Oh Canada ENGL 372

My blog for this assignment will focus on question 3 which asks for an explanation of Northrop Frye’s seemingly inappropriate choice of example of the contradictions in Duncan Campbell Scott’s work.

In The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination Frye comments on the juxtaposition of  “the sophisticated on the primitive” (221). This juxtaposition in literature, in Frye’s opinion, is demonstrative of the tension present in Canadian society and culture. Frye argues that Canada does not have a distinct literary tradition because it is lacking a distinct culture, in part, due to tensions like those between the primitive and sophisticated. The tension does not allow for one strong tradition to emerge. To give an example of cultural tension, Frye comments on Duncan Campbell Scottds ability to write on both classical music and Indigenous people in the wilderness of Canada. Frye sees these two topics as completely incongruous and the fact that Scott, a Canadian, can write about both in the Canadian context is demonstrative of the lack of a coherent Canadian culture.

The reason Frye’s examples of tension in Scott’s work is a perplexing choice is because there is an even more obvious and glaring example from Scott’s writing. Scott worked in the department of Indian affairs in Canada which was responsible for the policies that implemented residential schools in Canada among other injustices. Scott was very open about his views of Indigenous people in Canada and his goal was to leave “not a single Indian in Canada that [had] not been absorbed into the body politic“. The policies written by Scott are examples of a type of literature in Canada. Political policy is literary, it is written word constructed from experience with specific purpose, goals and meaning just as novels and poems are.

At the same time that Scott was responsible for writing unjust Indigenous policy in Canada he was also a poet. Scott’s poem “The Onondaga Madonna” is focused on an Indigenous woman. In his poem Scott says this woman’s “pagan passion burns and glows” and she has “wilderness in her veins”. Scott’s poem romanticizes the Indigenous woman describing her spirit as well as parts of her body. The poem also extends its romantic tone to the woman’s “weird and waning race”. In his poem Scott romanticizes the disappearance of the Indian race despite being part of the cause.  Scott’s poetry and his policy are a good example of the juxtaposition between the primitive and sophisticated described by Frye.

With the above in mind, why would Frye choose the lesser example present in Scott’s writing to make his point?

To explain this, Frye’s theory of literature and criticism needs to be taken into account. Frye felt that authors could not write literature that directly reflected Canadian cultural experiance. Instead it was his position that all literature was separate from but informed by experience. Frye believed that literary genres like romance, poems, and established traditions like British literature or common plots were the template from which all literature was created.  To clarify further, Frye felt an authors experience could not be directly translated into a literary work, it can only provide inspiration for a new interpretation of a preexisting genera and story line. This means that Scott’s political writing and Canadian writing in general did not need to take the Canadian experience, including the mistreatment of Indigenous people, into account. From Frye’s perspective, Scott’s policy and political writing did not impact the literary world, nor did it need to inform his writing.

Frye does not mention the difference between Scott’s literature regarding Indigenous people and the policies he is writing because, in his opinion, it is not relevant to the autonomous literary world. This says a lot about the Canadian Literature of the time. Frye did not see the need and or importance of literature reflecting the experience of Canadians nor did he criticize it for being out of touch with the unfair treatment of Indigenous people in Canada. Frye’s one condition, that it conform to literary forms, was met.  The literary forms transformed the actual experience of Indigenous people and the true feelings of policy writers like Scott into romantic poems and thrilling stories. This allowed for the popularity of poems that glorified and romanticized the vanishing Indigenous people while they were treated cruelly and unfairly by policy makers such as Scott.

Work Cited:

Frye, Northrop. “The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination” House of Anansi, 1971.

“The Onondaga Madonna” (1898) by Duncan Campbell Scott and Racialization” Canlit Guides, https://canlitguides.ca/canlit-guides-editorial-team/poetry-and-racialization/the-onondaga-madonna-1898-by-duncan-campbell-scott-and-racialization/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.

“Until There Is Not a Single Indian in Canada” Facing History and Ourselves, https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/historical-background/until-there-not-single-indian-canada. Accessed 25 Feb 2020.