1982) (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28-29) (Figs.
3-4). Made of clay and glazed, they recline and face one another. The reclining
pose is often used by Fafard and offers one solution to the problem of
supporting the enormous bulk of the body on spindly legs. Frontally and from
the rear, the two appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits of
particular bovines. But when the viewer shifts position to look between the
animals, the peculiar foreshortening and flattening effect is visible, suggesting
that the bodies, but not the heads, experienced the effects of a rolling pin. The
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ability of the viewer to change position and, therefore, change perspectives is
fully exploited by Fafard.
Taking this idea to another level, and even more contortions, is the Cow in
Space Wrinkle (1982) (Figs. 5-7). Again, the front and rear views appear
“normal” and we expect to see an entire animal whereas the side view displays
the head and front legs as expected, but the entire body has been collapsed and
eliminated. This changing of viewpoints as the observer moves around the
image is a three-dimensional exploration of the same illusions that perspective
teaches painters. But perspective rules instruct the painter on how to conceal
what has been eliminated while Fafard presents these literal interpretations for
eyes to see. The cow’s body is lost in a “space wrinkle,” a term belonging to
science fiction along with hyperspace. A wrinkle is a small furrow, a folding or
puckering of a normally smooth surface. Also, a wrinkle is defined as an
“ingenious new trick or innovation.” Combining several viewpoints in a single
cow as Fafard does compresses the time factor needed to view each one as well
as the actual space consumed by the cow portrait. Time is also involved as the
viewer moves around the sculpture. In the paintings of Cézanne or Picasso, the
combination of several viewpoints in a single work was startling at first, but we
have become accustomed to it. However, seeing these techniques in sculptures
of cows is new.
Fafard’s spatial manipulations are all the more challenging when sometimes a
cow sculpture presents an entire animal and other times, the cows are wrinkled
or “incomplete.” By exhibiting both types simultaneously, Fafard challenges
the viewer’s expectations. As Gombrich relays the history of theories about
vision, he concludes “it is our mind that weaves these sensations into
perceptions” which are “grounded on experience, on knowledge” (Gombrich
1960: 297). We are used to size distinctions and the fact that objects far away are
small, but we are not used to the elimination, the wrinkles, or the visibility of the
visual trick.
Contemporary Sculptors, Visual Perception and Fafard
Contemporaries of Fafard in the Canadian art world are also interested in the
issue of space, its representation and challenging expectations. In the work of
two fellow sculptors, Don Proch (b. 1944) and Michael Snow (b. 1929), their
interests obviously parallel those of Fafard, but the bases of their experiments
arise from different premises. For example, Proch’s three-dimensional
fiberglass sculptures of heads, masks and figures provide surfaces for drawings
of the prairie landscape executed in graphite and silverpoint. Drawing is a twodimensional
technique, but in Proch’s work, the three-dimensional surfaces
require the spectator to move around each of his masks. The landscape is
fragmented and the masks themselves; for example, Manitoba Mining Mask,
1976, resembles an altered human head merging with a mining mask plus
smoke stack. The delicate drawings on the surface and their suggestion of the
endless prairie contrast with the startling shapes and the surreal implications of
their mask-head-surfaces. In Proch’s work, the traditional distinctions between
the two- and three-dimensional blur (Vervoort 1991: 134). In fact, Proch has
said, “I consider my pieces three dimensional drawings” (Kroker and Hughes
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Figure 5
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Front view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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Figure 6
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Rear view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Figure 7
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Side view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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1986: 239). Both Fafard and Proch attended the University of Manitoba in the
early 1960s; Fafard earned his B.F.A. degree in 1966. The two sculptors have
also participated in the same exhibitions, such as Western Untitled in 1976
(Heath 1970). The landscape is dominant in Proch’s work whereas in Fafard’s
view the cow is “some aspect of the landscape” (Visions Guide 1983: 30).
While both come from Prairie backgrounds and received a similar training,
Fafard and Proch deal with problems of visual perception by employing
different materials and techniques as well as with different subject matter.
Michael Snow’s Walking Woman series, created between 1961 and 1967,
included painted and collaged versions as well as free-standing sculptural
examples. Characteristic of the execution of all the Walking Woman in the
series was her “flatness,” a quality that belied her striding pose. As Snow wrote
in 1967: “All the work till recently used the same contour of a walking figure as
a constant” (Snow 1994: 17). Snow, as a painter, found the cut-out to be an
answer to the problem of the “figure/ground relationship and the avoidance of
illusionistic spatial recession.” Or as Louise Dompierre has said of the Walking
Woman, it “acted simultaneously as subject and form which, in turn, was used,
among other things, to explore various possibilities of spatial relationships.”
And, “the W.W. cut-out was figure/form/content” (Dompierre 1983: 36-37). In
Snow’s sculptural versions, the identical image found in the paintings and
paper cut-outs, is immediately visible. For Example, Project (1961) displays
the Walking Woman silhouetted on a series of stepped boxes attached to the
wall. The format allows for depth, but the silhouette, now sectioned, is
presented on four different levels, but the silhouette is still flat and the pose is
still striding (Michael Snow Project 1994: 134). Also from 1961 are Rolled
Woman I and Rolled Woman II which wrap the flat cut-out silhouettes around
cardboard tubes. In Rolled Woman I, two tubes placed horizontally within the
deep frame allow the mid-section of the canvas cut-out to remain recognizable
whereas in Rolled Woman II, the single vertical tube is wrapped more tightly
and the paper cut-out woman is only recognizable in the context of the series. In
all of these examples, the “constant” of the essentially two-dimensional cut-out
is the same; she might be presented in different forms and materials, but she is
always flat. Even in the stainless-steel extended cut-outs that Snow made for
Expo ’67, such as Stretched Figure (1967), the ends of the works are the
familiar silhouette of the Walking Woman. They may have depth, but the
drawn-out aspect makes them unrecognizable as human figures when seen
from the side. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Walking Woman (1961) constructs
the familiar and recognizable silhouette with irregularly shaped blocks of wood
so that the surfaces are uneven, but which overall is the most three-dimensional
depiction of the series (Dompierre 1983: 148-149). Even in the cut-paper
invitations for the opening of an exhibit at The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, Snow
folded and ironed (“foldages”) each invitation to create individual small-scale
works of art, but whether folded or unfolded, they were still the familiar cut-out
Walking Woman. Whether working in miniature or with large scale casts,
Snow’s interest in the figure, the silhouette, and the framing or non-framing of
the image emphasizes the singularity of that image and the multiplicity of
approaches to materials and surfaces.
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Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Nowhere in the Walking Woman series, however, does Snow collapse the
volume of the figure as Fafard does with his cows. Snow’s women from
beginning to end in his series never take on the characteristics of a figure-in-theround
whereas Fafard’s cows are usually three-dimensional and only in some
cases is the volume partially collapsed. The position of the viewer before the
Walking Woman is usually vertical and face to face with the Woman usually
represented as five feet tall (Snow 1994: 17). The small scale of many of
Fafard’s cows and their display on pedestals or the life-size examples placed on
the floor or ground, e.g., The Pasture, positions the viewer to look down on the
sculptures. In addition, Snow’s exploration of a single image in as many
variations as possible is not the same as Fafard’s cows which vary in
appearance from work to work with each cow or bull’s expression having the
individuality of a portrait. Snow and Fafard treated their subjects as both
subject and form. Nevertheless, the premises which prompted each artist to
dwell on a single subject, their individual examples and particularly the
materials have resulted in entirely different conclusions. And finally, there is no
evidence of Fafard being aware of Snow’s art. Snow was included in an
exhibition at Regina’s Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery in 1967, but Fafard did
not arrive to teach at the University of Regina until the next year. The idea of
working in series or repeating the same subject in numerous variations,
however, has been a characteristic of Western art since the time of the
Impressionists.
Fafard in the 1990s
More recently, Fafard’s experiments lead in another direction, but one still
connected with issues of space. Berthe (1990) is a cow constructed of sheets of
wax and cast in bronze. The assemblage of the sheets remains visible in the
finished product and the inability of the sheets to fully define the cow is
exploited. From a three-quarter view, Berthe appears complete, but from a
closer view the gaps between the sheets are visible and reveal Berthe as hollow.
In addition, a piece of the head and ear are eliminated although, from most
angles, these omissions are not visible. As Terrence Heath observes: “. . . from
many angles these sculptures are ‘abstract’; like the best art of all cultures, they
are balanced on that fine line between representation, pure form and concept”
(Heath 1990: 25-26). Berthe’s appearance results in a different experience of
space because of the different medium, the slab technique.
Lately, Fafard’s art has turned in another direction, but he is still manipulating
space and illusion. His latest works are three-dimensional outlines cut from
stainless steel sheets. The cows, bulls and horses, however, are larger in scale
than his earlier clay cows, but the new depictions are basically all space. Only
the contours remain to define the shape of the animals; they have height and
width, but no depth. Interior lines to represent manes, eyes or tails are kept to a
minimum; the crisp lines are sharp and clear because they are laser-cut.
(Kellogg 1994: D15). Fafard’s galleries have photographed these in the
landscape so that fields, horizon line and sky become part of the animals as, for
example, Gordon and Jill (1993) are recognizable as cattle but presented in
their natural milieu for the Susan Whitney Gallery advertisement (Susan
Whitney 1993: 12). As Gordon and Jill reveals, these recent works are more
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IJCS / RIÉC
space than line, they are both pictorial and sculptural. These three-dimensional
lines form the shapes of cattle and depend on the viewer’s mind to fill in what
the artist has eliminated. Rounded lines predominate. Their spatial presence
does not stop at the physical boundaries indicated by the contour lines, but
extends to encompass the setting. These new linear cattle have the potential to
blendwiththeirsurroundingswhetherindoorsorout.Theyarespaceandair.
Some of Fafard’s recent exhibitions have featured only his animals, a situation
which has forced reviewers to pay some attention to the cows. Even so, mention
of his human figures is inevitable as a review of Fete Champetre: Recent
Patinated Bronze Sculpture, an exhibit of 13 bronze works, demonstrates as
Fafard’s representations of Diefenbaker, Queen Elizabeth and Greenberg are
recalled (Heath 1990: 25-26). Another exhibit, Wild Things: Animals in
Contemporary Art was successful according to a reviewer because of the
“integrity” of individual works, that “animals have been such a compelling
subject in the history of Western art” and because many of the animals
exhibited “show off animals that have become artists’ trademark” like “Joe
Fafard’s broad-beamed cows....”Aphotograph of Alexander is “among the
interesting works on display” (Gilmor 1991: C34). Unlike portraits of people
where the reviewer can remark on the likeness achieved and the expression of
personality, the representation of animals still leaves critics almost speechless.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s publicity for Joe Fafard: The Bronze
Years assured visitors they would not be stampeded by the cattle by Joe Fafard
“the figurative artist.”
As Nancy Tousley observed, “what Fafard means to tell us with his spatial
illusions and distorted proportions is that there is no one way of looking at
anything” (Tousley 1988: 60). And Fafard himself has said that “a fresh and
ordered work of art” succeeds when it can “re-create itself in the soul of the
viewer” (Mandel 1979: 19). These achievements by Fafard are in accord with
the philosopher Peter Ouspensky’s ideas about the role of the artist:
The artist must be a clairvoyant; he must see that which others do not
see; he must be a magician; must possess the power to make others see
that which they do not themselves see, but which he does see
(Henderson 1983: 251).
Fafard’s cows in all their various appearances whether looked at from an
unexpected angle, location, or “around a corner” with unexpected wrinkles and
flattening or the latest line reliefs are a successful means of manipulating the
viewer who after viewing a few Fafard cows can no longer rely any longer on
the preconceived expectations set up by a single viewpoint. The complexity of
Fafard’s cows and their spatial contortions are in step with twentieth century
art’s interest in space. Fafard’s cows entice viewers to walk around the
sculptures, to examine them from various angles, and, at the same time, to
become conscious of the process of viewing. To be aware of the perspective
systems used for the representations of these cows in three dimensions also
delights the viewer. Imaginative, thought-provoking and humorous, Fafard’s
cows teach us about looking and then looking again.
106

Acknowledgment
The author is indebted to two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an earlier
version of this paper. Special thanks are due to R. Ferguson for reviewing the manuscript. A
shorter version of this paper was presented to the Interdisciplinary Conference on Time and
Space at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland, May 9-13,
1990.
