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SCRUB GROWTH:
CANADIAN HUMOUR TO191 2 - - AN EXPLORATION
by
Loretta FaithBalisch, B.A ., B.Bd.,M.A.
A Thesis submittedto the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for thedegree of
Doctorof Philosophy
Department of English Language and Literature Memorial UniversityofNewfoundland
December 1994
NewfoWldland
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ABSTRACT
This dissertationco n t e nd s thatCana d i an humour did not emerge suddenlywith the work of Thomas Chandler Haliburton and thenvanish untilStephen Leacock's work appeared. The humour that Canadians created in large quantitie.:> , both be fo r e Haliburtonand after, has too fre qu e n t l y been disregarded.
Some of the reasons for this disregard stem from the critical tenets of Canadian criticsin the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Othersare tobe found in the character of the humour i tsel f . Nineteenth-centuryCanadian humou r is rarelycos mop o l itan; it is parochial. sat ir i cand ironic by turns, of tenracy, some t i me s evencrud e and racis t. It mocksbo t hCana d a' s colonial status andit s l iteraryestablishment , andit depicts a countryinflux rather than a unified nation . Incongruitiesstemming from theimpo s it i o n of Suropean literaryand culturalconventions on theCanadian milieuprovidematerial forme taf i c tiona l par ody . Criticsgenerallyhave onlyrecently begunto recognize the complex nature of various kindsof parody.
This studyinvestigates aspects of Canadianhumourin se l ect e dne ws p a pers, periodical s and books published between 1752 and 1912 . It shows that from the beginning Canadians ha v e publishedhumourinth e newspapersand that one of their concerns has been the qualityof indigenouswr iting.
i i
The ironicnarrative techniques that are stilldistinct ive in Canadian literaturemake their appearance in this early humour as canadians dev isewaysof wrieingaboueth eir own milieuwhile avoiding "r egi o na l i s m.· There is clear evidence of Americaninfluenceon Canadianhumour throughoue ene per iod, but a distinctive Canad i an humorous perspeceive emerges in respons eeo Canada' 5 co lonia l sc a e u e in r.he BritishEmpire andits position relaei veeo theU.S .
TIle naeio nal istnatur eof Canadiancrieicismhas led to reject i o nof many of eue works by expaeria te wri ters , bu t;
enese works sharemany char ac t e risticattitudes wieh those of writers who remainedin Canada. Theirsub j e c t mat ter may be quiee differene, bue ehei r ability eo presene several sides to every quesei on and eheirironicperspec tiveare simi l a r to ch ose of oth e r Canadianwrit ers.
Obviou s l y, notal l humour is literary humou r - - such humou r is excepei onal inthe literature of everycountry. In Canada, even coday, there ismore literaryhumourthan current cr i tici s mallows. And. the bel i efthat there wasno signi f i c an t Canadianhumour betweenHaliburton and Leacock cont i nu e s to dominate Canadian criticism. Nodoubt the worksof HaliburtonandLeacock doocc u py the summi t of ninetee nth-century Canadian humou r;but thereisa whole mountainra ng e ot: less er elevat ionsu r round ing them .
i i i
The studyco n c l u d e s that there is indeed a distinctive nineteenth-century Canadian humour, mostof which is expressedinth esho rt forms dictatedbypublication in ne ws p a p e r s andmagazines. RobertsonDavies reminds us that
in attempt.ing t.oform an est.imate of Leacock's work, we must remember that he wrote in an era when magaz i neswere many and all but the most highbrow welcomedshort, funny pieces (3 1 ). Leacock was writing withinthis well-established. Canadian tradition of humour whenhe published Literary[,apses, Nonsense Nevels andSu n s h i n e Sketches of A I.ittleTQWD. He is notthe firs t Canadian to create humourafter Ha l i b ur t o n , but he is the first to present i t in a way that. could be accepted by the Canadian literaryes t ab l i s h ment. After Leaco ck, humour graduallybecame more respectable in canada, but that is t.he subject foranotherstud y.
iv
IN MEMORIAM ALEXANDER BALISCH 1921-1993
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thepre p a r a e i o n of ehis dis s e r e ae i o n has given me new insight Incc cne meaningandvalue of friendship andfamily. There are no words adequate to express my gratitude for eheir love. their helpfulness. andtheir faith in me.
This project has mademany demands on there s ou r c e s of t.he Que enElizabet.h II Libr aryat.Memorial University of Ne....foundl and. I ....ishco t.hank the library st.aff for thei r help . es pecia llythe st aff of inter l ib ra ryloans, ....ho lo c ated the news pape rs and out- of-pri n t mat eri als I needed;
the st aff of the libr a ryduplic ati ng service whopr o v i d e d me wit.hreadable hard copy fro m microforms; and th estaf f of t.he Libr ary Au d i o Resource Centre (LARC) who werevery underseand.ingandhelpful.
I sh o u l dalso like ec thankth e individuals who. as Head of t.he English Depart.ment since I began this project, havehelped me through adjust.ments in my teaching schedule and personal encouragemene.
FinallyI wouldlike tosa y a special thank you to my supervisor. Dr. Pat.rick O'Flaherty. wh o s e patience, encouragement and ast.uteju d gme n t. gave me the impet.us to complet e t.h i s project.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page Abstract
Dedication Ackmowledgements Introduction ..
i i
vi
Chapter 1.Studying Canadian Humour 17
Chapter 2.The Critical Context .. . .. 60
Ch a p t er 3. Eigh teenth -centuryCanadian humour 93
Chapter 4. The Prose Sketchand Other Developments 1815- 18 4 0 .. . . . .. ... . . ... . . .. . . 137
Chapter 5.Haliburton 206
Chapter 6 Humour in Selected Literary Periodicals
1840-1912 23 9
Chapter 7. The Satiric and Hu mor ou s Papers, 1840-1912 282 Chapter 8.Humorous Fiction and Poetry. 1840-1912 387
Co n clu s i o n 480
Bibliography 489
vii
INTRODUCTION
"Still we go on writing sermonettes.n (Lo m e Pierce)1
There is no need to prove the existence of Canadian humour in the twentieth century. Robertson Davies, Paul Hiebert, Donald Jack, Robert Kroetsch and Mordecai Richler are just some of the twentieth-century Canadian writers whose works we are prOUd to classify as Canadian humour. My argument is that such Canadian humour did not emerge suddenly from a humourless desert of dour and serious literary works; instead i t has a long history, beginning in the eighteenth century, and developing distinct forms and aetitudes in the nineteenth century. This study willsearch out these early manifestations to the point in our literary history after which there is agreement that Canadian humour ext see. and for this study this point is reached on the publication of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a I,j t t l e Town in 1912. The critical consensus regards Leacock as the first significant humorist after Thomas Chandler
Ha liburton inth e Canadian literary canon. As Leacock is generallyclassed a ni neteen th- c entury humorist ev e n though many of his workswe r e producedin the twentieth, concluding the study withthe publication of Sunshine Sketches of a LittleTown seems reasonable. At thattime, moreover, the First World War had not yet impa c t ed on Canadiansociety, forcingCanadians from all parts of the countryoutof their
"p Lacd.d climateR (Allenal and intoa confronta tionwhich dr a s t i c a l l y changed both theirconsciousnessandtheir society.Z
Writingabout humour presents problemsfo r any critic because, no matter what the circumstances, the critic is facedwi t h the paradoxof having to write seriouslyabout what is, on the surface, not meant to be taken seriously.
Suchcritical writing is furthercomplicated by the elusive na t u r e of humour itself. Wri t i ng about Canadian humour is especiallyproblematic because th e accepted nineteenth- century Canadianl i terarycanon, by wh i c h I mean the accumulation of literary worksju dg e d to be of sufficient aesthetic value to merit the name Canadian~ , admits only the work of Haliburton, Thomas McCulloch and Le a c o c k . This creates the impression thatthere is no other significant Canadian humour in this period.
This study is an explorationof earlyCanadianhumour.
