Wilderness And The Canadian Mind Summary

Wilderness and the Canadian Mind: Treatment of Nature in Canadian Literature

Since Northrop Frye first proposed his "garrison mentality" thesis in 1943, many literary critics have debated its validity as a representation of early Canadian attitudes towards Nature. In the 1970s a number of books were produced, which dealt with this thematic element at great length. Most of these supported Frye's theory and demonstrated the tendency of Canadian writers to depict Nature in negative ways. A more recent article by Mary Lu MacDonald has tried to counter this prevailing notion, and attempts to argue that there was, before 1850, an "essentially positive view of the Canadian landscape." (MacDonald 48) While I applaud MacDonald's attempt, her response
This betrayal has its source in the English literary tradition of the "cult of the sublime and the picturesque" (Atwood 49). The result is a tension between what you were officially supposed to feel and what you actually encountered in the Canadian environment - and the resultant sense of being gypped. Atwood then goes on to make her real point in this chapter, aptly titled "Nature the Monster," which is that death by Nature (or what she terms "death by bushing") "is an event of startling frequency in Canadian literature"(54). It is here that she embraces Frye's malevolent force in Nature
Mrs. Langton perceives her sister-in-law's disappointment, but this was most likely a disappointment of being unable to convince any of her companions to go with her to those "dizzy stations on the bank"(Langton 18). Anne herself says she was "unsatisfied" at first, but like Anna Jameson, her disappointment was directed more at her own "incapacity to conceive" the "vastness of the scene (29). Mrs. Langton expresses her own disappointment at the falls however, particularly at the noise, which was surprisingly "by no means astounding nor any hindrance to conversation." The disappointment is not, as I have said, quite as complete as that expressed by Anna Jameson, for Mrs. Langton admits that the "magnitude of water and its whole significance seems to grow on you and you feel wonder, awe, and something still more as you contemplate it" (18). Still there is, in both Jameson's and Mrs. Langton's responses to Niagara Falls, a clear tension between the desire to describe, and more importantly to feel, these Romantic emotions of "wonder" and "awe," and the emotions one actually felt.

What makes a scene picturesque is not always clear from the writings. It may be a waterfall or stream, but most often the expression is one of variety. Monotony is not picturesque. The above quoted description of the Peterborough area by Traill is a good example. The plains "form a beautiful natural park" because