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Borsa, J. 1985. “Joe Fafard,” Vanguard, XIV (February 1985), 32.
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Cowart, J. 1981. Roy Lichtenstein 1970-1980. New York: Hudson Hills Press and Saint Louis
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Heath, T. 1990. “The Accessible Innovator,” Border Crossings, 9 (July ), 25-26.
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Janson, H. W. 1991. History of Art, 4th ed., rev. by A. F. Janson. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
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Jonson, A. 1978. “The Down-to-Earth Art of Joe Fafard,” Reader’s Digest, 112 (May 1), 169-174.
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Kellogg, A. 1994. “Extraordinary Art from an Ordinary Joe,” The Winnipeg Free Press, June 12,
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O’Brian, J., ed. 1989. The Flat Side of the Landscape: The Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops.
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(July 25), 23-25.
108

Beverley Curran
Mitoko Hirabayashi
Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in
Le désert mauve
Abstract
Nicole Brossard’s novel, Le désert mauve, is a dialogue between two versions
of a story. In the imaginative space between the intentions of the writer and
the understanding of the reader, the process of translation functions as a
narrative in which the relationship between reality and fiction, between the
reader and the writer, is always questioned. Constrained by the text which
precedes her reading, yet intimately involved with the text she imagines, the
translator translates herself from reader to writer to slant “la réalité du côté
de la lumière.”
Résumé
Le roman intitulé Le désert mauve de Nicole Brossard est un dialogue entre
deux versions d’une même histoire. Dans un espace imaginaire situé entre les
intentions de l’auteur et la compréhension du lecteur, le processus de
traduction prend la forme d’une narration où le lien entre la réalité et la
fiction, entre le lecteur et l’auteur, est toujours mis en doute. Contrainte par le
texte qui précède sa lecture tout en participant intimement au texte qu’elle
imagine, la traductrice passe du rôle de lectrice à celui d’auteure pour faire
pencher « la réalité du côté de la lumière ».
Le désert mauve has been in print for a decade, and Nicole Brossard, in a recent
interview, confirmed her continuing fascination with translation, particularly
as an “act of passage”:
an act of passage, well, of course, from one language to another, but
also, for me, it functions the same way as passing from reality to
fiction, or from fiction to reality. So it’s the transformation of a reality,
of a world into another one with slight alteration. 1
Brossard uses the indefinite article to refer to reality, indicating there are
multiple versions of this “familiar idea which appears obvious,” 2 and
suggesting different versions of reality for women and for men. Her character,
Mélanie, the narrator of Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve, reflects, “[l]a
réalité avait un sens, mais lequel?” (28). Brossard raises many such troubling
questions in her writing. She asks questions because she writes not about what
she knows, but is enticed by the horizon, and what she can only approach in her
writing. For her, a book:
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
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should make you ask questions. I write to explore, to understand more
and to discover. And I want the reader to do the same—to stop, to
question, to explore with me while reading the text. If my writing is
full of rupture, it is...mywayofcreating new spaces for new meaning
which would not appear if I wrote in a linear way. 3
Translation is a narrative which adds a new dimension to Brossard’s writing by
always questioning the relationship between reality and fiction, between the
reader and the writer. Translation is a form of writing which lets a woman
explore “who she is” 4; Brossard provides a model for the translation, like
Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, the English translator of Le désert mauve,
each of whom asserts, “I am already a translation by being bilingue, Iam
already a translation by being a lesbian feminist, I am already a translation by
being a woman.” 5 The process of translation engages the woman as both a
reader and a writer, negotiating meaning in an imaginative space which is
nevertheless constrained by the original text which precedes her reading.
Again, questions make translation an open space of ontological inquiry:
La question qui se pose en traduction est celle du choix. Quel
signifiant privilégier, élire pour animer en surface les multiples
signifiés qui s’agitent invisibles et efficaces dans le volume de la
conscience? (JI 23)
Brossard constructed her novel, Le désert mauve, by becoming her own reader
and asking questions, imagining dialogues between the characters she had
already created:
I wrote the first book ...butthen after I wrote that first part, I
personally wanted to know more about the characters. I didn’t know
anything about them so I was curious to find out about the place where
they lived; about their childhood; to imagine the dialogues they would
have together...sothat is why the second part exists because of my
natural curiosity to find out about the characters I had given existence.
(Interview)
With “that obsession with understanding the act of writing” (Interview) which
is an ubiquitous concern in her novels, Brossard interrupts her own writing
processinordertoreadandtoimaginewhathasbeenleftfor“thepageahead.” 6
This “interactive discourse” 7, the strategy for developing Le désert mauve, is
illustrated in the text by the dialogue between the two versions of a story, and
between two writers, one of whom is an active reader, a translator. Brossard’s
novel is a structural triptych, consisting of Laure Angstelle’s novel, Le désert
mauve, and a translation of Angstelle’s book, Mauve, l’horizon, by Maude
Laures. In the space between the two sites of writing, the translator imagines the
possibilities of the text she has read, “re-imagining the characters’ lives, the
objects, the dialogue” (Interview). Between the versions of the desert story, she
creates a fluid dimension of desire, a “space to swim with the words”
(Interview).
That fluid space spills over the ostensible borders between the texts, and
multiple levels of narration flow together. The universe of the “narratrice dont
le nom, Mélanie” (56) is differently configured, with a different narrative voice
in the imagination of Maude Laures, in dialogues between characters, between
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Making Space for a New Narrative
translator and author, and in the translation. The production Mauve, l’horizon
adds another level of narration in the imagination of a new reader. This
narrative spiral is another distinct version of the intertextual narrative described
by Louise H. Forsyth in her preface to Picture Theory:
Dans l’univers de la narratrice principale circulent, à plusieurs
niveaux textuels, de nombreuses écrivaines et narratrices qui se
rassemblent, se ressemblent et se répètent. C’est ainsi qu’on fait
émerger une communauté et une culture ...Leréseau mobile
d’écrivaines, de narratrices et de lectrices ...estlenoyau d’une
communauté interprétive par laquelle Brossard compte transformer le
paysage ontologique de l’humanité . . . (18)
In Brossard’s fiction, she imagines women, as writers, readers, translators and
storytellers, speaking to each other openly.
Within Angstelle’s text, Mélanie’s first writing takes place in the desert, in her
mother’s car, using a page from the small notebook kept in the glove
compartment for recording oil changes and other car maintenance. From that
moment of writing, Mélanie is in search of a reader. She tries to draw her mother
into a different configuration of intimacy, to talk to her through her writing:
Je harcelais ma mère pour qu’elle lise le peu que j’avais écrit. Mes
fautes! Je voulais qu’elle corrige tout ça. Je laissais traîner le cahier sur
le téléviseur ou sur le plancher, bien en vue. (27)
In “flaunting” her writing and juxtaposing her text against the television,
Mélanie places her writing, her tentative words and her anxious excitement
about them and how they might be read, next to television, “the Book of
Patriarchy” (Interview). To Mélanie’s disappointment, the television remains
on, and the stories her mother tells to her lover, Lorna, are “quelques histoires
qu’elle avait lues dans le Time ou le Convention Globe. À la fin du récit,
quelqu’un mourait, s’en allait ou dévoilait un secret” (27): the familiar linear
texts with their predictable narrative of closure. Without a reader, Mélanie is a
writing subject who cannot find her partner in an intimate dialogue: “Je ne peux
tutoyer personne” (32/51). She is “a subject in process, moving, changing, a
being in pursuit of” (AL 133).
At another level of the narrative is the translator, Maude Laures, located within
the text through her reading, and the text located within her through the writing
of her translation. She is aware of the risk of translating the mauve desert of her
reading into the mauve horizon of her own writing, “peur panique de se
substituer à l’auteure de ce livre” (57), but “[e]n ce début de décembre, son désir
est grand, résulté de l’approche et de la possibilité croisées de quelques
transformations” (58).
Le pourrait-elle sans confondre l’horizon et le désert, ces espaces
venus, par effraction, se greffer sur son monde urbain et sur les figures
qui, en elle, ne toléraient pas de désastre? (58)
Maude Laures is drawn into the pages of “ce livre écrit par une femme dont elle
ne sait rien sinon la preuve présumée d’une existence recluse dans le temps et
l’espace franchi d’un seul livre” (55). From her first readings of “ce livre
insolite trouvé dans une librairie de livres usagés” (121), she boldly confronts
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“the issue of control. Who owns the meaning of the black marks on the page, the
writer or the reader?” 8 and “decides that this book will belong to her”;
and that she can do everything because she has fallen in love with the
book, and therefore she’s taken possession of the book, the author, the
characters, the desert. (Interview)
In her intimate exploration of the text in terms of her desire, in her “intention de
faire passer” (61), Maude Laures negotiates the “aller-retour” (61) between
fiction and reality, between the tangible “innocent” novel of Laure Angstelle
and her own translation, located in the virtual reality of her imagination.
Although Maude Laures can read of Mélanie, and only imagine the author of
“l’univers de la narratrice dont le nom, Mélanie,” (58) she is as attracted to the
“auther” as she is to the characters. Indeed, Maude Laures, in her
deconstruction of the novel in the process of preparing her translation, includes
Laure Angstelle among the characters. Imagining Laure Angstelle becomes a
“pre-text” ritual to begin the daily act of writing, translating the text:
La nuit, Maude Laures rêvait de son livre et le jour, avant même de
s’adonner aux principes de l’audace et de la prudence elle pensait à
Laure Angstelle. Cela la rassurait de savoir qu’elle était libre de tout
(imaginer) à son sujet. (61)
Brossard’s desire in writingLe désert mauve included the intention “to translate
myself from French to French” (Interview); in the text, the process of
translation is taking place within one language, between language and body,
and in the writing of a woman’s tongue. In “Reading Nicole Brossard,” Susan
Knutson describes the writer’s use of the figure of translation
not so much as an exploration of the physical frontiers of languages or
cultures—although these are still present as fictions, as metaphors, as
incitations—but rather as the drive to reach the internal horizons of
meaning and the consciousness or construction of reality. (12)
Sherry Simon points out that “the installation of the figure of the translator
within the text suggests images of cultural space which are complex and
multiple” 9 without elaborating on the configuration of that space. Pamela
Banting is more specific about the implications of translation as a way of
“rewriting within literary systems”:
Women’s language is a simultaneous translation between language
andbody...Furthermore, the (m)other tongue is not a language that
can be translated out of or into...itisalanguage which emerges only
in a complex and multivalent act and can only be comprehended in
two or more languages at once. 10
And in more than one genre, according to Brossard, who feels that “women’s
subjectivity needs all the genres at the same time. The way we re-route words to
our own experience opens up entire zones of unknown and unspoken
dimensions of reality” (SD 64). It is with this intention that Maude Laures sets
her reading beside Laure Angstelle’s writing:
Le temps était venu du corps à corps avec le livre...D’une langue à
l’autre, il y aurait du sens,...contour et rencontre du moi...Maude
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Making Space for a New Narrative
Laures savait que le temps était maintenant venu de se glisser
anonyme et entière entre les pages. (177)
As Maude Laures plunges, engrossed, into the book of Laure Angstelle, she
feels “the sensational effects of reading as a feeling we cannot express unless
we underline” (AL 157). In a desire to do more than just read the words, she
marks the pages, tattooing them with her own inks, breaking the book’s
bindingsandturningitintoacollectionofpagesheldtogetherbyelasticbands:
Toutes les pages étaient annotées, ici le bleu polysémie, le vert piste
sonore, le rouge à vérifier, le noir incompréhensible, le jaune familier,
le rose quel genre?, le mauve quel temps? Dans les marges, des
attentions qui pouvaient passer pour des remarques à la mine. Parfois
un dessin pour faciliter la représentation.
au bas de la page éliminer tous les comme si possible (169)
The techniques of the translator uncover and employ signifiers, such as
“ellipses, footnotes [and] orthographical conventions,” which
occupy a textual space of loss or oversight. Apparently escaping the
laws of representation, they are overlooked by interpretative
procedures. Often thought to be matters of style rather than substance,
perfunctory rather than perfomative, these signifiers occupy a textual
space that overlaps a cultural space, a margin of difference or a
vanishing point of meaning, that is psychosexually coded
“feminine.” 11
Maude Laures’ attention to the margins is meticulous, and draws her reader’s
eye to what is overlooked or ignored in the act of reading. The chapters of Laure
Angstelle’s novel are marked by the predictable headings “chapitre un,”
“chapitre deux” through to “chapitre huit.” This is a structural convention we
take for granted in reading a novel, and a reader will barely glance at the
divisional marker before reading. But Maude Laures adjusts the orthography,
translating “chapitre” to “chaptitre,” drawing our eye to an unlikely site of
surprise.