It draws at tention to dif f icultiesposedby the term
"Canadian" in the criticism written both duringand about nin e t e e n t h- c ent u ry Canada. The eerm "Canada,"as used in this dis s ertation , is normally interchangeablewith"Br i t ish NorthAmeri ca, " and is usedth r oug h o u t to refer to all the pro vinces andte r ritorie s of the modern nation, without regardtothe date of theirentry into Ccnfedexat.Lcn ." It asks why solitt l e cr i t ic a l at tentionhas been paid to Canadian humourand suggestsmodels that may be useful in exploringearlyCanadianhumour . Then, havingset tledwhat is meant by "Canadian"and "h u mou r , " it locatesan d describesexamplesof earlyCana d i an humour. It deals with cr i t i c i smas well as withprimary text s . Theworkis explo ratory , wide-ranging , and argumenta t i ve , but not comprehensive.
Many of th e materialsused inthisst ud y have on l y rec entlybecome re adil y accessible through micropubl icat ion.
TheCana d i a n Ins ti t u te for Hist ori calMicroreproduc t ions (CI HM) has, since the 1970 s, made the wo rksof many nine t e enth- c enturywritersaccessibleon microfiche, and has recentlybeguntofi l msuch nineteenth- centu ryCanadian periodicalsas Amaranth (1 8 41 - 4 3 ) and The Anglo-American
~ (18 5 2 -55 ). In additiontotheCI HM microfiche, microfilms of nineteenth-centuryCanadianne ws pa p e rs are available throughthe Canadian Library Associat i onMicrof lim project. Microforms of oth e r nineteenth-century Canadian
publi cations are beingproducedby commercial agencies. Together they provide accessto nineteenth-centurymaterials previou slydifficult to locateanduse. This st ud y is heav ilyde p e nd e n t upon such microforms.
Evennow, inth e latetwe nt i e t h ce ntury, such general st ud i esof Canadian humour as Margaret Atwood's "What' sSo Funny? Notes onCan a d i an Humour," and BeverleyRasporich's
"Th e NewEden Dream: The Sourceof CanadianHumour: McCulloch, Haliburtonand Leacock" are rare and apt to be short essays rather than detailedstudies . More frequent arestud i e s of indiv i d u al nineteenth-century Ca n a d i a n humoristssuch asHal i b u r t o n, McCulloch , and Leacock, and such twentieth-centuryhumor i s t s as Atwood, Hiebert , Kroetsch, andDa v i e s. There areno compreh e ns i v e his tories or cri t ici s ms ofCanadianhumour~, andth e r e is sti ll very li t t le cr i ticismofcont e mpor a ry Canadian humour. Th i s is quitea dif f e r e n t situation from thatinthe U.S.,' where literary cri t i c s and historians becameinterestedin, and be ga n collec tingand studying, the humour of th e i r country in theni n e t e enthce n tury. StudiesofCana d i an humourev e n remotel yequivalent tothos eof Samuel Cox, Constance Rou r ke, and WalterBlair on American humo ur,5 Louis Ca z a mai n andJ.B.Priestley on Brit.ishbumour,"or Le e Siegel onIndian humour'do not exist..·
Because humorous works often derive from the immediate and the lo cal , much early humour was published in newspapers and periodicals. In the periodbetween175 2and 1840 , the numbe r of ne ws p a p e r s and journalspublished in Canada was relat i vely smal l, as wasth e number of books. This study examines humou r inmost of thesi gni f ican t publicationsof this early period . Howe ver, in the periodafter 1840, as settlements expanded rapidly, the number of newspapers , periodicalsand books published greatlyincreased. I have notbeen ableto examine everybook, periodical and ne wsp a p e r publishedin Canadaor written by an inhabitant of Ca na d a between 1840and 1912: selecti on became a necessity . In the period betwee n 1840 and 191 2 , th isstudy concentrates on se l e cted newspapers and periodicals of so me literary standingor whichare themselves humo r ous jcurnars , andon cert a inind i v i d ual writers . It notesthe fo rms whichhumou r takes andthe cha rac t e r ist icsof th ishumou r , and it dete rmi ne s whet herany patternofhumo u r- -ei t h e r re gio n alor na t ional - - is discernible.
The study ex a mi nes Canadian humou r which has not tradit i o nally been regardedasli t e ra ry and which has therefore been disregardedas in s i gni f i c a n t. The final cha p t e r reviews wri t erswhosehumor ousworks ha v e recei ved so me cri t ic alattention. As will be shown , few evenof theseworks have been accorded th e epithet nl i t e ra ryn . On
the other hand there isquit e a large body of Qunliterary humou r,", d,e., humourthat may ha v ere c e i v e d popular acclaim but has sincebe e n re j ectedfo r even minimal consideration wi t h i n the Canadian literarycanon. Such humour is, therefore, largelyunknown.
In itsin c l u s i o n of materialspub l ishedin the popular press, i.e., the newspapers and journals of the time, this study oversteps the usual Canadian boundariesof the Qliterary". The influentia l Canadian literati have not generally regardednewspape rsas significant purveyorsof literature, al thoughfrom the earliest newspapers it is evident that newspaper editors haveregarded them as SUCh.
Literary criticsand hi storians generallyrefer to newspaper material pejoratively as journalistic, biased, regional, or provincial. The more self -consciouslyliterary Canadian periodicals have received some critical attention. but writers inth e s e periodicals are, on the whole,a humourless lot. Editors of such periodicals rarely published humorous writing, because it did not meet their objectives. They had nothing againsthumour~, but their objectiveswere to imp r o ve the taste and elevatetheminds of their readers.
not to encourage undue le v i t y orto caterto unformed tastes. Theirrole was to provideliterary material of a hi g h standardto readersof sufficient cultivation to appreciatei t.
In the nineteenthcentury. Canadianwr iters fo und a ready market for theirwriting in the U.S. , with book publishers or in journals andnews p a p e r s. They also publishedtheir materials in Great Br i t a i n, but to a lesser extent than in theU.S. Manyof Canada'shumorists.
includingHa liburton , SaraJeannetteDuncan, Robert Barr, andJa mes DeMille , published their worksoutsideCana d a and frequently wrotewith thei r non- Canadianreadersin mind. As a resul t, much of th e material pr oduce d by Canadian humoristshas beenneglectedbecauseit is vun-ccanedf.anw - >
becausei t was not published inCanadaor about Canada. But even tho u g h the ywere not written specificallyfor Canadian readers, the humour in thesebooks and articles is nevertheless Ca n a d i an humour.and shouldbe loo kedat in order to inquire into its characteristic s. The works of th e s e wri tersfrequently displayqualities which are more distinctively Canadianth a n has generally been noted.
That Ca n a d i an humour does appear to be sub t l y diff e r ent:
fromeit:her American or Brit i shhumour become s apparent early in th e nineteenthcentury . In the eighteenthcentury Ca n a d i an humour was cl o sel y rela ted to eighteenth-century Britishhu mo u r; itsmain formsare narrat ive ve r s esat i r e andocc a s ion a l lightve r s e . There is a strongsatiric thrust tothehu mour; i t is primari lydirected at correcting so cial il l s. There is littlein dig e no u s prose humour
evi dent at this ti me. EarlyCanadianwriting, especially in the years followi ng the American Revol ution , differs from either Britishor American produ c t i o n s of the same period chieflyin the areiculationof a growing consciousness that the new societyis neither Britishnor American; it centres on the unrest in the American colonies andene seetlementof ebe Loyalistsin Canada.
In treatingtheperiod 1815 to 1840, thehu mou r of.Ib&.
~ (18 2 1-2 7 ), Canada's firstsaei ricaland humorous weekly isex a mi n ed. So is the humour in suchbooks as~ Bapt iste ' A Poeticoli o (1825), TheChari y ar i (l824) , and a peculiar l i tt lebook,The Mysterious Stranger (1 8 13), which was publishedin New Brunswick. This lastap p e a r s to be a species of "rogue ta l e . " Based on the number of editions which appeared in ene nin e t e e n t h century, it likely was Canada'sfirst best-seller.
