Rapt in Plaid: Canadian Literature and Scottish Tradition PDF
Preview Rapt in Plaid: Canadian Literature and Scottish Tradition
RAPT IN PLAID Canadian Literature and Scotti&u Tradition Rapt in Plaid combines reflection, criticism, and memoir to illus- trate a curious and long-lasting connection between Scottish and Canadian literary traditions. Examples drawn from genres in- cluding lyric poetry, narrative romance, war fiction, children's literature, sentimental fiction, thrillers, domestic novels, and short stories link Canadian writers such as John Richardson, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Sinclair Ross, Hugh MacLennan, Margaret Laurence, and W.O. Mitchell to Scottish writers such as Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, J.M. Barrie, Rob- ert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, and George Mackay Brown. Each chapter traces the connections from directly imitative nineteenth-century Canadian writers to modern Canadian works where Scottish tradition persists, sometimes transformed and sometimes distorted. Lively biographical sketches and close analysis of particular passages by Scottish and Canadian writ- ers are set in the context of multicultural, narrative, postmodern, and post-colonial theories. This study illuminates the way Scot- tish ideas and values still wield surprising power in Canadian politics, education, theology, economics, and social mores. Although Professor Waterston's method is that of a literary historian, she frames each section in this new work with af- fectionate memories of reading, researching, and teaching Scot- tish and Canadian literature over a sixty-year period. ELIZABETH WATERSTON is Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph. A lifetime member of the Association of Canadian Stud- ies and a former National President of the Humanities Associa- tion of Canada, she is also a co-founder and former editor of Canadian Children's Literature / Litterature canadienne pour la jeunesse. This page intentionally left blank Rapt in Plaid Canadian Literature and Scottish Tradition ELIZABETH WATERSTON UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in paperback 2003 ISBN 0-8020-4785-8 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8685-3 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Waterston, Elizabeth, 1922- Rapt in plaid : Canadian literature and Scottish tradition / Elizabeth Waterston. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4785-8 (bound).—ISBN 0-8020-8685-3 (pbk.) 1. Canadian literature (English) - Scottish influences. 2. Canadian literature (English) - History and criticism. 3. Literature, Compara- tive - Scottish and Canadian (English). 4. Literature, Comparative - Canadian (English) and Scottish. 5. Scottish literature - History and criticism. 6. English literature - Scottish authors - History and criticism. I. Title. PS8097.S36W37 2000 C810.9 COO-932193-4 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Support of this publication by the Scottish Studies Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The University of Guelph Research Board awarded a grant in aid of publication from the General Research Grant of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Part One Auld Lang Syne 3 1. Burns, Acorn, and the Rivers of Song 12 2. Scott, Crawford, and the Highlands of Romance 43 3. Scott, Findley, and the Borders of War 66 A Cup o' Kindness 85 Part Two Signs of the Times 93 4. Gait, Ross, and the Lowlands of Irony 102 5. Carlyle, Mitchell, Laurence, and the Storms of Rhetoric 120 Everlasting Yea? 139 Part Three Road to the Isles 151 6. Stevenson, Lee, and the Garden of Childhood 160 vi Contents 7. Barrie, Montgomery, and the Mists of Sentiment 175 8. Buchan, MacLennan, and the Winds of Violence 192 Braggart's in My Step 212 Part Four Open the Door! 221 9. Sinclair, Saunders, and the Outskirts of Story 229 10. Duncan, Munro, and the Vistas of Memory 249 Brought to Mind 266 Notes 273 Books Cited 299 Index 327 Preface In a multicultural, post-colonial age, it is not fashionable to focus attention on a single, imported strand in the national fabric. From earliest days, however, the Scottish strand has remained strong, colourful, and resilient in Canadian life. Post- colonial meditation on the development of a national identity separate from its early borrowings cannot ignore the evidence that Scottish attitudes and experiences have played a dispro- portionate part in developing a Canadian tang in literature and life. This book is a study of the influence on Canadian literature of certain Scottish writers. It is also a memoir of my own encounters with those writers, as a teacher, researcher, and editor. My lifelong professional interest in Scottish-Canadian con- nections has been augmented by a lifetime of pleasure, as a reader, in Scottish and Canadian books. The books that en- riched and sustained me when I was young remain as fresh as ever, sixty years after I entered academic life. And the fascina- tion of watching the interconnection between two fine national literary traditions remains as great. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Over many years, my research on Canadian and Scottish litera- ture has been supported by travel and research grants from the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Re- search Council. The University of Guelph and the University of Western Ontario have furnished research funds, space, and secretarial and research assistants; again gratefully noted. In the National Archives of Canada, the National Library of Scot- land, the Edinburgh University Library, the Beinecke Library of Yale, the Weldon Library at the University of Western Ontario, the McLaughlin Library at Guelph, the Fisher Library in To- ronto, and the MacLennan Library at McGill University, librar- ians have always been very helpful. I also want to thank my husband, children, and grandchildren, and my friends, par- ticularly Mary Rubio, for their support over a long-drawn-out process. I am grateful to Gerald Hallowell and others at the University of Toronto Press for encouraging me to go on with the manuscript, to various assessors who offered suggestions for improvement, to Jennie Litster, who provided inestimable research help in Edinburgh, and to Elizabeth Hulse for her final sensitive editing. The work of Milton Acorn is reprinted by kind permission of Mary Hooper. The Wars by Timothy Findley, copyright © 1977 by Timothy Findlay, copyright © 1986 by Pebble Productions, is reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Canada Limited.
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