Maude Laures also translates the representations of numbers in the chapter
headings and within the text from words to figures. The translator’s use of
mathematical figures on the pages of the translator’s text tangles her identity
with Angela Parkins, the geometrist. The languages of the translator and the
geometrist are both “capable de représentation et ayant le sens du territoire, un
grand territoire qui recouvrait plusieurs états” (99). From another perspective,
these figures are part of “l’homme long,” and their appearance upon the pages
of the translation, especially in the final chapter, heighten the subliminal
menace of that character, just as the translation of that character from “l’homme
long”to“l’hom’oblong”increasesthethreatofhismoresubstantialpresence.
The figures also draw Mélanie differently; her “quinze ans” becomes “15 ans,”
linking her in a “figurative” association with Angela Parkins and “l’homme
long,” and also with the road and the map of her restlessness. In Laure
Angstelle’s novel, Mélanie drives to Albuquerque to meet her cousin, “the only
girl or woman that she thought she could be in touch with easily” (Interview),
driven by the attraction for another woman which she had felt in the presence of
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Angela Parkins. She passes the junction of “10” and “25,” the signs of the two
roads presented graphically in Angstelle’s text. This junction is “real,” and
could be found on a map of the southwestern States or encountered while
driving from Tucson to Albuquerque. However Maude Laures changes the
coordinates of this junction, replacing “25” with “15,” unsettling “certitude”
and “reality” by translating the road into a time warp, where Mélanie’s “15”
years is the site of the story.
Maude Laures’ footnote reminds her to attempt to “éliminer tous les comme si
possible” in her translation, but here, she introduces one instead. Whereas
Laure Angstelle’s text reads, “La route était un décalage horaire perdu dans
l’air tremblant de l’horizon” (32), Maude Laures writes “La route était comme
un décalage horaire imperceptible dans l’air tremblant” (201), creating the
simile and removing the horizon, suggesting that this is a moment where the
subjectivity of the reader/translator did not meet that of the author, resulting in a
distancing. It is not the only place where Maude Laures “leaves out” the horizon
in Laure Angstelle’s text. In her consideration of all the dimensions of the
novel, such as the desert, dawn, fear and reality, she does not include the
horizon, although she situates it beyond the text, in the title of her translation,
Mauve l’horizon.
But the similes Maude Laures does eliminate are those which make
associations with women’s bodies. Mélanie writes of the surprise of finding her
mother and Lorna making love: “Un soir, je surpris dans l’obscurité de leur
chambre ma mère, épaules et nuque tendues comme une existence vers la nudité
de Lorna” (18) [italics added]. The translation of this passage reads, “Lorsque
je la voyais si près de Lorna et qu’entre elles il y avait juste assez de distance
pour que j’imagine en leur corps une excitation, les images défilaient en moi,
nuque, nudité, épaules heureuses” (188). Her decision favours the erotic
association of the bodies over the cerebral association of “existence” and the
nude body of a woman. As Pamela Banting explains in her discussion of
Daphne Marlatt’s use of the simile:
In the simile, it is forms which are analysed and compared. The
traditional use of the simile reinforces metaphysics. In this formal
analysis there is no room for erotic attachments....Erotic attraction is
not always or even necessarily based on similarity: erotics is based
upon the play of sameness and difference. Rather than producing
analogy, this other kind of simile is based upon ...theprocess of
attraction between two bodies. 12
That attraction also takes place between writing and speaking. In the text are
conversations rendered as sound, where the meaning of the spoken word does
not matter. “Sound teases out the sense: the ear leads the mind in new
directions.” 13 There is the memory of Mélanie’s first meeting with Lorna, her
mother’s lover:
La première fois que j’ai vu Lorna, je l’ai trouvée belle et j’ai prononcé
le mot « salope ». J’avais cinq ans. Au souper, ma mère lui souriait.
Elles se regardaient et quand elles parlaient leurs voix étaient pleines
d’intonations. J’observais obstinément leurs bouches. Lorsqu’elles
prononçaient des mots qui commençaient par m, leurs lèvres
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Making Space for a New Narrative
disparaissaient un instant puis gonflées se réanimaient avec une
incroyable rapidité. Lorna dit qu’elle aimait le moly et la mousse de
saumon. (12)
The topic of food, the repetition of the sound “m” and the minute focus on the
way the lips form that sound attract the reader to the mouths of Lorna and
Mélanie’s mother. This “eroticization of the oral cavity” (TTF 35), the
attraction between the sounds, focusses the reader on lips and mouths, their
sounds and textures, and interrupts the text and the reader’s concentration,
setting both adrift. “Oralization reorders textual spatiality, subverting the
distance and separation between object and subject, word and thing, on which
the symbolic is premised” (TTF 35), leaning into the text until it seems to lose
its balance.
At her first meeting with Angela Parkins, listening to her conversation in the
Bar, Mélanie hears words she does not understand about things she does not
know, but the voice and the beauty of Angela Parkins resonate within her, her
body and the sounds of words linked in an erotic association:
Un soir, je pus enfin voir cette Angela Parkins dont ma mère parlait
souvent...Cesoir-là, je m’installai au bar, espérant surprendre une
conversation qui puisse dénouer le mystère que ma mère avait créé
autour d’Angela Parkins. Mais on parla en détail de structure et de
perspective avec des mots dont la plupart m’étaient inconnus. Puis
Angela Parkins se tourna vers ma mère et lui fit un brin de jasette en
employant cette fois-ci des mots simple qui résonnèrent en moi,
savoureux et colorés comme une chose intime. (28)
This conversation, this meeting, is curtailed abruptly in Laure Angstelle’s
novel, with a laconic/lacunal suggestiveness: “Angela Parkins quitta le Bar
avant onze heures et je me retirai à peu près à la même heure” (28). The
translator pries open a gap and extends the text, changing the rhythm of the
story and offering Mélanie and Angela an opening: “Angela Parkins se retira
avant 11 heures. Je la suivis jusqu’au stationnement. J’avais 15 ans et je voulais
que tout mon corps soit nécessaire” (198).
Fifteen-year-old Mélanie, in her mother’s Meteor, “les yeux fous d’arrogance”
(12), drives through the night to the dawn, her face “comme une image qui suit
son cours entre la voix narratrice et le personnage” (117). She drives to the
desert “car très jeune je voulais savoir pourquoi dans les livres on oublie de
mentionner le désert” (13), or, as Maude Laures translates, “car très jeune je
voulais tout connaître de la beauté, de la lumière, éloigner la peur et la mort”
(183). In either reading, Mélanie senses the presence of absence. “Nous
sommes le désert et l’évidence au coucher des ombres” (49), says the narrator,
and the translator echoes her words, but even more strongly, “[n]ous sommes le
désert et l’évidence” (219), both asserting their visibility, their presence by
writing, by translating to “make sense slip and move in ways hitherto unheard
of in language’s imaginary” (AL 141).
Willingly seduced by the text, Maude Laures enters Laure Angstelle’s novel,
“se glisser anonyme et entière entre les pages,” and in her borrowed vehicle, her
intention is to engage in a dialogue “[u]n dialogue pour que soit rectifiée sa
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méfiance à l’égard de tout personnage, sa fascination de l’aube et surtout pour
nettoyer la peur de sa composition affective” (59):
Oui, un dialogue. Obliger Mélanie à la conversation ...Oui, un
dialogue somptueux ...Undialogue qui lui permettrait, Mélanie
emportée par les mots, de voyager à ses côtés dans la Meteor, d’ouvrir
la boîte à gants, de toucher le revolver, de feuilleter le carnet
d’entretien. (60)
Maude Laures creates her own space for conversation, imagining dialogues
between the characters, such as that between Angela Parkins and Mélanie in the
parking lot. But she does not imagine such a conversation with “l’homme
long,” keeping only blurred and overexposed photographs of him—he remains
faceless—in a file. “I have no words for him and that’s why I had to go through
the image” (Interview). “L’homme long” recites poetry in the original Sanskrit,
and thumbs through porno, as fascinating and threatening as television. Until
the final chapter of Laure Angstelle’s story, he is isolated, in short chapters
which continue to shrink, and in his hotel room. Nevertheless, “l’homme long”
is given precedence in each chapter by appearing first, and his motel room,
when he parts the curtain, has a view of the pool—unlike the room the translator
enters and occupies. Her window “donne sur un espace en terre battue où une
adolescente, appuyée sur un baril rouillé, fume un petit cigare” (70). “L’homme
long” is responsible for murdering Angela Parkins. Or is he? The translator
wants to know why the author allows the reality of “l’homme long” to
manipulate her own fiction away from her. Given the possibility of closeness
between Mélanie and Angela Parkins, why does the author select closure, using
lesbianpanic14asthemotivationofthemaleassassin’shatredandmadness? In the conversation between writer and translator, made possible imagining “la
scène en écartant le rideau entre l’auteure et la traductrice” (140), the two
women meet in the translator’s imagination, “à comprendre comment la mort
transite entre la fiction et la réalité. La langue parlée est celle de l’auteure”
(140). It is not a conversation that the translator has eagerly anticipated; she had
delayed it with annotations and possible word choices:
Dans la marge, il n’y avait plus d’espace et Maude Laures se mit à
cocher d’autres mots qui pourraient dans sa langue relancer le sens et
lui éviter d’affronter la fin brutale d’Angela Parkins. (175)
The translator begins her conversation tentatively, with deference for
chronological precedence: “J’ai craint un instant que vous ne veniez pas au
rendez-vous....Jen’ai aucun droit. Vous m’êtes antérieure” (140). She is there
solely to discuss the death of Angela Parkins. Maude Laures does not want to
talk about Angela Parkins from her perspective as a reader—she is too
involved. She wishes instead to “abolish the distance” between fiction and
reality by imagining she is talking as one of Laure Angstelle’s own characters,
for “in the translator’s imagination, the author is the same level, in the same
deep dimension of the characters” (Interview), marking her movement with
italics, and a more intimate term of address:
—...J’aimerais vous parler exactement comme j’imagine qu’Angela
Parkins le ferait si elle pouvait sortir de son personnage, si elle en était
la présence ultime.
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Making Space for a New Narrative
—Je vous écoute.
—Pourquoi m’as-tu mise à mort? (141)
With this question, the author is confronted with her responsibility: why did she
let “l’homme long” kill Angela Parkins, and deny the possibility of an
unfolding relationship between her two very passionate subjects? In this
question one might detect “a particular tone of superiority which characterizes
the backshadowing observer, who passes judgment on those who failed to take
responsible action.” 15 But this same tone is also evident in the reply of the
authorwho,awareoftheshiftingbordersbetweenrealityandfiction,answers:
— . . . jure-moi que tu n’as rien vu venir. Jure-le-moi.
—Vu venir quoi? L’amour, la mort? Vu venir qui? Mélanie ou
l’assassin? (141)
The confusion is evident: choices are unclear and difficult to make for writers,
translators and characters because there are so many versions of reality: “La
réalité avait un sens, mais lequel” (28)? The contours of the dialogue shift to
include not just the personal universe of the writer with characters, readers and
writer imagined together, but the reality in which all women live, enveloped in a
patriarchal society full of violence: “L’intolérance. La folie. La violence”
(141), a shared awareness that “man will kill because he cannot support lesbian
love...cannot accept the fact that women can be subject” (Interview). Angela
Parkins’ death then, within the text, remains a fictional death resulting from “a
situation of symbolic violence [against] women who seem to be existing on
their own, not in a relationship with a man” (Interview).
With a lacerating directness, the author admonishes her character, challenges
her reader:
Tu es morte parce que tu as oublié de regarder autour de toi. Tu t’es
trop vite affranchie et, parce que tu t’es crue libre, tu n’as plus voulu
regarder autour de toi. Tu as oublié la réalité.” (141-2)
There are at least two stories unfolding at once, simultaneously. There is the
story of women like Lorna and Mélanie’s mother, whose love has clearly
entered the dimension of daily life: “Nous n’avons d’autre repère que nous”
(135), who are the subjects of their own story. But there is another story, which
like an unmarked envelope slipped unobtrusively under a motel room door,
intrudes and alters what reader and writer want to come next. But both versions
of reality exist. In the reader’s imagination, Angela Parkins may well ask why
the author could not constrain the story:
—Tu aurais pu m’aider, me faire signe.