The mos e significant developmentbetween 1815 and 1840 is the emergenceof the prosesketch as a majorform for satirichumour. Humorous sketches lnieiallyappeared in newspapers and periodicals as discrete, infrequent ieems but, bythe 1820s, began to appear in con tinui ng series of related sketches with a speci fic castof characters.
Although tbe writers of these sketcheswere mostlystill anonymous, their identitieswere often known in their communities. The best known series of sketchesto make res
appearance before Haliburton'sThe ClQckmaker (1 83 6) isTIlf:.
LettersQf Me p h i b Qs h e t h Stepsure (1821-23) by Thomas MCCUlI Qc h. Thes e sk e t che s, and such ocher- series of newspaper sketches as th e "Club"papers (18 2 8- 3 2) and
"No v a Sc o t ianFa rmi ng " (1823-4), are examined.
The humour of these sketches laid the foundationfor what Robertson Davies id e n t i f i e s as the Canadian "Mythof Innocence or Moral Superiority" in relation to the U.S. that has continuedto manifestitself intwentieth-century Canadian li ter a t u r e . Davies says that
deep in ourhe a r t s we Canadians ch e r i s h a notion . . that we are a simple folk, nourished on simplertruths of Christianity , in whom certain roughanduntu t o r e d instincts of nobilityassert themsel ves (On e Half of Robertson Davies 275). Haliburtonand McCUlloch, the humoristswhosework is recognized as theon l y "l i t e r a ry " humourQf th i s early period,were clearl y workingwithin the context of such a myth inthei r emphasis on moral ra t h e r th a n material development as the shapingpr i n cip l e of their so c ietyandin Haliburton'Sdepiction of shoddy AmeriCan morality.
Pur-t.herrnoz-e, Haliburtonand McCUllochreveal the in f l u e nce of two opposing models of humour availabletoCa n a d i an humorists : the Britishmodel, taken by McCUl loch; and the American path, apparentlytaken by Haliburton. (That Haliburto n only~eo take the Americanpathmaycome as a bi tof a shock.)
10 The humour of Haliburton is dealt with separately. I show that; Haliburton was writing within an established Canadian newspaper tradition of satiric humour. Although he appears eo embrace the American style of humour, Haliburton uses a variety of techniques to distance himself from the narrative, and to maintain a perspective which is more British than American. The emphasis in this examination is on The Clockmaker Series I (1836) andThe Old Judge (184~) .
The latter is significant. It represents a new--and rare-- development in Canadian humour, for the humour of Haliburton's The Old Judge does not bend itself to the demands of satire but instead adopts the wider perspective of recording life in all its inconsistencies and incongruities. Throughout the nineteenth century, satire continues to be a major component of Canadian humour, and the differentiation of "Canadian" society from its two great models continues to be the focus of attention. That the sketch continues to be the preferred form for humour the end of the nineteenth century is evident in Leacock's choice of this form for much of his writing. He identifies his choice of this form in the title of his most famous work, ~ Sketches of a LittleTown.
Following Haliburton, most of the humour written by Canadian writers until Leacock either falls into the classification of "unliterary" humour, or is otherwise
11 neglectedbyCanadian critics. This includes the humour published in the newspapers and periodicals in the second halfof the nineteenth century as well as in the works of individual writers as diverse as James oeem ie , Sara Jeannette Duncan,and Peter McArthur. After 1840, the rapid growthof towns and cities in Central Canada and the West gave rise to increasing numbers of newspapers. many of which no doubt contain humorous materials. However, an examination of all of these newspapers is not feasible at this point. Attention is focused instead on the humour in selected journals. These include a number of "literary"
journals such as Th@ Literary Garland (1838-51). theAnal.2..=.
American Magazine (1852-55). ~ (1883-96), as well as such humorous and satiric journals as Punch in Canada (1 8 4 8 - 50), ~ (~868-69I, GI:.iJ2. (1871-93), and the Calgary
~ (1902-1922). Many contributors to these papers used pen-names or remained anonymous, but whenever possible the work of specific humorists is examined. (When material originally published in these papers has subsequently been collected and/orexpanded in book form, the collections rather than the originals are examined. 1 Throughout the period, parody, in one or another of its manifestations, is a major tool of the Canadian humorist. In Canadian humour the work parodied is frequently North American.
12 Finallythehu mo u r cr e a t e dby individual writerswho publ is h ed novels, sketches, short stories, essays, or poems between 1840 and191 2 isexpl o r e d. Of t.his group, on l y leacock is widely regarded as a ~l i t e ra ry n humoris t. These wr i tershaveas a ruleachieved recognitionat the regional or evennati onal le v e l s - -someon l y as popular writers. A few have received substantial international recognition.
Others suchas Isabellava l a n c yCr a wfor d wroteon ly a few humorousworksand gainedtheir reputationsfromother more
"s e riou s " wri tings. These humo ristsfall into several dist inct ca t e g o r i e s. The firstgroup, writers who lived and publishedmostof their workinandabout Canada include s such "l oc a l coj. o u r-v'"writers as W.H.Drummond, Peter McArthur. W. H. P. Jarvis. Rob ert Kirkland Kernighan (Th e Khan) and E.W. Thompson. as wellas Le acoc k. The second group includeswriterswho lived outside of Canada and whose works were mainly publishedelsewhere :Robert Barr, Sa r a Jeannette Duncan, DeMil le , and GeorgeThomas Lanigan . (Th e workof such writers such as Leacock and RobertService was so popular and received so muchinternat ional recogni t ion chat i t was published simultaneouslyinCanada, the United States and GreatBritain.) The local colour writers include incidental humorists--wr iters whos ewo r ksare not inte nded primarilyto be humorous butwh o inc orporatehumour in order togi ve their otherwise moral and socially seriousworks a
13 wider appeal. Finally, note is taken of a small groupof writers of children'5humou r whichincludes DeMille and Frances Blake Crof ton.
Ve ry few of these writersare regarded as having made significantcontributionsto Canadian literature, because thei rwriting isth o u g h t tola c k the proper seriousness, because it is not sufficiently eloquentor universal, because itis short on Canadian content, or because i t follows the formulaeof "popular" or journalisticwriting.
These factors account forthe lack of attention paid to the comic novelsof Duncan, the best of the comic verse of Service and the parodyromances of DeMil le.
Finallyin the concludingchapter there is a brief examination of the work of Leacock to 1912 indicatingwhy
hi s work has been giventhe literary recognition denied
others.
Late into the twentieth century Canadian humorists continue to work primarily using shortfo rms - - s k e t c h e s, essays and short fiction and poetry--orto create parodic longer works. Newspapers and periodicals .augmented by radio, have remained the primarymodes for the transmission of Canadian humour. Many of the distancing techniques which characteri ze modern Canadian humour andwhich contributeto itsdiffident tone anddistinctiveironic quality maybe tracedin the early humour ofth i s country. The popular
14 bumoris t s were fr equentl y theonlyCanad i an writersmany Canad i ans knewor re ad, andto ignorethe mis to ignorean importantaspectof our l it e r a ryheritage.
15
Notes
1. LomePierce, UnexploredFieldsof Canadian Literature (n.d .) . The context in which this remark is made is:
Canadian literature is too serious. Surely there is a place for books of trifles, ~, relaxation and escape. Wene e d more resoundinglaughter. perhaps. but cereainlymore subtle humour and even satire. Stil lwe go on writing eermoneccee, trying to prove something or co nv e r t somebody (13) .
2. There are many histories of Canada whichdescribe theimpa c t of WorldWa r I on what to 1914 was a basical lya pioneer country;see, for example, Ralph Allen, OrdealbyFi re (To r o n t o : 1961) and J.L.
Granatstein and Desmond Morton , Marchingto Armageddon-Canadians and the Great War 19 14 _ ] 9 ] 8 (Toronto:1989).
3.The exception to thisstatement is Newfoundland, which did not enter Confederation until well after the period of this study.For information about Newfoundland humour, see Herbert Lench Pottle, Fun on the Rock- Toward a Theory of Newfoundland Humour. (S t.
John's :Breakwater, 1983) .
