Whorfian, Feminist, and Marxist Readings Sam Whittaker University of Windsor

University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 8-3-2017 Language, Thought, and bpNichol's The Martyrology: Whorfian, Feminist, and Marxist Readings Sam Whittaker University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Whittaker, Sam, "Language, Thought, and bpNichol's The aM rtyrology: Whorfian, Feminist, and Marxist Readings" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 6601. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/6601 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). Under this license, works must always be attributed to the copyright holder (original author), cannot be used for any commercial purposes, and may not be altered. Any other use would require the permission of the copyright holder. Students may inquire about withdrawing their dissertation and/or thesis from this database. For additional inquiries, please contact the repository administrator via email ([email protected]) or by telephone at 519-253-3000ext. 3208. Language, Thought, and bpNichol's The Martyrology: Whorfian, Feminist, and Marxist Readings By Sam Whittaker A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through the Department of English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2017 © 2017 Sam Whittaker Language, Thought, and bpNichol's The Martyrology: Whorfian, Feminist, and Marxist Readings by Sam Whittaker APPROVED BY: J. Noonan Department of Philosophy N. Ricci Department of English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing L. Cabri, Advisor Department of English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing June 20th, 2017 iii Declaration of Originality I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis and that no part of this thesis has been published or submitted for publication. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, my thesis does not infringe upon anyone’s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my thesis, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that I have included copyrighted material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Canada Copyright Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include such material(s) in my thesis and have included copies of such copyright clearances to my appendix. I declare that this is a true copy of my thesis, including any final revisions, as approved by my thesis committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. iv Abstract This thesis examines the ways in which The Martyrology, the magnum opus of Canadian poet bpNichol, examines the influence that language has on thought. The early twentieth century linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf propagated the idea that the language that one speaks affects how he or she thinks about the physical and conceptual world in which he or she lives. This idea, often called Whorfianism, has been highly influential in Marxist and feminist theory, and is often used to help describe the ways in which capitalist and patriarchal power structures are perpetuated. The Martyrology also examines such power structures, and it frequently does so by playing with the language used to describe those power structures and the language of those who benefit from such power structures. Through play with language, The Martyrology plays with how the reader understands his or her physical and conceptual world, becoming more aware of the problematic ways in which English encodes gender and class. This study explores how The Martyrology alters and changes the structures and conventions of English to empower the reader to be more aware of the ways that English influences how he or she thinks. v Table of Contents Declaration of Originality ......................................................................................... iii Abstract .................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction to Theory .............................................................................. 1 Who’s in Control: The Person or the Language? ............................................ 2 The Martyrology and Whorfianism ................................................................ 8 The Martyrology and Marxism .................................................................... 18 The Martyrology and Feminism ................................................................... 23 Chapter 2: Marxism and The Martyrology ............................................................... 27 Barthesian Myth and Marxism ..................................................................... 45 Chapter 3: Space, Place, and The Martyrology ......................................................... 55 Chapter 4: Feminism and The Martyrology .............................................................. 69 Chapter 5: Time, History, and The Martyrology ....................................................... 88 Barthesian Myth and History ........................................................................ 88 Feminism and History .................................................................................. 90 Marxism and History ................................................................................... 95 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 109 Works Cited .......................................................................................................... 113 Appendix ............................................................................................................... 116 Vita Auctoris ......................................................................................................... 135 1 Chapter 1: Introduction to Theory bpNichol’s The Martyrology spans a total of nine books and six volumes (in its most recent edition). In its massive breadth, it covers a variety of politically important topics, including sexism, historiography, and social and economic inequality. Roy Miki argues that the variety of important and complex topics that The Martyrology covers is the greatest of its achievements, praising “the urgent vitality with which it raises and probes the central problems of our time: Where, if anywhere, does meaning reside? Does history matter? Is there a way out of the closures of the self? Is a sense of community still viable? Of what value is the craft of poetry?” (13). These are complex questions, but the most important and most ubiquitous (both intratextually and extratextually) topic that The Martyrology addresses is language itself. Language must be used to talk about or think about any of these other complex topics, and Nichol’s play with language foregrounds the importance of that fact. Language is the system of structures, conventions and rules that allow for humans to communicate with each other. But in our poststructuralist world, we know that it is more than just this. It is now generally accepted that the language that a person speaks, to at least some degree, has an influence on how that person thinks. The Martyrology addresses the mechanisms of human thought whenever it addresses language. Language is, of course, intimately connected with politics. The way or ways that a person or a group of people speak(s) often influences what subject position(s) he/she/they may occupy in society. The structures and signs of a given language, though, can perpetuate the deprivileged position of abjected groups and persons. Marxist and feminist theories can be usefully employed to examine the political effects of language’s influence over thought. 2 The idea that the language that one speaks has an effect on the way that he or she thinks can be traced in the twentieth century to the linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf. In the early conception of this idea, described by Whorf in Language, Thought, and Reality, speakers of different languages understand the world in fundamentally different ways, and they do so primarily because of the different structures of the different languages that they speak. Variously called Whorfianism, linguistic relativity, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, this idea has undergone much variation and revision in the more than eighty years since its conception. While Whorf believed that the language one speaks determines what one is able to think, other theorists believe that it only nudges one’s thought process along. Most contemporary theorists fall closer to the latter end of that spectrum. Regardless of which variant of Whorfianism one ascribes to, so called “hard” or “soft” Whorfianism, it is a useful tool for examining The Martyrology because The Martyrology plays with the linguistic structures of English, linguistic structures that Whorfian

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