—Il est vrai que je t’ai crue à l’écart du danger et des aboiements. Je
t’ai imaginée passionnée et capable en cela d’éloigner le mauvais
sort. Je t’ai crue plus forte que la réalité.
—Mais imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours. Tu
aurais pu faire ricocher la balle ou me blesser légèrement. (142)
To believe that foreknowledge will protect one like a talisman, or that the
alteration of a plot can protect a character also assumes that any decision is
conclusive and without contingency. The author is sympathetic to her
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character, had imagined her strong and passionate, yet concedes the insidious
power of the patriarchy. “La peur est une réalité qui encombre la fiction car sans
elle nous jonglerions avec nos vies bien au-delà de la leçon” (162). From her
perspective, Angela Parkins’ death appeared inevitable. Even if “l’homme
long” had missed:
— ...sicethomme t’avait seulement blessée, tu te serais retournée
contre lui avec une telle fureur que c’est toi qui l’aurais mis à mort. De
toute manière, ta vie aurait été gâchée. Légitime défense ou non. Cet
homme, ne l’oublie pas, avait bonne réputation. (142)
The translator’s imagined Angela Parkins insists that the context could have
been undermined: “imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours,” but
the reader and the writer have different things at stake. Maude Laures seeks
alteration. She knows that “[a]ucun livre ne peut s’écrire sans enjeu. Enjeu de
vie, enjeu de mort, je ne sais encore. Mais aucun livre ne s’écrit sans enjeu,
brutal et immédiat,” but “[c]omment pourrais-je déserter Mélanie?” (154).
This moment of confrontation or imagined dialogue draws the reader into the
text, into a narrative moment both independent and communal, which offers
“alternatives: with each present another possible present”:
[W]e do not see contradictory actualities, but one possibility
actualized, and at the same moment, another that could have been but
was not. (NAF 118)
There are then at least two versions of Angela Parkins’ death, depending on the
oscillation of “un fil de fer invisible qui tranche entre la réalité et la fiction”
(142). In one, the killer of Angela Parkins is fictional, as in the dialogue, Angela
Parkins maintains “cet homme n’existe pas. Tu n’étais pas obligée de faire
exister cet homme” (142). In another, the author’s insistence that “cet homme
existe” and that he has a life she neither created nor controls:
— Je ne suis pas responsable de la réalité...nous avons fait longue
route mais la réalité nous rattrape tôt ou tard. (142)
However, Maude Laures is no longer interested in the writer’s explanations, or
in talking “exactly the way...Angela Parkins would” and emerges from the
italics. She prefers her own version of the story and defiantly declares to the
author whose work she has chosen to translate: “Je peux reprocher ce qui existe
dans votre livre...Devous lire me donne tous les droits” (142), privileging her
own reading of the book over the author’s, and contradicting her initial position
of having “no right” because of the author and the text’s precedence. It is not
surprising that the author would be sceptical, even fearful of the appetite of this
reader who wishes to “take over” her book and translate it: “Comment croire un
instant que les paysages qui sont en vous n’effaceront pas les miens?” (143). If
the dialogue has emphasized the distance and difference between the author’s
writing and the translator’s reading, Maude Laures’ answer shows her
attraction, attachment even, to the text, “Parce que les paysages vrais
assouplissent en nous la langue, débordent le cadre de nos pensées. Se déposent
en nous” (143).
And so Maude Laures writes, and in writing, slows time. In the final chapter,
when she had danced in the arms of Angela Parkins, Mélanie had run out of
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Making Space for a New Narrative
time. “Le temps me manque pour comprendre. Il n’y a plus de temps” (50).
Maude Laures translates “Encore un temps” (202), and lets the dance continue
for at least another breath. Just as in writing “we are necessarily slowed down
by the act of forming letters or striking the keys on a keyboard” (AL 150), time
is translated into space, and in that space Maude Laures leans into the text to
slant “la réalité du côté de la lumière” (14/155). Revising, repeating and
reshaping the story, she bends the lines of her borrowed text into her own life,
diving into the story as if into a pool and surfacing with her own version:
“j’appuyais sur le pan fragile de mes pensées pour qu’elles soient penchant de
l’instant, pour que ça compte vraiment la réalité” (184).
Sometimes she makes mistakes. In her translation, Maude Laures confuses her
own imagined version of the text with the one written by Laure Angstelle and
translatesaccordingly.Infact,shetranslatesthewaywealldomostofthetime:
we keep translating what other people are telling us, even in our own
language,...even for the most simple things we are translating all the
time, and this is why we don’t agree very easily ...because we are
making mistakes in our translation, because we translate with only
what our eyes have seen ...orourknowledge ...oursense, our
emotion. (Interview)
As readers participating in conversations with writers, translating
their texts to create our own versions, captivated by the process of
living, we have to keep asking ourselves, “Reality has a meaning, but
which one?” 16 and learn to listen for the possibility of an unexpected,
even impossible, answer.
Notes
1. The interview, which focussed on Brossard’s interest in translation and our interest in Le
désert mauve, took place on April 23, 1996, in Montreal, and was conducted in English.
Hereafter referred to as “Interview.”
2. One of Brossard’s descriptions of reality in the English edition of The Aerial Letter, trans.
Marlene Wildeman (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1988), 149. This text hereafter referred
to as AL.
3. From Janice Williamson’s interview with Nicole Brossard in Sounding Differences:
Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1993), 69. Hereafter referred to as SD.
4. Compare Brossard’s remarks on the limitations of the journal: “Le journal ne me suffit pas.
Ne me convient pas. C’est une forme d’écriture qui exige trop de moi et pas assez de ce que je
suis.” From Journal Intime (Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984), 74. Hereafter referred to
as JI.
5. In Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation, eds. David Homel and Sherry
Simon (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988), 49.
6. “. . . reading us into the page ahead” appears on the page following the last paginated page
(152) of Daphne Marlatt’s Ana Historic (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988).
7. Alice Parker uses this term in her article, “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard” in
Québec Studies 10 (1990), 107-119.
8. From Barbara Godard’s “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist
Theory of Reading” in Language in Her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian
Women Writing in English, eds. Libby Scheier et al (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990),
115.
9. From Sherry Simon’s “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation:
Discourse Subjectivity Ideology, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London:Routledge, 1992), 173.
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10. Pamela Banting, “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in
Tessera (Spring 1989), 85.
11. See Introduction, “Writing and Subjectivity” in Shari Benstock, Textualizing the Feminine:
on the Limits of Genre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), xvii. Hereafter
referred to as TTF.
12. From “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s “musing with the mothertongue”
in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture, eds. Shirley Neuman and
Glennis Stephenson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 220.
13. From Barbara Godard’s commentary on her translation of a poem by Lola Lemire Tostevin
in “Vers-ions con-verse: A Sequence of Translation” in Tessera (Spring 1989), 20.
14. Patricia Juliana Smith defines “lesbian panic” in terms of narrative as “the disruptive action
or reaction that occurs when a character—or conceivably, an author—is unable or unwilling
to confront or reveal her own lesbian desire.” Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve is overtly
lesbian, yet her narrative seems to favour the mad male over the lesbian in love. L’homme
long’s “lesbian panic” is of course not the panic of a woman resisting her own lesbian
desire—though he may be resisting his own homosexuality— but his rage at the possibility
of lesbian love.
15. In Gary Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994), 118. “Backshadowing” is a term used by Gary Morson to describe
“foreshadowing after the fact. The past is viewed as having contained signs pointing to what
happened later, to events known to the backshadowing observer” (234).
16. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood’s version of Mélanie’s question, “La réalité avait un sens
mais lequel?” in her translation of Brossard’s novel, Mauve Desert (Toronto: Coach House
Press, 1990), 25.
Works Cited
Banting, Pamela. “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s ‘musing with the
mothertongue’” in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture. Eds. Shirley
Neuman and Glennis Stephenson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 217-232.
———. “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in Tessera, Spring,
1989: 81-91.
Benstock, Shari. Textualizing the Feminine: On the Limits of Genre. Norman and London:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Brossard, Nicole. The Aerial Letter. trans. Marlene Wildeman. Toronto: The Women’s Press,
1988.
———. Le désert mauve. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1987.
———. Journal Intime. Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984.
———. Mauve Desert. trans. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood. Toronto: Coach House Press,
1990.
Forsyth, Louise H. “Préface” to Nicole Brossard, Picture Theory. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1989. 7-
26.
Godard, Barbara. “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist Theory of
Reading” in Language in her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian Women
Writing in English. Eds. Libby Scheier et al. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. 112-122.
———, Susan Knutson, Kathy Mezei, Daphne Marlatt, and Gail Scott. “Vers-ions con-verse: A
Sequence of Translation” in Tessera, Spring, 1989: 16-23.
Homel, David, and Sherry Simon, eds. Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation.
Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988.
Knutson, Susan. “Reading Nicole Brossard” in Ellipse 53,1995:8-29.
Marlatt, Daphne. Ana Historic. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988.
Morson, Gary. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1994.
Parker, Alice. “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard,” in Québec Studies 10, 1990: 107-119.
Simon, Sherry. “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation: Discourse
Subjectivity Ideology. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 1992. 159-176.
Smith, Patricia Juliana. “And I Wondered If She Might Kiss Me: Lesbian Panic As Narrative
Strategy in British Women’s Fictions” in Modern Fiction Studies 41, Fall/Winter, 1995:
567-607.
Williamson, Janice. Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women
Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
120

S. Ramaswamy
Time, Space and Place in Two
Canadian Poems: An Indian View
Abstract
The purpose of the present article is to explicate two Canadian poems—Bliss
Carman’s Lord of my Heart’s Elation and Margaret Atwood’s You Want To
Go Back—from the perspective of the Indian philosophical concepts of Time
and Space. However it does not imply any “influence” of Indian thought on
these poets but the intention is to show how the poems make a great deal of
sense to an Indian sensibility. While the poem of Carman explores the idea
primarily of inner space (hridayakasha), the poem of Margaret Atwood
explores Time as well as Space in an intensely metaphysical context from an
“Indian” point of view.
Résumé
L’article tente d’expliquer deux poèmes canadiens (« Lord of my Heart’s
Elation » de Bliss Carman et « You Want To Go Back » de Margaret Atwood)
selon une perspective fondée sur les concepts philosophiques indiens du
temps et de l’espace. Cependant, ce résumé ne sous-entend pas une
quelconque « influence » de la pensée indienne sur ces poètes mais vise
plutôt à démontrer comment les poèmes en question prennent toute leur
signification dans le contexte de la sensibilité indienne. Le poème de Carman
a comme thème principal l’espace intérieur (hridayakasha), tandis que le
poème de Margaret Atwood étudie le temps de même que l’espace dans un
contexte intensément métaphysique et selon une perspective purement «
indienne ».
Kalosmi Lokakshaya krithpravruddaha1 I am come as Time.
Disashcha Akasashcha aupadhika bheda
Space that is ordinarily spoken as
Desa and Akasha are only due to upadhi. 2
Mayakalpitha desa kala kalana vaichitriya chitrikrutam
Space and Time are but the concoctions of Maya. 3
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997

IJCS / RIÉC
But now
That the forests are cut down, the rivers charted,
Where can you turn, where can you travel? Unless
Through the desperate wilderness behind your eyes
So full of falls and glooms and desolations,
Disasters I have glimpsed but few would dream of
You seek new Easts! 4
Douglas Le Pan
Coureurs de bois
I
Yes, the Canadian poets have come far from going “round the mulberry bush” 5
and “painting the native maple.” 6 They have sought the “new Easts”—and the
air is no longer “heavy with Canadian topics” 7 alone. They have survived all
this and have transcended into “Eastern” perceptions of space and time. As
Margaret Atwood has said:
History
is over, we take place
in a season, an individual
space . . . 8
Space and time—more precisely, spacio-temporal transcendence—have
alwaysoccupiedacentralconsciousnessinpoets.BlissCarmansuddenlyasks:
Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grass in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands? 9
Carman belonged to that group of remarkable poets which included the Ontario
poets Archibald Lampman, Wilfred Campbell and Duncan Campbell Scott. As
A.J.M. Smith has pointed out: “These men were all classically educated”. 10 In
fact, the liberal classical education extended to include an Eastern classical
language like Sanskrit. Talking about Crémazie, “the father of French-
Canadian poetry,” 11 Smith says: “He was a man of wide culture...Hewaswell
read in English and French, and like some later poets he studied Sanskrit.” 12
Margaret Atwood is not only a central figure in Canadian literature but “a
popular Canadian icon”. 13 Some of her poems reveal a remarkable grasp of
Indian philosophical perceptions of space-time and empirical reality. This is
certainly not to indicate or imply any Indian or Sanskrit “influences” in the
poems of Carman and Atwood, but merely to make a cursory comment on how
two poems strike an Indian reader. However, a theoretical foundation is
necessary to discuss the concepts of time and space briefly from a comparative
perspective to establish the difference between “Western” and “Indian”
metaphysical thinking.