4. In cont.rast toth e ongoing interest.of American critics in the humourof their country, Canadian crit.ics continue to pay little at tention to Canadian humour.A computerized check of ten years of criticism (MLA Bibliggraphy from January, 1981 to October, 1992) for example, shows that whereas there are entries for 370 items dealing with humour in Americanli t e r a t u r e , there are only 18 such entries dealing with humour in Canadian literature.
5.Samuel S. Cox, Why We J,angh (1 87 6) ; Cons t a n c e Rourke,~
~(l931) and Wa l te r Blair, Native Ameri can Humour (1 9 37) . I have chosen these three studies to represent American humour criticism becauseof th e i r hist.orical importance in the field and because each studyin c l ud e s materials thatwould traditionally have been disregarded by li t e r a ry critics . Bach st.udy includes materials from such diverse sources as legislat ive orations, newspapers, periodicals, and almanacs, in addition to booke. In so doing, each exemplifiesthe breadt.h of approach that has been taken to the criticismof American humour. In the 1870s, Coxbe g i n s his study with the assumptionthat there is a distinctAmericanhumour and proceeds to show"b y collation and generalization the humour of classes and individuals" (Cox, 9) revea ledin the legislaturesof America . Rourke delineates the specific characteristics of American (i.e .post-colonial) humour and linkes such humour tothe Americancharacte rand spirit. Blair ext.ends the work of Rourke by
16 including en e humourof colonial America and exami ning "specific nineteenthcentury de v el o pme n ts" (Blair , iv).
6. Lo u i s Cazamain, The De v e l o pme n t of Engl i s h HUmourneeI and II (1952) and J. B. Pr i e s t l y , Englis h Humou r. (19 7 6 ) . These re pr es e n tat i v e British studies of humour concentrate more on
"l i t e r a ry " humour than the American studies mentioned above.
although th eydo examine hu mo u r from other sources.
7. Lee Siegel, Laughing Ma t t e r s· Comic Tr a d i t i o n ; n India (19 8 7) _ Siegel discusses the humour of India from ancient to modern times .. in a variety of ov e rl a p p i n gwa y s. followinga medley of overlapping methods: [descriptive, causal, modal, functional, de v e l o p ment a l and comparative ]" (xi i-x i i i ).
8. T. C. Haliburton wasthe first Canadian towrit e theoretically about NorthAmericanhumour. He discusses the ch aracteristicsof th i s humo u r in the in t r oduc t i o n s to his anthologies of American hu mo u r, TraitsofAmericanHumour (18 5 2) and The AmericansatHome (18 5 4). However, theseintroductions areclear ly about the humour of th e U. S.--hemakes no referenceto Canadian (orNo v a Scotian) humour .
9. The term is used here as it is used by E. K. Brown in On Canadian Poetry , 4.
10. Localcolourrefers to
writing which exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, habi t s of th ou g h t and top og r a p h y pecut.Lar to a certain region.. . .About 1880this interes t becamedomi n ant in American li t e r a t ure; what wa s called a "local color movement "developed. . . . [Suchwr i t e r s as] Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Joaquin Miller wro t e of the West... (Hol man, 249)
In Canada, localcolourwriting became popular in the 1890s.
CHAPTER ONE Studying CanadianHumo u r The objective of this study--the examination of Canadian humour in the period from 1752 to the publication of Leacock'sSunshine Sket.ches of a LittleTown in 1912--is a new undertaking. It rests on the convic tionthat there is a si gnif i c a n t bo d y of Canadian humour in this period. At presentCanadianhumour criticismis dominated by the assumption that little humour worth consideration was producedbetween thewo r k of Haliburtonand that of Leacock. ' Although since19 6 0 considerablecritical attention has been paid to the Stepsureletters of McCUlloch, andrecent criticismof the work of DeMille'and Sara .reennect.epuncan" has revealedhithertoun e xp l o r e d comic and ironic depths, long-standingbe l i ef s about the dearth of early Canadian humour have not yet beenseriously chal lenged. Nor wi l l they be unt i lcritics beginto examine writing whichhas hi th ert o beenoverlookedor rejected.
17
ae Shapingcn e Canadianliterary canon in the nineteenth century consistedmainlyof ident.ifyingthe serious poetry which could be classified as~literature".· The poetryth a t received cr i t i c al approbationcombined superiorpoetic qualities, wel l above the ordinaryrun of writtenworks, with language and ideals sufficient ly el e v ate d to characterize cne emergingCanad i an "nationn•S La t e r critic s addedhe lle s l e t tres , dramaand prose works such as th e novel and the shortsto ry to the emerging canon.' There have evenbeenattempes--withoutgreatsu cce ee-c - ec include 000- fictionsu c h as history. biographyand scie n ti fi c wr itings .7 On the whole, thisrather extensive canon exc l ud es most humorous writingas well as works whichdo not focus onCa n a d a an d the Canadian ch a r act e r. Thecr i te r i aof its formation havesent , for in stance , int o ob s c u r i t y many of the romances, especially the parodic romances,and sign if i cant co mi c no v e l s and poems of the nineteenth century.
Toset on e s e lf up as a literary cr i t ic of Canadian humour is, to some extent. to flyin thefaceof established li t e r a ry practice. The Canadian cr i t i c of humour must deal witha two f o l d pr o b l e m, on e aspectof whicharises from the ge n era l diff i cultiesassociatedwith humour criticism, the ot h e r fromthe criteria used to determine the relatio nship of an y givenworktothe Canadian l ite rarycanon. The
general pr o ble ms of humo u rcrit.i c is mwi l lbe bri e fl y addressed befo r e we look at humour and theCanadiancanon.
Humour is bot.h complex and nebulous. The oriesabout it s natureand mechanicshave been ad vanced since Plato and Aristotle, andth e debateis st.il lgoingon. · In the lat e twentiethce nturyhumour theori stshave con c ludedt.hatno onethe o ryexpla ins satisfac torilyexactly what humouris or how itwo r k s. Ant.honyChapman and Hugh Foote assert that
strictly speaking , a distinct. ioncan (and .. .should) be drawn betwe en theo ries of humour and th eoriesof la u g hte r. . . (we concludethat] no allembracing theoryof humor and/or laughter has yet gainedwi d e acceptanceandpossiblyno general theory will everbe successfully ap p liedto the humanra c e as a who lewhenits membersexhibit suchva s t individual di f f e r enc e s wit.h respect.to their humour re s p o n s i ven e s s (3-4).
In Humor and Society' Explorations in theSociologyof
!lY!!1Q.l;:, Marvin Kolleridentif iesone consensus among humour th e ori s t s--th e y al l agreethat "humou r is a distinctlyhuman qualityand manifestsitself in humanre l a tio n s h i p s, human organizations and human inte ractiveprocesses" (13) . unfortunately, this consensusoffers li t.t. lein th e way of literarycriteria, nor does i t explaint.he nature of this distinct lyhuman quality.
We do knowthat thereis no one humorous technique or genre, and that humo u r is found in all thetraditional genres and modes and symbol systemsof al l literatures. In The Languageof HumQur (198 5 ),WalterNashde f ine s humou r in
20 termsof i ts medium. He suggest.s thathumour is
a land fo r wh i c h th e explorer mus t equip hi ms e l f tho u g h t full y. Here we find wit and wo r d-play and bant e r andbumfun; slogansandcape ionsand catchwords; al l u s i o n and parody; ironies;sati res; here aregraffiti and limericks; here is the pert rhyme. and he rethe twi s t edpun; he r e are scrambledspel lings and skewedpronunciations;
here is filthfor the fi l thy (you andmel. and hereare delicaciesfor the del i c a t e (y o u and me) . The sheer varietyof phenomena is a temptation to thethesismaker. He must tryto explainwhat i t is that makes one pursuit of all joki n g. from hi g h comedytoth e lowsnigger. andone familyof all jo k e r s. from thede f t designersof fiction and poetry down to theae r osolmastersofba c k walls and bridge arches ut.
