3 ] Frye writes: A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Debussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures (Bush Garden 221). It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:
The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Chapter, 23).
For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).
To illustrate why Frye is not concerned with Duncan Campbell Scott’s active role in the destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures, I want to highlight some key points from his conclusion. In Frye’s conclusion, he situates work early in the literary history of Canada. Frye states that “Literature is conscious mythology: as society develops, its mythical stories become structural principles of story-telling” (234). However, Frye states that “the Canadian literary mind, beginning as it did so late in the cultural history of the West, was established on a basis, not of myth, but of history” (233). The mythical was actually “prehistoric … and the writer had to attach himself to his literary tradition deliberately and voluntarily” (235).
According to Frye, “Indians, like the rest of the country, were seen as nineteenth-century literary conventions” and so it is no wonder that Frye does not criticize Scott because he supposedly did as any other late nineteenth century or early twentieth century writer would have done – adhere to the literary tradition. Scott’s writing belonged to the “garrison mentality” that Frye speaks of which “begins as an expression of the moral values generally accepted in the group as a whole” (233). Frye also asserts that “Earlier Canadian writers were certain of their moral values: right was white, wrong black, and nothing else counted or even existed” (228). Therefore, Scott viewed the “Indians” as “primitive”, (notice the use of the derogatory term “squaw”) and fitting the convention of the vanishing Indian. Frye ignores this problematic view because it is just a part of the garrison mentality’s development. Frye believes that he garrison mentality will evolve to attack these conventional standards and perhaps Scott’s writing based on history will itself become a myth which Canadian literature can choose to draw from. However, since Scott belonged in a time of early Canadian literary history, to find oneself out of the garrison would have been terrifying and so his racist writing can be excused in this theory. Furthermore, Frye attempts to highlight the clash of cultures and the tension in the use of language between the sophisticated and the primitive. Frye says that to “encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures” (221), one must go back to the beginning of the English literary tradition in the Anglo-Saxon times. Therefore, this tension in Scott’s work is implied to be characteristic of a literary tradition that is just developing and so Scott’s problematic thinking is again excused.
Although Scott’s policies of destruction are not relevant in Frye’s discussion, I think that it is dangerous to theorize early Canadian Literature in the way Frye has. The CanLit Guides discusses attempts to “revive Scott’s reputation” (n.pag.) with regards to his nature poetry. However, the guide reminds us that: “it is important to remember that the beauty of a poet’s expression is itself an ideological tool. Sometimes saying racist things in poetic ways makes them seem all the more true and, in turn, make race seem that much more real” (n.pag.). If Scott’s description of the primitiveness of the “squaw” fishing with her own flesh can be regarded as poetic and allowed under Frye’s literary theory, then the myth of the ‘vanishing Indian’ is still perpetuated.
I always enjoy reading Armand Garnet Ruffo’s “Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott”. The last few lines of the poem demonstrate how Scott’s poetry and literary theory that attempts to justify or excuse racism simply gives it a platform to continue to exist: “Him,/ he calls it poetry/ and says it will make us who are doomed/ live forever.”
Frye states: “If evaluation is one’s guiding principle, criticism of Canadian literature would become only a debunking project, leaving it a poor naked alouette plucked of every feather of decency and dignity” (215). I would like to ask my readers what they think of this statement. Should we pluck the alouette if it was never decent to begin with or should we just let it fly away?
Works Cited
“Duncan Campbell Scott.” CanLit Guides. Canadian Literature, 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
Frye, Northrop. “The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination.” Concord: House of Anansi. 215-253. Print.
Ruffo, Armand Garnet. “Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott.” Canadian Poetry Online. University of Toronto. n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
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