Time and change in Henri Bergson, serial time in Dunne, time in Existentialism
according to Heidegger, “unreality of time in McTaggart and Bradley, time and
Zeno’s paradoxes are well-known as documents dealing with the concept of
time in Western thinking. Time and the theory of relativity in the Western
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
context is not quite acceptable in the Indian metaphysical context. As D.S.
Subbaramaiya,aprofoundscholarinbothphysicsandmetaphysicsobserves:
Time is conceived of as extending from infinite past to infinite future.
There is also the feeling of the lapse of time given expression to as “the
flow of time,” etc. This concept of time, too, is fairly complex. Here
also, the use of numbers on the part of the scientist is of no avail as far
as the question of what constitutes time is concerned. Again, it is not
decided as to whether time is the totality of instants or a continuum.
The concept of the flow of time is not rendered clearer. The
involvement of the notion of change in the passage of time does not
make it any the clearer, the two concepts being reciprocally
dependent. The idea that the notion of events involving the question of
“where” and “when” together is to be regarded as fundamental in the
spirit of the Theory of Relativity which speaks of the space-time
manifold, instead of treating space and time as distinct manifolds,
adds little towards the clarification of the situation. The notions of
“time-dilatation,” “relativity of simultaneity,” the measured “timeinterval”
being dependent on the motion of the observer, etc., raise the
question as to whether there is anything like an absolute or universal
time at all. The Quantum theory, with its Uncertainty Principle
pertaining to energy and time makes it impossible to talk of the precise
value of the energy of a system at a definite instant. The principle of
continuous increase of entropy brought in to account for
“irreversibility” in nature raises the question as to whether time as
such, without relation to bodies and their motions, has any meaning at
all. 14
Archie J. Bahm in his book, Metaphysics, discussing the concepts of time and
space says:
The problem of time is difficult to deal with, partly because it is really
several problems. Some that will be considered here include; events
and duration; how long is the present? simultaneity; levels of time;
does the past exist? can there be eternity without time?
instantaneity. 15
. . .
Space exists. Existence is spatial. What is space? Answers range all the
way from “nothing” (“nonbeing,” Parmenides) to “everything”, or at
least “everything physical” (Descartes, “matter” = “extension”). 16
The Indian view of time and space is presented here for comparison to, or rather
contrast with, the Western view. In Indian thinking, time is denoted by various
experiences like Idanim “now,” Tadanim “then,” Kshipra “soon,” Cira “later,”
Vilanba “delay,” Yugapat “simultaneous,” Purva, Agre, Pura “earlier,
anterior,” Pashchat “later, posterior,” Yuva “young,” Vriddha “old,” Kshana
“instant,” Bhuta, Vartamana, Bhavishyat “past, present, future,” Chalana
“motion,” Parinama “process of transformation,” etc.
The concept of space takes into account various experiences such as Iha “here,”
Amutra “there,” Samipe “near,” Doore “farther,” Vyavadhana “separation,”
Parimana “size”, Dik “direction,” such as East, West, North, South, Desa
“space,” Pradesa “place,” etc.
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The Indian concepts of space, time and place are so different from the Western
way of thinking that it may be appropriate to quote T.S. Eliot on this matter,
even at the risk of sounding chauvinistic:
Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lenman and a
year in the mazes of Patanjali’s metaphysics under the guidance of
James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good
half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were
after—and their subtleties make most of the great European
philosophers look like schoolboys—lay in trying to erase from my
mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European
philosophyfromthetimeoftheGreeks.Mypreviousandconcomitant
study of European philosophy was hardly better than obstacle. And I
came to the conclusion—seeing also that the “influence” of Brahmin
and Buddhist thought upon Europe, as in Schopenhauer, Hartmann
and Deussen had largely been through romantic misunderstanding
that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery
would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or
European, which for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not
wish to do. 17
However, we should bear in mind that unlike the Canadian poets, Bliss Carman
and Margaret Atwood, Eliot came under the direct influence of Hindu thought
and Sanskrit. Consequently, his notions of space, time and place show a clear
knowledge of Indian philosophical thought. Significantly, Eliot’s own doctoral
dissertation was on F.H. Bradley. Bradley is the one Western philosopher who
closely approaches Shankaracharya in his thinking. Again, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the American transcendentalist, reveals a knowledge of the
Upanishads,Bhagavadgita andVishnupurana inpoemslike Brahma.ArchieJ.
Bahm, talking about the comparative perspective of Western and Indian
philosophical thought says:
Plato, who influenced the Christian doctrine of time, postulated an
eternal realm of pure and perfect ideas or forms that served as patterns
used by the creator (demiurgos) in making men and things in the
world. “Time is the moving image of eternity.” Particular things
behave temporally and imperfectly because the eternal forms are only
imperfectly embodied in them.
The Neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus conceived ultimate reality as
The One, utterly unrelated to the temporal universe that emanates
from it. Levels of being emanating from The One degenerate from a
highest level of being without parts, spatial or temporal, through the
physical world’s levels of increasing plurality of both spatial and
temporal parts, toward a beingless void. Events, the shorter the less
real, nevertheless do not lack reality, as with Shankara, but exist as
less real than the nontemporal and as dependently real. 18
While there are many schools of Indian philosophical thought, our focus here
primarily centres on Advaita thought as propounded by Adi Shankara.
However, Archie J. Bahm make some noteworthy comments regarding the
Sankhya-Yoga system of Indian philosophy:
Sankhya-Yoga philosophers divide ultimate reality into two
completely different kinds of beings: First, purusha, pure timeless
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
spirits; and, second, prakriti, evolving nature, which like Plotinus
creation devolves from quiescent duration through several stages of
increasing activity and differentiation, both spatial and temporal. The
minutest flick of action embodies prakriti in its most degenerate form.
Accidental encounters between spaceless and timeless spirits and
prakriti both lure it from quiescence into activity and create in the
spirits a reflected illusion of existing actively and temporally. Yogic
liberation of spirits from nature restores them to their nontemporal
purity and returns nature to its quiescent state. Such quiescence is
perfect, hence without events, except that the tendency toward action
is perpetually present and is kept in check only by maintaining
equalized tensions between the gunas, or forces existing as tendencies
to act.
The temporary coincidence of timeless spirits and evolving prakriti
(which enjoys an illusion of being conscious in the presence of spirits)
in no way influences the nature of either. Neither depends on the other
for its nature, although prakriti cannot activate its temporal processes,
and thus events, except in the presence of spirits. 19
The notion of place, which generally includes the idea of the atmosphere
associated with an area or city, in Indian thought goes further to imply a state of
mind. Take the two examples of Montreal, Canada and Banaras (Kasi),
India. Hugh MacLennan in his novel The Watch That Ends the Night, wrote so
perceptively about Montreal that the city became one of the main characters in
the novel, along with other human characters:
It is a curious city, Montreal, and in this story I keep returning to the
fact that it is. Strangers never understand its inner nature, and
immigrant families, even from other parts of Canada, can live here
two generations without coming to know it in their bones. I am
absolutely certain that Montreal is the subtlest and most intricate city
in North America. With her history she could not have been otherwise
and survived, for here the French, the Scotch and the English, over two
centuries have been divided on issues which ruin nations and
civilizations, yet have contrived to live in outward harmony. This is no
accident they understand certain rules in their bones. 20
In the Indian context, a city like Banaras (Kasi) becomes a symbol of spiritual
life. Kasi is perceived not just as a city but as a space in the heart of man—every
man. That is why it is quite common to talk about antara-kasi, “the inner
Banaras.” In fact, there is a Sanskrit saying: “Kashi Kshetram Shariram
tribuvana janani vyapini Jnana Ganga” (My body, the holy site, is Banaras-
Spreading within me as knowledge, the Ganges, Mother of the three worlds).
This concept of place emerges very clearly in the famous novel of Raja Rao,
The Serpent and the Rope. Even Eliot says “the river is within us.” Raja Rao
says: “Banaras is everywhere where you are, says an old Vedantic text and all
waters of the Ganges.” 21 Again he points out “Ganges is every so knowing, so
wise. If wisdom become water the Ganges would be that water, flowing down
to the seven seas.” 22
In his writing, Paris and Banaras become one as the rivers Ganga and Rhone
attain a spiritual sangam—“Paris is a sort of Banaras turned outward and where
but in Banaras would Baudelaire be more real, more understandable, more
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perfect, and in every dimension.” That explains why in Vedantic thought the
world as a “place” is unreal like a city seen in a mirror. The world is within, and
only Mayasakthi, the power of illusion, projects it outside. The great Shankara
in his famous hymn “Dakshinamurti Stotram” points out:
Vishvam darpanadrishyamananagari tulyam nijantargatam
Pashyannatmani mayaya bahirivodbhutam yatha-nidraya24 These Sanskrit lines sound just as beautiful and meaningful in French:
Telle une ville dans un miroir
l’univers est contenu en Lui
mais comme produit par mirage
comme en songe
et cependant existent en vérité dans le Soi. 25
An understanding of “place” in these terms is what makes T.S. Eliot say:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. 26
Again we find:
In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. 27
It is in this context of impermanence that Indian thought of the world as
“illusion” is to be understood. The world has only a physical, phenomenal,
empirical reality but lacks the quality of “Ultimate Reality.” The former in
SanskritisknownasVyavaharikaSattaasopposedto ParamarthikaSatta.
This introduction, giving a comparative, theoretical background for a
discussion, to the concepts of space, time and place should suffice. Now we
shall turn to the two Canadian poems chosen for comment.
II
126
First, Bliss Carman’s poem:
Lord Of My Heart’s Elation
Lord of my heart’s elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.

Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind’s strong hand,
A fleet and shadowy column
Of dust or mountain rain,
To walk the earth a moment
And be dissolved again.
Be thou my exaltation
Or fortitude of mien,
Lord of the world’s elation,
Thou breath of things unseen! 28
The “Lord” of the heart’s “elation” is a “Spirit” and it is a spirit of “things
unseen,” and the poet wants this “Spirit” to be his “aspiration.” However, this
elation bestowing “Spirit” is both “consuming” and “serene.” For an Indian
reader familiar with Hindu philosophical-Vedantic-tradition, the first stanza’s
“invocation” immediately strikes a familiar chord. The “spirit of things
unseen” reminds one of the concept of “Nirguna Brahman.” It is not only
without attributes—“nirguna”—but it is trans-sexual, i.e., neither masculine,
feminine or neutral. This IT is THAT—indicated by the word “TAT” in
Sanskrit. Being a “spirit of things unseen,” it, too, is unseen and unseeable
because this “Spirit” is the transcendental “Ultimate Reality” which cannot be
comprehended by the senses. It is worthy of “aspiration” because it transcends
both space and time. The transcendental “Ultimate Reality” is known as
“Brahman” in Vedanta, the same Emerson evokes in his poem Brahma.Inthe
present context the second stanza of the poem is relevant:
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame. 29
The spacio-temporal level has to be transcended in order to comprehend the
“subtle ways.” The world of relativity which admits of “far and near,” what is
“forgot,” what is happening and what is yet to come, is only a result of
“thinking.” The mind is circumscribed by the space-time limitation—
Desakalapariccheda which it has taken for granted—Avicharitasamsiddha.
The transcending of apparent opposites like far and near, then and now, helps in
understanding the true nature of Brahman who is beyond space, and time. As
Archie J. Bahm sums up:
In Hindu metaphysics, Shankara’s Nirguna Brahman, the only
ultimate reality, is timeless being. All events are illusory (maya),
because they appear to have a being and nature different from Nirguna
Brahman, but reality is nondual (advaita), so apparent events have no
reality apart from timeless Brahman. Strictly speaking, we cannot
attribute duration or even timelessness to Brahman either, since it is
entirely without attributes (nirguna). But it always is, not in the sense
of “always” as “at all times” but in the sense that it is whether anything
else is or not. 30
. . .