Unlikemost earlyCanadian literary critics, Nashaccepts humour's diversity, its iconoclasm and its active repudiation of decorum. Yet this very unevermess of the qualityof humour, iconoclasm. andresistanceto
categorization have always posedmajor problems for literary theoriststowh om theaesthetic value of literature isof t e n linked to itsseriousintellectual and moral quality. In comicEffec ts' Interd.jsciplinarvApproaches to Humor in
~ (1989), PaulLe wis says:
Inour time. th e crit icismof humor in literature continues to be shapedbytwodated and.
th e r e f ore. li mi t i n g methodolog ies. On one side areth e criticswhoderive thei r conceptual framework from an earlyuniversalis t theorythat has either been disregarded or subsumed in the pastthi r t y years or so. On th e other sideare criticswho see no reasonto refer tohu mor re s e a r c h or theoryat all (2).
Alt h ou g h Lewis is not writingspecificallyabout Canadian
21 humou r cri t i c i s m, his concl u sion deserve s at tention for it ap p lie s to the exiscingcri t i cismot" Canadianhumour. He su g g est s chatwhat is neededis an interdisciplina ry approachwhichrecognizesthe scope ofhumour inve s tigation.
In cre as i ng numbersand va riee i e s of theories about th e nature and functionof humour anditsrelationshipto la u g hterare bei n g advancedbyph il o s ophers ,' linguist s, "
psychOlogists.l lsociologis t s.12l i terary cr i t i r.s .U and fe mi n i s t s,14in vol ve d in its study. Lew isass ertsthat humou r should no t be stu d iedinisol a tion from its cult u ral milieu:
It may be po ss i b le todescribe the esse ntia l struc ture of a hu mor stimul usand th e essential cognit. i v e. ps y c h o l ogical and af f e c t i v e pro ces s e s involvedin theapprec iat ion of such a stimulus, but i t is now cleartha t these descriptions must leave roomfo r such va r i ables as cultu ralnorms, group affiliationsand transicorymoods (159) . Asone of the fi r s t Canadiansto cake humour seriously, Leacockth e o r iz ed extensively abou t. its nat.ureand funct.ion. " He assert.ed hisbe l i e f t.haC humourcontributes t.o the improv e ment of mankind. Like ene Brit ishcritic Willia m Hazli t t , Le a c oc k subsc r ibe d to the "incong rui cy theory ,"one of the major universal i s t theoriesot humour.
In his essay "Amer ican Humour" (l 9l6J, he sai d the basi sot the humorous, the amu s ing, the ludicrou s , lie s inth e incongrui t y , the unfittingness, the want of ha rmon y amongthings;
and thi s inc o ng ruity, accordingto the var ious st agesof evolut ionof human society andof t.he
22 art: of speech. may ap pear inpr i mi t i ve form , or mayas s ume a complex manifest a t i o n (l06).
He retained thisviewof humour throughout hi s car e e r as humo ri st and humour theoristu• sayingin~
Hwna.n.lli(J.9 3 7) , that "hu mcu z-may be def i n e d as thekind ly contemplation of theincongrui t ies oflife, andthe areistic expression thereof- (11). Toaccoun t fo r cruel and aggress ive fo rms of humour, Leacock su g g e s t s that humou r mus t ha v e evolved fromprimit ive to complexand sophisticated forms, and that althoughal l fo rm s may coexist, onlythe most primitive formsof humourare aggressive and cruel (HumQr- ItsThe o ry and Technique 220- 37) .
In compiling illustrationsto explain the nature of humou r , Leacoc k includes selectionsfromNo r t h Americanas well as English humoris ts. He acknowledges th e valueof humourin many forms andle vel s other thanthose recogni zed as purelyliterary. Significantly for the critic of Canadian humour. Leacock placesparodyand other forms of what he apt lycalls "p a r a s i t i c"l it.e r a t u r e quit.e high on the scale of verbal literary humou r, saying"the parasitic forms of l iterature mayserve to invigorateandpu r ify t.he whole body of le t t ers. Alarge proport ionof the pages of~ are parasitic, and~is the most wholesome thing in England" (Humour Its Theory andTechnique 43). Lik e many
23 nineteenth-ceneury Canadian humorists, Leacock relies heavily upon parody, particularly meta-fictional parody.H
as a major device of humour. Because so many Canadian humorists relied on varied parodic techniques to create humour, a reexamination of the value and complexity of nineteenth-centuryCanadian parody is needed. It will be touched on in this study. Critics of nineteenth-century Canadian writing have, as a rule ignored parody. Unlike American erieiea. they have also ignored other works of humour that have not satisfied their criteria of the high
"literary" plane. On t.he other hand, humorous works of a high literary calibre are few in the literature of every country.
The high literary plane usually denotes works which belong to the major genres: epic, lyric, ode,drama, novel and short story, prose fiction and prose non-fiction, which are perceived by critics to have aesthetic value. But Canada's writers have cormnmicated with their readers on at least four planes of writing, of which the literary plane is admittedly the highest. The others are the journalistic plane, the popuLaz- plane, and the folk plane. Although humorous writing is found on all four planes, Haliburton, McCulloch and Leacock are the only nineteenth-century Canadian writers whose humorous work is generally accepted as satisfying the criteria of the "literary" plane. This is
24 the underlyingreasonfor the persistence of the myth that th e r e isno significant Cana dian humour between Haliburton and Leacock- -forsignificant, read literary.
Mostof Canada's humorous writings are found on the second , or "journalistic" plane. which , in part, explains why theyhave not been studied. Writing on thislevel is generallypresumed tohave li t t le of aesthet icsignificance and has. until rece n t ly in Canada , not beenca t a l ogue d or readilyac ces sible. Wr it ingonth i s jou rna l i s t i c planemay itselfbe subdivided in to a numlJer ofle v e l s. On the hi g h e s t of thes e levelswritingapproaches the literary and appea Ls primarily to a well-educated , discriminating audien ce. Wri t i ngonth e lowest le v e l is colloquia l, sensationali s t. andracy , andis of ten found in such publications as the gos sip sheet. One characteri sticof journalisti cwriting, regardlessof aesthetic qual i t y, is its brevi t y--shortpoems, sketc hes , and sto r iesdominate. Halibu r tonand McCull ochbothwrote for publ i c ati onin newspapers , asdo suchmodern Canadianhumoristsas RayGuy.
Ca n a d i an humouris also tobe foundon the "popular "
plane. popuLaz-writing includesno velsand romances, short storiesand poetrywhichappeal to th e general popUlation, i.e., th e people whose literary taste is usuallyperceived to be more VUlgar and less educated than that of the literat i (readers of "s e r iou s" lit e r a t u r e). The language of
25 such popular wo r k s is less elevated, expe r i ment a tio n with form less obvious, andplots andid e a s of tenformulaic and sentimental. The writing foundonthis npopular" plane tends, of course, eo belo n g e r than journalisticwriting.
As is the case with journalisticli t era t u r e , l i tt l e critical attentionhasbeen given to popular Canadianworks, which, in the nineteenth century. included romances and local colourfiction.
There is a fourthplaneof writing inwh i c h Canadian humour may be found. This is the plane of "folk literature"
which includes writing closely reLa c e d to oral storytelli ng andoral culture. Such wr i t i n g is more frequentlystudied by folkloriststhan by literary scholars. For present purposes, folkliterature is significantwhen its influence carries over into the ....r i t ingon the other planes.
Thewr i t i ng fo und on these planes is not always as uniform as th e s e labelssuggest. In Canada as elsewhere, thereis a great overlap betweenpopular, journalistic, and li t e r a ry writing. Although such conclusions are still tentative in Canada, else....herere s e a r c h e r s suggest that the difference oftenli e s more in the manner of presentation than in the quality of the wr i t i n g. BobAs h l e y, editor of the Studyof popnlar Fiction·ASou rceBook (19 8 9 ), re f e r s to "the popUlar/serious distinction [as) a theoretical minefield " stenuning from a tendencyto connect popuLaz-
26 fict.ionwi than undisc riminati ngmass readership (2). He localizes the sourceof that tendency in
the practiceof l iterarycrit icismand (s u g g e s t s ] i t is that negativeusagewhichre g a r d s popular fictionas second-ratefiction (or ....orse), a kind of cultural detritus, left overafterli t e r a t u r e of permanentvaluehas beenid e n t i f i ed. Thus.
