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AJM Smith, John Sutherland, and Louis Dudek

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AJM Smith, John Sutherland, and Louis Dudek THREE CRITICS IN SEARCH OF A MODERN AND NATIONAL POETRY: A. J. M. SMITH, JOHN SUTHERLAND, AND LOUIS DUDEK Lloyd Den Boer A.B., Dordt Col lege, 1973 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF ME REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in' the Department 0f Engl ish Lloyd Den Boer 1983 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY April 1983 A11 rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL NAME : Lloyd Den Boer DEGREE: Master of Arts TITLE OF THESIS: Three Critics in Search of a Modern and National Poetry: A.J.M. Smith, John Sutherland and Louis Dudek EXAMINING COMMITTEE: Chairperson: Professor Michael Steig ~rbfessor/jwa Senio upervisor Professor of Engl ishy SFU -. C - Professor at& Merei /- Assistant Professor of Engl ish, SFU Professor Ronald B. Hatch External Examiner Associate Professor of Engl ish, UBC Date Approved: 25 April 1983 PART I A!. COC'Yil IGtiT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of tho Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of it.; users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or- the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written perrnission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay Three Critics in Search OF a Modern National Poetry: A.J.M. Smith, John Sutherland and Louis Dudek. 25 April 1983 - (date) ABSTRACT One theme which unites the literary criticism of A. J. M. Smith, John Sutherland, and Louis Dudek is their attempt to balance the claims of modernism and nationalism. Smith tended to emphasize the "modern" and Sutherland to emphasize the "national". Dudek achieves a degree of synthesis of this opposition. This work assesses the motives and accomplishments of - each as critics within a larger context and focuses upon their prose writing (to the virtual exclusion of their poetry), their historical and social situations, and their sources. A. J. M. Smith's criticism, which began in the late twenties, was shaped by the same metaphysical sensi bil ity which produced his poetry. His paradoxical attraction to the poles of the real and the ideal led him to separate Canadian poetry into the "native" and the "cosmopolitan" streams and to identify the latter with the ideal. Although Smith largely escaped this colonial vision in this latest criticism, it was his earlier work which posed many of the questions which the next generation struggled to answer. John Sutherland's criticism of the forties stands as a check to the modernist vision which Smith represented. Sutherland wanted a modern poetry which would blend with the life of the nation. In its North American context he drew his description of this poetry from the group of poets which contributed to his little magazines. When the poetic climate changed in the fifties, Sutherland gradually lost faith in modernism and narrowed his nationalism. iii Louis Dudek's criticism from the fifties onward shared an emphasis on demanding aesthetic standards with Smith, and a commitment to social values with Sutherland. Dudek's attempts to reconcile oppositions between society and art relaxed his sense of the tension between 'national and aesthetic ideals. The anxiety which had characterized Smith and Suther- land's assessments of Canadian poetry does not appear in Dudek's criticism. for Audrey ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks are due to Sandra Djwa for suggesting the topic this thesis examines, for providing information and advice during its development and for willingly sharing the time meant for her own research and writing to do SO. I must also thank Margaret Ringma for her service as a long-suffering - and efficient typist. Thanks of another order are due to the many relatives and friends who came promptly to. the aid of our family when a misfortune threatened to make the completion of this thesis impossible. Among these, special mention must be made of Gerald Voogd ,-wi thout whose good counsel, charity, and two skilled hands this would not exist. Finally, to my wife, Audrey, I express gratitude for her support and admiration for her courage before "unusually heavy risks and particularly a1 armi ng dangers." TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: A . J . M . Smith ............................. 1 The Twenties ......................................... 3 The Thirties ........................................ 38 The Forties .......................................... 43 The Fifties and Sixties.............................. 60 CHAPTER TWO: John Sutherland ............, ............... 71 The Forties : First Statement ........................ 74 The Forties: Northern Review ........................ 89 The Fifties: E. J . Pratt............................ 105 CHAPTER THREE: Louis Dudek .............................. 114 Criticism Until 1951 ................................. 115 Contact and CIV/n : Criticism from 1951-1 957 ......... 129 Delta : 1957-1 966 ...., ............................... 132 Recent Criticism: 1966-1978 ......................... 142 CHAPTER FOUR : Conclusion ...................... ........ 150 LIST OF'REFERENCES.. ................................... 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................... 177 CHAPTER I A. J. M. SMITH Critics of A. J. M. Smith's poetry often introduce their studies of his work with ritual pronouncements of despair. In the main, the source of their difficulty is Smith's rigorously maintained poetic of impersonality and time1essness .' A1 though Smith has wi 11 ingly dated his 1 iterary essays and even pointed readers to their historicity,' students of Smith's criticism face some of the same difficulties which confront the critics of his poetry. Milton Milson ha; maintained--following El iot in an irony doubled upon itself--that Smith was a critic with a mind so fine that no ideas could violate it.3 The comment is illuminating. A close study of Smith's criti- cism which takes the essays as a self-defining oeuvre would be incomplete for the criticism is shaped by more than the ideals the essays articulate. What must fill a void the essays would leave at the centre of the critical oeuvre is the sensibility which shaped the impersonal poetry and the taste which was engaged in Smi th's influential anthologies, Development in Smith's criticism appears by way of the addition of new themes and concerns which subtly a1 ter his earlier views, but do not change their basic focus, Smith' s singular development by accretion moves almost systematically from inner to outer realms of poetic activity. His early criticism is organized around the formation and definition of a poetic sensibility appropriate to modern conditions. What follows in the forties is Smith's attempt to construct a home for that sensibility within Canadian poetry. In the fifties and sixties, Smith turns to a consideration of poetry's relation to life. The importance of sensibility and taste in Smith's criticism must be asserted. At times, Smi th's essays show contradictfons which resembl e the paradoxes which are fundamental to his poetic vision. These contradictions .have a place within his poetry and sensibility which the nature of critical discourse does not allow. The decades-long dispute surrounding Smith's use of the terms "native" and "cosmopolitan" is the most important example of a distinction which had its roots in Smith's sensibility and became contradic- tory when expressed as a principle of l iterary criticism. The impul se which surfaced in Smith's poetry as paired images of body and spirit appeared in Smith's criticism of the forties as the paired Canadian poetic traditions of "native" and "cosmopol i tan" verse. When Smith made these distinctions he gave a new shape to the question of Canada's dependence on foreign poetic models. The cosmopolitanism which he identified and favoured stood as a challenge to Sutherland and others of the next generation who favoured a native voice instead. The tension between modernism and nationalism present in Smith's criticism, and in Sutherland's as well, is complex. The terms'"modern" and "national" can be given no single definition since each critic brings his own vision of Canada's poetic future to their use. There is a sense in which both Smith and Sutherland, for example, are fighting against colonial ism for a national and a modern Canadian poetry. Yet what Smith understands to be modern Sutherland accuses of colonialism and what Sutherland proposes as native would incur Smith's suspicion for its lack of modernity. This thesis argues that the most stable description of this conflict views it as a tension between a modernism which emphasizes aesthetic values and one which emphasizes social values. The special character of the conflict in early Canadian modernism is its combination with issues of national ism and col oni- alism. Smith and Sutherland are both nationalist critics in the sense that nationality arises as a problem in their criticism. In that special sense Dudek's criticism is evidence of a maturity which has superseded narrower nationalist approaches. Nationality is assumed in Dudek's writing. It no longer appears as one of the first difficulties a Canadian critic must
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