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Shankara, Advaita Vedantist, held that Brahman is the only reality,
that Brahman is nonspatial, that spatiality is a false appearance.
“Space implies coexistence of a plurality of objects”. But Brahman, or
reality, is one and indivisible. Therefore space is unreal. 31
Naturally, the “elation” of the title of the poem Lord of my Heart’s Elation is not
mere mundane joy or worldly “happiness” but an elevation, an “exaltation,” as
conveyed in the last stanza of the poem. It is “serene” because it is pure and
uncontaminated by human limitations—quite beyond the pale of words and
meanings “Vagartha.” It exists beyond even the reach of the mind—“Yato
Vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha” as the Sanskrit spiritual saying goes.
Indeed, this is the “message”—the “vision” of the poem explored in the next
four stanzas and brought to fruition in the final sixth stanza. However, the
“aspiration” is not only “severe” but also “consuming.” Unless the spiritual
aspiration becomes a consuming, all absorbing, obsessive passion, it is not
worthy of being an “aspiration” or a goal “guri” in Sanskrit. This goal or “guri”
is what gives meaning to life without which being would descend into an
atheistic, existential “hell.” The “elation” referred to by the poet is
“Ananda”—the supreme Bliss (which Bliss Carman is experiencing if the pun
may be pardoned!) which is paradoxically both “consuming and serene” at the
same time. The second and the third stanzas contain some quintessential words:
up, out, outward, mortal, soul, and self-hood, merge, that and be. The “Lord” of
the “Heart’s elation” is reached, attained through “sinking” the narrow
personal ego “forever” and “merging” it into “oblivion” so that “self-hood” is
achieved. It is not so much a conscious achievement as an awareness of
consciousness, of the ever-present Self. In terms of the vocabulary of the poem,
“this mortal soul” which is the individual identity must transcend the limited
ego-sense or egoity and become “that.” “That,” known as “Tat” in Sanskrit, is
what everyone really is: one of the “Mahavakyas”—TAT TVAM ASI (Thom
art That). It is this “That” which bids them “be.” Being is the reality; becoming
is a process which culminates in the ultimate knowledge of Being. The
individual “foamheads” which are the individual souls “loosened and blown
along the sea” must realise that the foam and the waves are but the sea and
therefore “must sink and merge forever” in the universal, one and only Self with
an “S” capital. The fourth and the fifth stanzas peruse and pursue the same idea
through a different imagery. Notice the words “uplift,” “climb,” “one,”
“column,” “dust,” “mountain rain,” ending in “disolve again.” Whether it is
through the element of water and the sea, through the “shadowy column,” “the
wind’s strong hand” or “walking the earth,”—man must “uplift” himself “at thy
command”—i.e., the “Lord of the Heart’s” command and “merge for
ever”—“be one with my frail fellows” for only one spirit courses through the
various bodies given different names and forms, and through this universal
humanism attain salvation. This, in terms of the poem is to “climb in wonder.”
The sixth and final stanza neatly ties together all these thoughts by repeating
and slightly altering the quintessential words used in the first stanza. The
“Lord” of the individual “heart’s elation” has become “the world’s elation” and
the “aspiration” has turned into “exaltation.” The “Spirit of things unseen” has
become the very “breath of things unseen” and this “Spirit,” this “breath,” is not
only “my” elation and “my exaltation” but the “I” has become “thou,”—“Be
thou my exaltation”—an “Advaita Siddhi”—the achievement of non-dual
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
experience. This poem basically explores the inner, interior space called
“Hridayakasa,” resulting in the transcendence of the ordinary, physical,
phenomenal, empirical, outer, outward “space.” The inner, interior space is the
“space” where Brahman resides, the cave in the heart where the mind goes
during deep sleep and resurfaces on awaking. As Ramana Maharshi points out,
“Brahman alone shines as ‘I,’ ‘I,’ in the heart it is the form of the Self.” 32
Margaret Atwood, in her poem You Want To Go Back, explores the true nature
of man through the concepts of time and space.
You Want To Go Back
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us
animals ran through us, our hands
blessed and killed according to our
wisdom, death
made real blood come out
But face it, we have been
improved, our heads float
several inches above our necks
moored to us by
rubber tubes and filled with
clever bubbles,
our bodies
are populated with billions
of soft pink numbers
multiplying and analyzing
themselves, perfecting
their own demands, no trouble to anyone.
I love you by
sections and when you work.
Do you want to be illiterate?
This is the way it is, get used to it. 33
The first two lines,
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us
is an opening gambit to explore the process of the evolution of
man—biological, mental and spiritual. While “back” indicates time past,
“inside” indicates “space.” From the point of view of Indian philosophical
thinking, Darwinian evolution is a false concept. The evolution is not so much
from monkey to man, through the notorious “missing link,” but the evolution of
man into a superman by the exercising his intelligence and his essential
spiritual nature. Margaret Atwood takes into consideration, quite significantly,
both the body and the mind in her poem. Paradoxical as it may seem, if we “go
back” far enough, we end up in the future. As Eliot has realized “Time present
and time past” are both present in “time future” and “time future” is contained in
“time past.” That is why he says:
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IJCS / RIÉC
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. 34
When the linear concept of time yields to the cyclical or circular, then the
wisdom of “in my end is my beginning” and “in my beginning is my end” makes
sense.
[H]uman kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present. 35
. . .
I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing;
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressedbetweenyellowleavesofabookthathasneverbeenopened.
Andthewayupisthewaydown,thewayforwardisthewayback. 36
Atwood wants “you to go back.” Not just to the immediate past but to a time
“where the sky was inside us”. Notice the space-time continuum which is a
prelude to spacio-temporal transcendence. Change the “where” into “when”
and you have the answer. When exactly was the sky inside us? The
answer—always. Where was the sky inside us? Always, because the sky, the
air, fire, water and earth were always inside us and will always be. It is
significant that the “Four Quartets” of Eliot have as their “source” the four
elements of earth, water, fire and air. The elements are only empirically seen as
being outside us but what is outside is exactly what is inside and thus man is but
a conglomeration of elements and his body and his mind are what give a false
motion about “inside” and “outside” — as well as “then” and “now.” In the final
analysis, space and time are only creations and projections of the
mind—“Maya kalpita desa kala kalana vaichitrya Chitrikritam,” as the great
Adi Sankara has said. This is not to imply that Atwood has heard of Sankara or
has knowledge of Hindu philosophy. As has already been said at the beginning
of this essay, this is how her poem makes sense and comes alive to an Indian
reader. This is just one Indian response as there can be several. “The sky was
inside us” is a familiar thought to an Indian — not only that “The sky is inside
us” and “always” will be. “Sky,” “Ether,” “Space”—indeed, the entire interstellar
space is “inside us” in microcosm, symbolic of the “macrocosm” which
is usually assumed to be outside. The idea of “hridayakasa” (already referred to
earlier)—the space within the heart—indeed in the cave or cavern of the
heart—“hridayakuhara” is the in dwelling space of the infinite, eternal, allpervading—That.
The self in deep sleep sushupti, without consciouness of
body or mind, is pure Consciouness—unfettered by the impediments of the
knowledge of space, time and place. In another poem The Woman Who Could
Not Live With Her Faulty Heart, Margaret Atwood says:
and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen. 37
Indeed, the “third” eye which is always open is the sakshi, the “observer.” In the
words of another Canadian poet P.K. Page, we read:
Who am I
or who am I become that walking here
I am observer . . . 38
To “go back” to that state is the goal of life, and to remain there is the
achievement. When Atwood talks about “animals ran through us” and “our
hands,” “killed according to our wisdom,” she is contemplating man’s
evolution through time, for she moves quickly from the animal existence to
man’s body-mind Consciousness.
our bodies
are populated with billions
of soft pink numbers
But notice that Margaret Atwood in a typical ironic tone says:
But face it, we have been
improved, our heads float
several inches above our necks.
As she has said in another poem:
The word is an O,
outcry of the useless head,
pure space, empty and drastic. 39
Then comes “the overwhelming question”: “Do you want to be illiterate? If all
the manifestations of the “literate mind” and all its mischievous machinations
are interested in “perfecting their own demands” then, what is the use of “our
heads” floating “several inches above our necks”? The “head” should merge in
the spiritual “heart-space” and that is why
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us.
The Indian view of matter and mind differs from that of a philosopher like
Descartes, considered “father of modern philosophy.” According to his “Je
pense, donc je suis”—Cogito Ergo Sum, since thinking is a part of mind’s
activity and Descartes discusses matter and mind in relation to space. Archie J.
Bahm says:
A space, or intrinsic place, does not differ in actuality from the body
that occupies it...Inreality the extension in length, breadth, and depth
that constitutes the space is absolutely the same as that which
constitutes the body. Matter and space are identical, and there is no
empty space. But Descartes also held that matter is not all that exists,
for spirit, mind, or consciousness also exists and it is not spatial. 40
This experimental “explication de texte” of two poems—one traditional and
the other modern has been attempted only to indicate how many of the
Canadian poets have passed through this cage of “survival” and how “new
Easts” have surfaced in their poems. It may be appropriate to conclude by
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IJCS / RIÉC
quoting a few lines from a Canadian “pilgrim” in India thou she is not
essentially, primarily a poet:
Salutation to Him
The great-souled One,
Who has no name nor form.
He who resides in all
Who is Lord of all
The Self of all beings. 41
References
1. The Bhagavadgita. Chapter IX, verse 32.
2. Padarthatattvanirnaya by Sri Anandanubhava
3. Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. verse 2.
4. Douglas Le Pan “Coureurs de bois” quoted in Canadian Literature in the 70’s. Edited by
Paul Denham and Mary Jane Edwards. Holt, Rinehert and Winston of Canada Ltd., Toronto,
1980, pp.13.
5. F.R. Scott “The Canadian Authors Meet” in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English
and French. Chosen and with an introduction by A.J.M. Smith, Toronto, Oxford University
Press, 1960, pp.188.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Margaret Atwood “Book of Ancestors” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.101-
102.
9. Bliss Carman “Low Tide on Grand Pre” in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.85.
10. A.J.M. Smith. Introduction to The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.xxxiv.
11. Ibid., pp.xxxi.
12. Ibid.
13. Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.117.
14. D.S. Subbaramaiya. Sri Dakshinamurti Stotram. Commentary. Sringeri, 1988, p.325.
15. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics – An Introduction. First published by Harper and Row,
Publishers, Inc., as Baners and Noble Books Edition EH 338 in 1974. Second printing 1986,
p.44.
16. Ibid., p.62.
17. T.S. Eliot. After Strange Gods. London: Faber & Faber, 1933, pp.40-41.
18. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., pp.58-59.
19. Ibid., pp.59-60.
20. Hugh MacLennan. The Watch that Ends the Night. Macmillan of Canada, Toronto, 1958,
p.255.
21. Raja Rao. The Serpent and the Rope. John Murray, London, 1960, p.388.
22. Ibid., p.43.
23. Ibid., p.54.
24. Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. Stanza 1.
25. Raja Rao. Le Serpent et La Corde. Traduit de l’anglais par Georges Fradier. Calmann-Levy
Éditeurs. 3, rue Auber, Paris. c1959.
26. T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays. 1909-1950. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New
York, 1952, p.145.
27. Ibid., p.123.
28. “Lord of my Heart’s Elation” by Bliss Carman in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.90-91.
29. Emerson’s Brahma. Stanza 2.
30. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.58.
31. Ibid., p.71.
32. Ramana Maharshi. Ramana Gita. Verse 17. Translation by A.R. Natarajan. Published by
Affiliated East-West Press Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad. Second
Edition, 1995, p.145.
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
33. “You Want To Go Back” by Margaret Atwood. in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit.,
p.99.
34. T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays, op. cit., p.144
35. Ibid., p.118.
36. Ibid., pp.133-134.
37. Margaret Atwood. “The Women Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart” in Canadian
Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., p.105.
38. P.K. Page. Arras in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, op. cit., p.353.
39. Margaret Atwood. “Song of the Hen’s Head” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit.,
p.102.
40. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.70.