'good' l i teratureis identified , -cencnr.eed" . and take s it s placewithinhighculture as serious art. What is left is part of popularcult u r e and the best: that can be said of i t isthatit pr ovides harmless ent e rta i nme n t. . . More likelyi twi l l be ignored. And. . what is to be said about the left-overs? For theresiduumis ov e rw he l mi ng l y substantial. It constitutesthe principal fictional reading of ene majority of the po p u l a t i o n. . . . [It] is widelyassumedto influenceli v es profoundly; and i t is surely of majorsignificance in the understandingof those li v e s , particularlythe processes by which meanings are constructedand exchanged (3). As criticsbecome more broad- mindedabout what co nst i tute s literature, greater numbers of pop u l ar and journalistic works are being given serious consideration. Such a shift will help thestud y of Canadianhumo u r.
As has been mentioned , in Canadali tt le attentionhas sofa r been given to humorous writing in either the journalistic or pcpui.ar planes. Re s e arc h on humour has focusedon works belongingon theli tera ry and the folk planes, with research on Canadianhu mou r at the folk level beingundertakenby folklore, not literary, scholars. u Canada lags behind the u.S. in recognizing the significance of its journalisticandpopular humour andin understanding the relationshipbetweenliteraryhumour and that found on
27 theot he r thre e planes. This canbeat t r i b uted to the dominanceof theCanadian li t eraryculture by th e l i te r a t i, whosetheoriesof l iteratureand culturereflecta colonial mental ity whi c h, asserting id e als of Brit-i s h educae.iona l and cultural su periority. looks tothe literatu re of England (andEur o p e ) to discover thecri t eria fo r Canadian literature."
In the U.S., democratic republicanismwas clearlymore influential than the Americanliteratiinde t e rmini n g the character of Americanhumou r. InAmerica 'sHUmor (1 9 7 8) Wal t e r Bl a i r and Hamlin Hill explain that
as Jefferson bragged, we have no distinctclassof l ite rati. . . Writers on farm s andplantations and in citieswe r e close toth e rank andfile who readthe i r words . Theyfel t no constraints aga inst re-wo r kin g oral materials intofunny wr i t t e n pieces (33).
This was not th e case in Cana d a ,whereth e li t era t i were, fromth e 1840sonward, very influential. Blair and Hill show that
even though many rawmaterials andmethods of Americanhumorwere uni ve rsal,by the 1830s it had beendecisivelymolded byth e national ch a r a cte r. The exaggeration, theanti- intellectual bias,and the interest in nativech aracte r s and their modulationsof thespokenlangu a g e came toge ther in ways that wouldcharacterize [American] humor fora century (l5 5).
They also attri bute a larg ero l e to the newspapers in encouraging th e s e developments. Theyexplainthat th e tales, songs, joke s , anecdotes , ri d d les, wonder ta l e s ,
"
weather lore, medic al andot h e r lore which form th e major elementsof folkliteraturehave, in the U.S. , been t.ransformed an d inc orporatedintowritte nforms , even tua l ly tobecome the basis of Americanhumour . They also showth a t these "ephemez-a , kidnapped from both the fol k and scholars by hacks, jou rna l ist s, fictionwriters and evenl it era t i , who tinkered withi tto sui tt.hemselves, the media,and the audienc e s , " form a mingl ing of folkloreand journalism ch a r acteri zi ng a ca tegoryof wri t ingwhichthey ca l l "folk journa li s m" (32). Their research indic a t es that
theAmeric an fo lk jou rnalis t s, theve rna c u lar sto ryt ell ersto whomthe y were inde b t e d, thei r media , the i r aud ienc e s- - andcon s e qu e nt l y the i r mer i ts- -wereall pecuLdaz-to th e country, and therefore cou l d cr e a t e unique local and nat ional experienc e s....ith vivi dn ess that no impo r t could achieve (38 ).
No su c hconnect ion betweenthe folk and writtenmedia was encouragedin Ca nad a , although thewo r k s ofbo th Mc Cu l l o chand Haliburto ngi ve some evide n ce th a t fol k journalismwas developingin th e Mari t imes befo r e 18 5 0. A si mi l arimpu lseto conne c t the folk and l it e r atu reis evide n t inth e writing s of su ch pcpui.arwriters as L. M.
Montg o mery and NellieMc Cl u n g, and in thehu mo rou s and sa t i ric papers published in Ont a r io and in the West in the la t te r half of the ninetee nth ce n t ury. Howe ver, inthis cou n t ryth e anti· intellectual republicani smwhich, inth e U.S., facilita tedthecros s ov e r betweenthe or al amus ement s
29 of thefolk andth e formal writ i ngwe cal l li tera t u r e , is entirely mis s ing amo ng the literati. and is only presented, aswill be explained lat e r . throug h various dis t an c i ng devices even in popul a r wr i t ing s. The humour inMo n tgome ry and Mc Cl un g is significant becausei tis so closely related to folkhumcuz-.
Canadianscanlearn much from Americans abo utth e criticismof humour. In his introduc tion to~ America -A ResearchGuideto Genres and Topics (1988).
Lawrence Mintz says:
It hasbecomeconventional to beginscholarly studies ofhumou r wi t h two standarddi sclaimers:
an apology is offeredfor cbe fact that thestudy of hu mouris not, of it s e lf. funny, and at tention is directedto the apparent ir o n y that though humour is itself trivialand superficial, the studyof i t is necessarilysignificant and comp lex. It is notquiteclear why i t is expected that thest ud y of humour be more amusing than, say, the studyof se xis t i t illating, bu t somehow i t seems ineluctable that the reader be wa rne d and comforted. So be it. . . .As to the se condpoint., humourisdecep t.i v elyli g h t , eph e meral, inconsequential. if it is so at all. Its perpetual di s gui se is, of course, that it isme r e
entertainment , "just kidding", but mostof the timethejo k i ng mode scarcelymasks t.he fact that the is s u e athand is most serious (vii).
Mi n tz's book demonstrates the tremendousscholarlyinterest tha t existsinal l forms ofAme ri c an humour. More impor tantly, i t alsoshows that Ame ri can s use the term
"American humour " to re fe r to manymani f e s t at i o n s ofhu mou r other than strictly"literary"on es.
30 Canadian literature developed as the literat.ure of the cities rather t.han of the countryside (Matthews 48). Encouraged by colonial class consciousnessandintellectual snobbery to eschew t.he folk, Canadian humour often turned to parodyandsatire, especially after 1840, and acquired a mocking tone which was frequently directed at the constrictions of excessive gentility and the pseudO-British pretensions of the literati.
For the most part. the term "Canadian humour" refers to the aesthetically superior literary works of a very few writers, most of whom are eweneieth-century.2G This practice differs not just from American but also from British approaches. In English Humour (1976). J.B . priestley permit.s himself very wide parameters for his study of English humour, saying
I must move down the centuries, trying to single out every writer of any importance who has made us laugh or even broadly smile. While eager to welcome a genuinetrue humorist, I must also consider wits, various odd funny men, any creators of wild nonsense, itself an Bnglish speciality (10)•
In Canada, we have yet to "consider wits, various odd funny men and creators of wild nonsense.n To do so we must devise new and more inclusive criteria, and be willing to examine writing from many sources--even those of dubious literary merit.
This study will adopt current practice in definingthe
31 term "humour" in thebro ade st poss iblesense , re cogniz i ng at the sametime that the highes t fo rms of humourex tendwel l beyondthe satiric, the comic andtheiron i c. It acc epts, andextends to include lowerforms aswell , Leacock's concep t of humo ur as inclusiveof, yet reaching beyond. the comic:
humou r in it s highestreachtouchesthe sublime: hu mou r ini ts highestreach mingle s wit h pathos:
i tvoices sorrowfor ourhumanlot and reconciliationwith it. . . It is born, as it were inpe rpl exi t y , incontemplat ion of the insol ubleriddle of existenc e" (~
~2321
Thelower fo rm s of humou r include jok e s, anecdotes, and comicincident (slapst ick). wh i c h are apt to be crude, crue l , offensive, iconoclastic, and tas teless aswel l as comi c a l, lively andre a l i s t i c. The mate r ial being examined inth i s explorat ionof earlyCanadian humou r includes th e s e comic devices, joke e , puns, witticisms and other verbal deviceswh i c h act as la ughter-p roducingagents, even though they do no t represent thehig h e s t fo rm of humour.
There is no establ ishedmethodologyfor this examination . Because Canada shares a North Ame r i c anpo p ul a r culturewi th th e U.S., and hasdone so since the eigh teenth century, American methodology appearsto have more to offer than British. However, to adh e re to o close lyto such me t hodo l ogy may resul tin distortion because of the subtle but. significant differencesbetweenth e two cultures.
32 Never theless . the methodologyof such histor iansof American humou r as Cox , Boatwright, Rourke and Blai r, and of such collections of modernhumou r criticismas Critical Essays on American HUmor (1984) and Humor in America- AResearchGuide to Genres and Topics (1988) pr o v i d e s models for determining whichmaterialsshould be givenconsiderat ion. The materials studiedhere includethe works of writers (even anonymousones) whose humour waspubl i s he d inbo o k s , newspapersandpe r i odi c a l s. Mintz states that in choosing the articles forHu mo r in America, his objectiveis to
providea good overviewof t.he serious study of American humorin most of its major
manifestations, generic and topical. . . [To accomplish this] eachchapter is organized to provide an overviewof either a genre of expression such as literature , thecomic strip, film, broadcast, magazine or stand-upcomedy, or a topic of significancesuch as racial andethnic humor,women ' s humor, andpolitical humor {x} . If any clear understanding ofth e ra n ge and depth of Canadianhumou r is to be achieved, Canadian critics would be well advised to consider the s e categories and devise stil l others.
Let us turn nowto a review of recent li t erat u r e on Canadian humour. Researchintoallforms of Canadian wr i t i ng foundin the nineteenth-centuryperiodicals and newspapers publishedboth in and outside Canada is in its ear lystages, yet these "eph e meral" and ofte npurelylocal publications we r e the mainoutlets for ni neteenth-century
33 Canadian writers- -especiallyhumorists. The location, recovery and examinat ion of Cana d i anli t e r atu r e contained in these newspapers and periodicals aswell asinthelong out- of -print "popular"books are progressingsteadily.H To date. on l y a fragment of cnemat e r i alto be fou nd ther ein ha s been catalogued, col l ec t ed and republished . Current researchin nineteenth-centuryCanadianli t e r a t u r e is fo c u sedpr i marily on retrie v ingand publishingthe workof in d ivi dua l writers, 22especiallythose whohav e some previously ackn o wl e dg e d clai mtoliterary merit. . Some of th i s writing is humor ous . but . todate. Canad ian humou r pub l i Sh ed innin e t e e n th - c e ntu ryne ws p a pe r sand peri od i cal s has not be e n systematical l y catalogued, collecte d , ex a mi n e d or republished , ex cep t for fragment s in afe w anthologies of Canadian humour (tobe discussedlater) . The works of many hu mo r is ts remainou t of print . Theex c e pti o n s are sele cted works of Haliburton, McCul l ochand Le a c ock whi chare readily available and quite fr e qu e n t l y studied . Ava ilablealso is the workof su c h humorists asDe Mi l l e , Duncanand Barrwhich was reprint ed (o f t e n with no cr i t ical apparatus ) in the Poe tryand Pr ose in Reprint serie s of the uni v ersity of Toron t o Pre s s inthe 1970 s . In addi ti on , there are a few co llection s such asHugh De mp s e y' s TheBes t Qf Bgb Ed wa r ds (19 7 5) and AlecLuc a s' The Be st of Peter McArthur (1967) whichcon tai n cr i t ical introductions to the humour of these
34 writers. However, with the exception of Lucas' ~
~ (1975) and recent studies of DeMille (Monk.1991) and Duncan (Dean, 1991). most criticism of nineteenth- century Canadian humour focuses almost exclusivelyon the writings of Haliburton, McCulloch and Leacock. Even then, Gwendolyn Davies notes in her introduction to The Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure (1991), that discovery and subsequent recovery do not guarantee that the work of a Canadian humorist willbegiven critical attention as humour. She says "in spite of the fact that 't h e y set the hale kintra laughin'" the Stepsure letters have received little critical attention as examples of humour and satire" (x l i x ).
Haliburton's humour has been studied in L. A. A. Harding'S doctoral dissertation, "The Humour of Haliburton" (l96-4), and there have been two recent studies which focus specifically on the humour of Leacock. These are Beverley Rasporich's 1979 dissertation, "Stephen Leacock: Canada's Gentleman Humorist A Study of the Canadian Perspective in the Humour of Stephen Leacock" (s a d l y still unpublished) and Gerald Lynch's Stephen Leacock· Humour and Humanity (1988).
Thus there is some evidence of formal study of individual Canadian humorists.
Some of the groundwork for the study of Canadian humour is in place. Scholars such as Thomasvtncene"and Gwendolyn navi.es'" have published studies of poetry and
35 pro s e foundin the eighteenth-andear lynineteenth-century newspapersand periodicals inth e Maritimes, but with the exception of vincent'santhology, Narrativeverse Sati re in Ma r i t i me Crmada 1779- 1814 (1978) and his articles on eighteenth-centurysat ir e . their work hasnot focused specificallyon humour. This is also true of the unpublished studies of li terarymaterialsin nineteenth- centuryCanadianperiodicalsby Robert McDougall2S and Mary LuMacDonald .2~ There is no extendedstu dy of Canadian humourwhichincludes a detailedexaminationof humorous writing (i n addition to satire )publishedbefore McCulloch 's Stepsl!re Let.ters (l821- 3). or during the period between their publicationand the appearan ce of The Cl o c !cm.ak e r (1836),27 or in the period between Haliburton andLeacock .
Although vrncenc' "has begunth e examination of ei g h t e e n t h-cen t u ry Canadian humour thro u g h hiswor k on satire, th e r e are no criticalhistoriesor studies of eighteenth and nineteenth-centuryCanadian humour~. Mo st of thecriticism of McCUll ochand Haliburt on concentrates on their satire rather thanthehu mou r of which i tis a part. Ge ne ra l examinations of Canadian satire exist, but these rarelyin clu d e nineteenth-centurywriters ot h e r than Haliburtonand McCUlloch. Most of these are unpublished . a Furthermore, althoughLe a c o c k achievedan international reputationas a humorist. hi s work ismore
36 frequent.ly criticized for its irony or sacire than as humour. (Occasionally satireandirony are discussed as techniques for generating humour.) A brief survey of some of the criticism of Haliburton shouldserve as an indicacion of the state of Canadian humour criticism.
Most. Canadian critics acknowledge Haliburton'5 skill as a satirist, but L.A. A.Harding'Sdoctoral dissertation,
"The Humour of Haliburton," is particularly significant because he contends that Haliburton'5 writing "is more humour than satire" (12 ). This (a s yet unpublished) study is a serious and detailed analysis of the techniques of humourthatHaliburton employs. Haliburton 's humour, Harding says. "springs from a mind which saw the Yankee as a beggar on horseback or. i frich, a nQuveau ric;he who was jus t a jump ahead of the 'savage masses' whence he had sprungn (12). He analyses Haliburton'S "skilful use of folk diction and his feeling for the humorous possibil ities of folk imagery" (26) . as well as his narrative method. He discovers that Haliburton uses «seven different kinds of anecdote"which together form"t h e basis of [his]
observations about character" (68). Harding demonstrates clearly that Haliburton was working within the emerging American humour milieu in his blending of literary techniques and folk journalism in creating the characterand language of Sam Slick. Harding is virtually alone in this
37 ki ndof analysisof Hal i b urton'5 humour.