41. Elyse Aylen. The Night of the Lord. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1967, p.55.
133

Valerie Legge
Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary
Fugitives
Abstract
Drawing on the work of Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, this paper
examines how the growing diversity of Canada’s population during the early
decades of the twentieth century was reflected in the popular literature of the
period. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political
upheaval, Agnes C. Laut’s popular novels and histories emerged from a
period of social revolution. Like Canada itself, the popular novel was in a
process of becoming; country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in
reference to the novel, described as “plastic possibilities.” Laut used the
popular novel to document Canada’s different social languages, its “other”
words and histories, and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical
discourse. In Heralds of Empire (1902), while viewing the heroics of history
from a contemporary perspective, Laut deliberately engaged in a process of
revisionism by casting history and literature in a different light. In doing so,
Laut effectively turned time, space and figures inside out so we are made to
see their “unrealized surplus value” for a contemporary Canadian society. In
early exploration narratives and historical documents she discovered a
dynamic past filled with diverse types of men and women who helped fashion
the newly emerging nation to the North. Liminal men and chameleon women
negotiated the contending forces associated with class, race and gender as
they moved from one cultural zone to another. Heralds of Empire suggests
that nations are created by dreamers who possess the courage to take great
risks and by visionary fugitives who break free from bound spaces. At a time
when Canada seemed poised on the brink of a new era, Laut returned to the
past, to threshold moments in Canadian history to investigate some of our
most persistent national narratives.
Résumé
En se basant sur les travaux du théoricien russe Mikhail Bakhtin, l’auteur de
l’article examine comment la littérature populaire des premières décennies
du 20 e siècle traduit la diversité croissante de la population canadienne au
cours de la même époque. L’œuvre de Bakhtin a été écrite en période de
bouleversement politique, tandis que les romans et les histoires populaires
d’Agnes C. Laut proviennent d’un épisode de révolution sociale. Tout comme
le Canada même, le roman populaire était en devenir : le pays et le genre
littéraire possédaient tous deux ce que Bakhtin (en faisant référence au
roman) décrivait comme des « possibilités plastiques ». Laut s’est servie du
roman populaire pour documenter les différents discours sociaux du Canada,
ses autres mots et anecdotes, ainsi que pour traduire un enthousiasme souvent
absent du discours historique. Dans Heralds of Empire (1902), bien que les
héros de l’histoire soient perçus d’un angle contemporain, Laut engage
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
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délibérément un processus de révisionnisme en jetant un regard différent sur
l’histoire et la littérature. Ce faisant, Laut parvient efficacement à inverser la
perspective du temps, de l’espace et des gens pour amener les lecteurs à voir
le « potentiel inutilisé » de la société canadienne contemporaine. Dans les
premiers récits d’exploration et documents historiques, l’auteure a découvert
un passé dynamique rempli de divers types d’hommes et de femmes qui ont
aidé à façonner la nouvelle nation émergente du Nord. Des hommes
liminaires et des femmes caméléons ont négocié les forces contraires de
nature hiérarchique, raciale et sexuelle en transition d’une zone culturelle à
une autre. Heralds of Empire suggère que les nations sont engendrées par des
rêveurs qui possèdent le courage de courir des risques importants et par des
fugitifs visionnaires qui transcendent les contraintes d’espace. À une période
où le Canada semblait immobile, à l’aube d’une ère nouvelle, Laut est
retournée dans le passé, à des moments-charnières de l’histoire du Canada,
pour étudier certains des récits nationaux les plus durables.
Fugitive Forces
[D]ecentering will occur only when a national culture loses
its sealed-off and self-sufficient character, when it becomes
conscious of itself as only one among other cultures and
languages. (Dialogic 370)
Writing during the first quarter of the twentieth century, one of the most
turbulent periodsinEasternEurope’shistory, RussiantheoristMikhailBakhtin
turned to historical periods and figures usually ignored by his contemporaries
in order to understand the relationship between language and culture. In his
study of the “opposition and struggle at the heart of existence, a ceaseless battle
between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces
that strive to make things cohere,” 1 Bakhtin suggests that human language best
provides the most complete and complex reflection of this struggle, and that the
literary genre which best transcribes it is the novel. There language is presented
“as a living mix of varied and opposing voices.” 2
Heralds of Empire (1902) is one of several popular turn-of-the-century works
by Agnes C. Laut, a remarkably productive author of fiction, historical,
periodical and travel literature. Based on extensive travels by boat and train
throughout Canada from British Columbia in the West to the remote coasts of
Labrador and isolated bays of Newfoundland in the East, her works celebrate
the unruly beauty, the lure of the North, and the nobility of ordinary people
living in extraordinary times. And the first decades of the twentieth century
were extraordinary. As Robert E. Spiller points out in The Cycle of American
Literature (1955), the “era of revolutions was over, and one of vigorous and
competitive living had set in. The spirit of nationalism was everywhere
providing motivation for building new empires abroad and making new social
patterns at home” (107). This spirit of nationalism and emerging sense of
newness is reflected in many of the titles of Laut’s works: Canada, the Empire
of the North (1909), “New Nation to the North” (1908), The New Dawn (1913),
“Firebrand of Nations” (1914), “Rediscovering America” (1914), and “New
Spirit Among Women Who Work” (1915).
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One of the changes characterizing this era was rapid population growth which
exposed more people in Canada to a wider variety of cultures than ever before.
The country’s growing diversity is reflected in the popular literature of the
period. Laut’s contemporaries included Winnifred Reeve3 (Onoto Watanna)
and Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far), whose works reflected their Eurasian culture;
Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) and Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake),
whose writings and public performances drew attention to the plight of
Aboriginal people; Elizabeth Frame and Alice Fletcher, who translated and
transcribed Aboriginal place names and songs; and Jessie Sime and Anastasia
English, who emphasized in very different ways the relationship between
labour and class. Even a cursory glance at popular literature of the period
reveals an awareness as well as an anxiety regarding the changes in national
demographics. In two collections of essays, The Canadian Commonwealth
(1915) and Canada at the Crossroads (1921), Laut examines the impact that a
more heterogeneous population was beginning to have on what previously had
been a predominantly white, English-speaking country.
Technological advances, especially in communications, also contributed to a
heightened awareness of ethnic, cultural and regional diversity in Canada.
Travel magazines flourished as more and more Canadians explored once
remote regions of their own country, while others ventured further afield to the
United States, Mexico, Europe, Asia and South America. These rapid increases
in population and advances in technology combined together to create a climate
ripe for the growth of pluralism. Writers and travellers like Laut, who from the
beginning of her literary career had her finger on the pulse of the country, grew
steadily aware of the wide variety of swirling perspectives, philosophies, points
of view, codes of ethics and aesthetic sensibilities. They began to recognize that
the beliefs and customs of people from different backgrounds had a certain
legitimacy or grounding. This recognition is evident, for example, in the
photography of Edith Watson as she travelled throughout the country capturing
images of ordinary working people. 4 “Infected” 5 by so many cultural changes
and technological innovations, new literary genres began to emerge, among
them photographic journalism, and western and urban novels. Laut’s work
incorporates illustrations and photographs by well-known artists such as
Frederic Remington, Verne Morton, I. W. Taber and H. Armstrong Roberts.
From the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Laut’s popular novels
seem very contemporary in their themes and concerns. Freebooters of the
Wilderness (1910), her American-style western, provides a critique of the
American concept of democracy and describes an emerging militant, antigovernment
discourse, while The New Dawn (1913), her urban novel, can be
read as a Foucaultian study of power and knowledge. These works suggest
Laut’s awareness that popular literature could provide important information
about who we were, where we had come from, and what national direction we
might pursue. Like the country itself, the popular novel was in a process of
“becoming”; 6 country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in reference to
the novel, described as “plastic possibilities” (3). Laut uses the popular novel to
document Canada’s different social languages, its “other” words and histories,
and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical discourse. As
contemporary Canadian writer Carol Shields contends in “Thinking Back
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through Our Mothers,” the “popular tradition must be taken into consideration,
since it echoes and even interrogates the established tradition, taking liberties,
offering modes of behaviours, and gesturing crudely, covertly, often
unconsciously towards that alternate sphere” (13).
In Heralds of Empire, an interrogative text emphasizing spectacle, unruliness,
liminality and the liberating spirit of carnival, Laut seems most akin to Bakhtin,
who insists in all his writings that art is oriented toward communication, not
estrangement. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political
upheaval, Laut’s emerged from a period of social revolution. In Heralds of
Empire, a pretext to Pathfinders of the West (1904), the distance between
Radisson’s seventeenth-century world and the world of Laut and her readers is
demolished; the past is contemporized, “brought low, represented on a plane
equal with contemporary life, in an everyday environment” (Dialogic 21). Like
Bakhtin, Laut observes that we often fail to pay attention to what we hear or see
in real life, to the events that occur in the moment, and encourages us to focus
more on the rich texture of “prosaic life” that conditions and touches everything
around us. And in that prosaic life of the present are roots extending back to the
past and growing into the future. 7
The world of the fur-trade is made familiar to early twentieth-century readers,
and figures valorized by history as refractory colonial agents are made to
appear both extraordinary and common through laughter and popular speech.
In her imaginative reconstruction of the past, Laut effectively turns time, space
and figures inside out to reveal their “unrealized surplus value” for a
contemporary Canadian society (Dialogic 35). For example, Laut perceived
the beginnings of twentieth-century free trade among nations in the much
earlier reciprocal relations between Europeans and Aboriginal people. At a
time when many Canadians were stridently opposed to what they saw as the
growing “Americanization” of their country, Laut believed Canada needed to
widen its horizons, increase its commerce and traffic with other countries, and
become more international in its policies. 8
Heteroglossia9 is evident in the use of extraliterary genres of everyday life:
popular ballads, songs, letters, nursery rhymes, jokes, journals, maxims and
aphorisms. In the spirit of the so-called “Vaudeville School” of writing, Laut’s
fiction, with its “picaresque speech of the Far West and High North,” its
“picaresque characters” and its “‘wild and woolly’ life ...full of moral (or
immoral) colour of speech and action,” 10 appeals to popular taste. When
different languages (social languages, national languages, literary languages,
everyday languages, etc.) come in contact, interact and engage in dialogue,
each is changed and enriched by the presence of the other. Speech then
becomes the locus of vitality, the site of individual and social creativity
(Morson 22). Poised on the brink of a new era, Canadians, Laut believed,
needed to remember the imagination and energy of their predecessors.
In her popular works, while viewing the heroics of history from a contemporary
perspective, Laut deliberately engages in a process of revisionism by casting
history and literature in a different light. In Pathfinders of the West, she warns
her North American audience that her rereading of Canadian history will “upset
the apple cart of established opinions” and challenge “notions imbibed at
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Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives
school, and repeated in all histories of the West.” While acknowledging the
importance of Canada and its history as “shared territory,” she reminds her
audience that the significance of shared stories changes as the social and
cultural experience of the speaker changes, and that the meaning of history
shifts with context. 11 Though the past or a particular myth may serve as the
subject of a given text, it can only ever be viewed from a contemporary stance.
In Heralds of Empire, Laut’s own contemporary reality provides the point of
view, the value orientation of the novel. A Canadian woman who frequently
characterized herself as a “free trader” reads the foundational fault-lines of her
country’s past through an idiosyncratic turn-of-the-century lens.
Writing at a time when the novel was superseding poetry and drama as the most
popular literary form, Laut saw the popular novel as an alternative site where
different discourses, different social and cultural groups (what Bakhtin calls
“different-speech-ness”) could clash, collude and co-exist. In Heralds of
Empire, New England and Canada’s northern regions function as the primary
contestatory ground or what Bakhtin calls “chronotope” (a term referring to the
complete interdependence of narrative space and time) for these interactions;
unlike New England, with its imposed script of Puritanism, or Quebec, with its
French convents or English garrisons, the North becomes “the place where the
knots of narrative are tied and untied” (Dialogic 250), where official and nonofficial
(fugitive) forces compete without eliminating one another.
The main actors in Laut’s high dramas (presented in low or popular forms) are
“liminal heroes,” 12—militant men like Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur des
Groseilliers, and chameleon women like Hortense Hillary, who chafe against
the conventions of time and space. In their quests for freedom, they often resort
to antics, anarchy and disruption. Characterized by independent, risk-taking
dispositions, and an intense yearning for freedom, they view the North as a
dialogic site of resistance, agency and vision, a place where new standards
emerge from old ways, where energy and change are essential for survival. But
it is also a place of “high carnival” (Heralds 95). Using the romance with its
pattern of separation, exploration and return, Laut brings together a mix of
extravagant figures for whom the North becomes an alien, alternate sphere, a
borderland where social, cultural and racial boundaries dissolve and disappear.
These liminal heroes, caught in forces and influences swirling around them,
explore different ways of being in the world while resisting conventions that
time and space would impose on them.
Radisson best represents these “betwixt-and-between” figures (problematic
figures like Louis Riel, Tom Thomson, and Almighty Voice) who exist in the
“wild zone” of Canadian history. 13 Perhaps because Radisson perplexed
historians and was grossly misrepresented by “cheap pamphleteers” (Heralds
2) and respectable writers alike, Laut endeavors to present him in a different
light without ever settling conflicting points of views. To some degree, in this
fusion of fact and fiction, comedy and romance, she succeeds in capturing the
exhilarating spirit of the times in which Radisson lived, as well as the unsettling
terrain of his exploration narratives which often “played fast and loose with
truth” (Heralds 1).
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Written in “a milk-and-water age” 14 of women writers and staid, domestic
fictions, Heralds of Empire is a vigorous, nomadic narrative dedicated to the
spirit of new world nobility possessed by Canada’s “visionary fugitives”
(Freebooters 67). Laut breaks free of the closed and finalized spaces common
in so many early Canadian novels: Frances Brooke’s garrisons, John
Richardson’s dark fortresses, Catherine Beckwith Hart’s convents, Rosanna
Leprohon’s manor houses, William Kirby’s secret chambers, Gilbert Parker’s
prison houses, Sara Jeannette Duncan’s colonial communities. Turning instead
to the shifting spaces found in captivity narratives, historical documents and
exploration journals—all of which function as subtexts and pretexts in her
works—Laut imagines boundless, horizonless Northern worlds where people
from very different backgrounds come in contact, mingle and initiate new
social configurations.
Though writing when women’s lives were still largely restricted by notions of
propriety and idealization, Laut chose to recreate in her fictions an earlier
historical time when men and women from different social and cultural
backgrounds collaborated as associates, subordinates and superiors. And so her
female characters play complex roles, for they both resist and affirm the social
and literary conventions of woman as “standard-bearer” or “moral compass”
(Lords 104). While recording women’s intimate, often exuberant responses to a
“harsh and lovely land” 15 and their encounters and connections with people
from different cultures, Laut suggests that during the early years of exploration,
European approaches to the land variously included acceptance and
accommodation as well as conquest and colonization. Ever mindful that
Canada was explored by fugitive men and gypsy women who viewed the North
as a place of vision, performance and masquerade, 16 Laut hopes their legacies
will enable contemporary Canadians to create a “new nation to the north.” 17
Contact Zones
[T]he entire world and everything in it is offered to us
without any distance at all, in a zone of crude contact.
(Dialogic 26)
In Heralds of Empire, a mock heroic romance rich in comic figures and
dramatic episodes, Laut familiarizes well-known historical figures like
Radisson and Groseilliers through laughter, sudden reversals, parody and
popular speech; and she uses motifs of subterfuge and masquerade to contribute
to the development and the eventual tapering (for it cannot be called resolution)
of the narrative. The central frame for the narrative is Radisson’s covert 1682
fur trading voyage to Fort Nelson—or Fort Bourbon as the French called it; as
Ramsay reminds us, “You must not forget that we were French on that trip”
(97). 18 Speaking different national languages, characters from diverse social
and cultural backgrounds come together during their strange journeys to form
strange alliances and forge new contracts: Ramsay Stanhope, a young
Englishman whose father was a royalist; Eli Kirke, a Puritan New Englander
and Ramsay’s uncle; Hortense Hillary, abducted from the French court and
raised by her abductor/guardian M. Picot; Jack Battle, a runaway sailor lad
from Barbados; Ben Gillan, son of a New England sea captain; Rebecca
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Stocking, daughter of a Puritan New Englander; and Mizza, the Aboriginal girl
encountered during a covert fur trading expedition to Hudson Bay. Some of
these characters share common histories—familial, cultural, national—but
they do not all possess the same “field of vision”; those that do, however,
engage with and enrich one another, hence changing and being changed by the
worlds they pass through.
The primary narrator is Ramsay, relative of Radisson’s English-born and
England-bound wife, Mary Kirke. Orphaned by the untimely death of his
father, a Royalist sympathizer, Ramsay was sent to Boston to be placed in the
care of his stern Puritan uncle, Eli Kirke. When young Hortense and her uncle
are charged with witchcraft by overly zealous Puritans fearful of M. Picot’s
scientific practices, Ramsay helps them escape from a Boston prison. Later
when Ramsay accompanies Groseilliers and Radisson to Fort Nelson/Fort
Bourbon to trade illegally in furs, he again meets up with Hortense, now
actively involved in her uncle’s illegal fur-trading activities.
A distrust of closed, oppressive systems is established in the opening scene as
Ramsay, a spoiled and somewhat cynical lad in his teens, arrives in New
England to live with relatives. Surveying his new surroundings, he recalls the
absurd circumstances of his father’s death:
My father—peace to his soul!—had been of those who thronged
London’s streets with wine tubs to drink the restored king’s health on
bended knee; but he, poor gentleman, departed this life before his
monarch could restore wasted patrimony.
On the night my father died he had spoken remorsefully of the past to
the lord bishop at his bedside.
“Tush, man, have a heart,” cries his lordship. “Thou’lt see pasch and
yuleyetfortyyear,Stanhope.Tush,man,’tisthyliver,oratouchofthe
gout. Take here a smack of port. Sleep sound, man, sleep sound.”
And my father slept so sound he never wakened more. (7)
Though neither the health nor the patrimony of Ramsay’s father is ever
restored, his irreverent offspring survives these shifts in fortune and learns that
humour can make the most unfortunate situations more bearable. The tyranny
and the stupidity of leaders—kings, priests, elected officials, etc.—is a
common motif in many of Laut’s works. In Heralds of Empire, it is Ramsay
who exposes the absurdity of all pretenders, especially that of Eli Kirke, who
tries to regulate his nephew’s irreverent tongue by constructing a penalty box to
receive fines for each blasphemous utterance. The austerity of Eli’s creed,
transplanted in a foreign soil though not so very different from the tyranny of a
savage monarchy which forced him to abandon Europe, is ridiculed during
Ramsay’s exaggerated account of the spectacle that resulted from a verbal
transgression. Shocked by Ramsay’s outburst of profanity (“a forcible word
[he] had oft heard used by gentlemen of the cloth”), the serving maid collapses
in the pantry while the nurse, Old Tibbie, “yelped out with laughter, and then
nigh choked” (14). Ramsay’s lack of reverence for “Holy Writ” is reinforced
when Tibbie openly appropriates and misquotes sacred texts, in effect using the
Bible against Eli in order to contest his rigid, Puritanical teachings.
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Having witnessed the chaotic nature of the world in the religious and political
upheavals and personal shifts of fortune in England, it is little wonder that
Ramsay, amused by his excessively staid New England relatives and their
surroundings, quickly learns to juggle his uncle’s authoritative discourse
(“Holy Writ”) with his own youthful hilarity (unholy laughter). Eli’s response
to profanity and chaos (and perhaps also to a threatening, alien environment) is
a determination to make things cohere. Despite Eli’s attempts to impose order
and discipline, Ramsay has come to expect unruliness and surprise around any
corner. He concludes, “There comes a time when every life must choose
whether to laugh or weep over trivial pains, and when a cut may be broken on
the foil of that glancing mirth which the good Creator gave mankind to keep our
race from going mad” (12).
Laughter, at himself and others, liberates Ramsay, as it does Radisson, from the
constraints of age, class, race and religion that institutions would have him
respect. Bakhtin writes, “[l]aughter purifies from dogmatism, from the
intolerant and the petrified; it liberates from fanaticism and pedantry, from fear
and intimidation, from didacticism, naiveté and illusion, from the single
meaning, the single level, from sentimentality” (Rabelais 123). Initially an
absence of laughter creates what appears to be an irreconcilable gap between
the uncle and his new ward; Ramsay is convinced that “With [Eli], goodness
meant gloom. If the sweet joy of living ever sang to him in his youth, he shut his
ears to the sound as to siren temptings, and sternly set himself to the fierce
delight of being miserable” (8). Laut challenges the conventional notion that
age, experience and education automatically result in wisdom: “children oft get
closer to the essences of truth than older folk grown foolish with too much
learning” (75). When these two opposing and equally strong-willed forces
come together in New England, each enacts subtle changes in the other. One
moment of what Bakhtin calls “interanimation” 19 occurs when a squadron
storms into Eli’s house to arrest a political fugitive from England. With no
concern for his own safety, Ramsay helps the fugitive escape, a selfless act that
briefly bridges the ideological gap between the close-minded uncle and his
disrespectful, sceptical relative.
The main characters’ refusal to maintain fixed positions regarding gender,
class, race or nationality is indicated in an opening scene when as children and
all from very different backgrounds, the characters come together, clash, fall
out and regroup. When Ben asserts his social superiority over the others by
drawing attention to Jack and Hortense as social outcasts, Ramsay retaliates by
nearly drowning him: “From that day Hortense was Jack’s slave, Jack was
[Ramsay’s], and Ben was a pampered hero because he never told and took the
punishment like a man. But there was never a word more slurring Hortense’s
unknown origin and Jack’s strange wrist marks” (Heralds 19).
Religious fanaticism with its “tyrants of souls” is one of the main centripetal
forces that liminal characters mock and resist. When Jack Battle, in jest, reenacts
“the awful mockery of the axeman’s block” as he and Ramsay conspire
to free Hortense from prison, Ramsay remembers the horror he felt when, as a
young child in Europe, he witnessed a public execution. Now these same
oppressive tyrannies have taken root in New England where “[p]rayers were
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uttered that were fitter for hearing in hell than in Heaven. Good men could
deceive themselves into crime cloaking spiritual malice, sect jealousy, race
hatred with an unctuous text....Here...wastyranny masking in the guise of
religion” (54).
But disguise also functions in the text to enable precarious people to escape
imprisonment and persecution. Unlike Eli and Rebecca whose masks are
transparent, Radisson and Hortense are more sophisticated “stud[ies] in
masks” (85); enigmatic and contradictory, they, as well as minor characters
associated with them, use masks to move away from destructive tyrannies.
Hortense, disguised as a page-boy, conceals her gender while her black servant
paints her face “white as paste;” she conceals her race in order to escape from a
fearful and intolerant community that would hang them for their difference
(64). In the North, both Radisson and Hortense at different times disguise
themselves as Indians. Both are at ease in the Northern wilderness where
deeds—not gender, race, creed or convention are the only proofs of the inner
man or woman.
Rebecca and Hortense provide two opposing female responses to a world still
without clearly demarcated borders. While Hortense roves and explores other
ways of being in the world, Rebecca remains bound and unenlightened. Her
field of vision does not extend beyond the teachings of the church or the
medieval superstitions of the Puritan community. When Jack Battle, her
childhood friend, decides to marry the young Aboriginal woman whom he
rescued during a massacre and who in turn rescued him, Rebecca refuses to
sanction miscegenation. Puzzled by Rebecca’s sanctimonious response to a
marriage contracted “according to the custom of the country,” Jack asks
Ramsay if he thinks the union is proper. Ramsay replies in the affirmative and
Jack concludes that “you’ve been to the wilderness—you understand! Other
folks don’t! That is the way it happens out there!” (329).
While Rebecca hides her true feelings behind pious psalms and a prim exterior,
Hortense openly showers her affection on all around her, regardless of sex, race
or social standing; and she displays her awareness of a large, public world of
literature, science, politics and art. When Ramsay courts her with “wanton
songs,” she counters them with “naughty music” of her own as she modifies the
popular lyrics of imprisoned poet George Wither’s “The Lover’s Resolution.”
Rebecca remains bound by social, cultural and religious convention, while
Hortense journeys to a world which gives her the chance to discover her own
strengths. Hortense also discovers that the North, unlike Old England or New
England, allows women the space and freedom to grow. Protesting the roles
that women are expected to play in conventional society, Hortense asks, “Must
a woman ever be a cat’s-paw to man’s ambitions?” She realizes that while
society restricts women’s choices to marriage and the convent, the wilderness
offers much more. “Oh, the wilderness is different. In the wild land, each is for
its own! Oh, I love it! It is hard, but it’s free and it’s pure and it’s true and