His studyis espe c i a l l y important because it clearl y identifies ane w Canadian way of us i ng the~ (b r a g g a r t) . a comic figure about whichmore will be said later. For themome n t i t is sufficientto no t e that the subtletyin his creationof thiscomic figurewa s not recognizedbyHali b u r t o n ' 5 contemporaries and has not been adequately recognizedsince . Hardingconcludesthat "moa t;
Americans, and Nova Scotians too, understoodonly aboutone halfthe implicationsof the humo urand re ad [:rhe.
~] as a joke book with a connectingthread, which was the likeable Sam. It took educated Americansto get angry at theho ax of Sam Sl i c k posingas a t.ypical Yankee"
(1 0 0)•
Harding'5 work is alsoimportant beca usehe refutes V.
L. O. Chittick'sdevaluat ionof Haliburton 'sskill and importance as a humorist. InThomas Chandler Haljburton
(Sam Slic k l.A st.udyin prgyincialToryism (1 924) . Chittick, whoappearstobeon e of those angry Americansto whom Harding refers in the passage just quoted, states expl icitly that his objective is to discredit Haliburton as a humorist of any stature at all--to"c o r -re c t; an egregiously falseand unnecessarily long-continuedimpressionof one of the more interestingpersonalitiesof Canada'spre-Confederationera (i . e.• that Halib urtonis th e 'Father of Americanhumor' ) ~
38 (viii). Chittick's study, whichhas not yet been supplanted as the definitive study of Haliburton, concludes:
Haliburton never achieved greatness. though he occasionally approachedi t . Nor was he a genius of the first order. . . . Muchthathe wrote was crud e and careless, ti r e s ome , sentimental and laboured, yet with all this that was inferior . .
.there was alsosufficient of popular appeal, and of solid worth as well to justly obtainfo r him, a resident of a despised colony still in the pre- Confederationera of Canadian development . . .a more general and moreco r d i a l recognition as a man of lettersthanhas been secured byany other co lon i a l author before or since (651). Itis hard to imagine anyot h e r nation acceptingsuch unjustified and blatantlyhostile criticismof one of it s major writers.
Although Canadiancriticsaccept Haliburtonas a maj o r Cana d i an writer, the impact of Chittick's work on Canadian humour crit i cism ca nno t be denied. InOn Tbgmas Ch a n d l e r
~ (1 9 79 ) , a collec tio nof critical essays on
Haliburton, Richard Davies notesthat"th e yearsbetween 1924-1958 were years of neglect for Haliburton"and att ributesthissilenceto the impact of Chittick'swork, saying"f e w readers have dared todisagreewiththepor tra i t of Haliburton that emerges fromChittick's book" (6 -7).
This anthology of si x t e e n essays of Haliburtoncri tic ism , arranged chronologically . con t a i n s three essays by Chittick- -theonly cr i t i c so honoured.
In the 1950s Walter Av isinvestigated the language
39 Haliburt.on createdfor Sam Slick, and his work went. a long way towards dispel lingthe ideathatHaliburtonwas a less than creative humorist . Then, in the 19605, a number of th e s e s anddiss e r t a t i o n s on Haliburtonand onCana dian humo urand satire appear, with mixed results. R. R. Van Tongerloo' sM.A . thesis, "T. C. Halibureon, Satirical Humorist" (1 9 6 5) concludesth a t "InTheOJd JUdgeth e sense of the exce ssive has beendevelop ed intofu l l burlesque. As a resultthe characters sac r i f ice some of their humanityfor the col o u r th a t t.heyga i n from their ridiculousness" (79) - - whi ch is an accurate comme nt regarding technique , but detra cts fromtheef f e c t i v e n e s sof th e humour. In 196 4 D.
G. Thomp son 'sM.A. thesi s is a devastat ing attackon Haliburton as le a d e r inCanadian humour. After readi n g the ti tle of his M.A. thesi s - - "T. C. Haliburton and the Failure of Can a dia nHumo u r ,"-- t h e reade r isnot surprisedby D. G.
Thompson ' s assertionthat "inCana d a,al t h oughhumour appeared beforeand after Hali b urton, th ere was no trad ition of Canad i a n humour dev e l oped tha t couldbe saidtohave played an importantro le in Canad i a n litera ture" (iv) . Thompson 's thesiscontainsno inve stig a t ion into th ehumour that appeared beforeHaliburton and li t t l e into what came later, and thu s provides littl e inth e wayof proof of this assertion. However, he doesconf i rm that early crit icsin Canadawerele s s than enthusiasticabout Ha liburt on's
40 humo u r.He concludes tha t statementsby these critics that Hal iburton wa s ~thefounderof American humour"meant that -h i s humou r was never calledCanadian, and, thus, his successorshadlogical lytobeAmericans--as indeedthe y were" (80). He conf i rmsthenegative impa ct of Chittick's wo r k, statingth at when Chittickde mon st r a t e d tha t al lthe claimsabout Hal i b u rto n - - that he was "descendedfrom Scott " . that he was "a great andgoodman". thathe was "the founder of Americanhumo u r,II or "the first systematic humorist of theEnglish speakingpeoples" - -to be false, "t h e critics becamedumb. Theydi d not knowwhat tocl a i m for him" (9 3).
Theth e sis by Joan Donkersgood completed in 1985 examinesthe social and pol iticalphilosophies of Haliburton and McCulloch, anddoes not deal directly withthe humourof either.
Mo r e recent is a volumeof criticismof Haliburton ,~ ThQIMs Cha ndl er Halihurtonsymposium (19 8 5) cont.aining papers re a d at one of the Univers ityof Ottawa's
"Re app r a i s al of CanadianWrite r s " conferences. Of the ten papers select.ed for tn ctu s dc n , only Daniel Royot's "Sa m SlickandPo p u l a r American Humour" focuses on Haliburton's ski l las a humorist in the creationof the character of Sam Slick, and shows t.h at "h i s achievementswe r e ultimate ly co n d u c i v e to a newgenre combiningor a l cultu r e , po pula r culture andliterature as later exemplified inMa r k Twain's
41 works. In t:h i s respect, SamSlickamounts to a palimpsest whichseems worth scrutinizing" (12 3 ) . (No t e, however, that 'rwa Ln is seen as the successor toHal i b u r t o n.) In his review of this publ icationR. L.McDougal lsays Ittha t if I donot:
see a new Haliburtonhere, I do, however , see the lights go on in many places that were shadowy before" (1 88 ). But these places do not include Haliburton'5 skill as a Canadian humori s t.
Thompson's thesis about the failure of Canadian humour is a good introduction to the dominant critical attitudes to nineteen th-century Canadianhumou r. In196 8 another M.A . th e s i s about the failure of Canadianhumour appeared. In
"CanadianHumorists:Leacock, Halibur ton, Ea r l e Birney, W.
O. Mitchel l,n Raynald Belangerattributes the lackof Canadianhumour to the "self-deprecatingattitude" of Canadians, to the "strong doubts (of critics] concerning the very existence of humour on thissoil" (1 65), and to "the notion [in Canada] that laughteris a waste of ti me" (1 6 B). Althoughhe co n c l ud e s that there is ind e e d a scarcityof firs t-clas s Canadian humour, Belanger ismor e forthright th a n Thompsonin speculating that perhaps the reason for this l ie s inth e standardsof critici smapplied toCanadian humour. He suggeststhatth e s e Canadian standardsare so exactingthat veryli t t l e humourin any age or country would satisfy the cri t er i a (17 2 ). Canada, be insists, bas made
42 importane. contri but ions to the world's store of humour:
consider e d ona la rge r scale, humou r mayha v e
flou r ishedthrougho utthe centuriesof European
cul t u r e , but.uni vers alre c ognit i on has been reserved for a fewnames rel a t ivel y. Tha t i ll ustra t es the di f ficu l t ies exper i e n c edbya writerwho wishes to bringthe humorousart to its peak in [si c l perfection. Seen from that angle.
Canada'scontribution to thewo rl d ' s hu mou r shoul d not be underes t ima ted, sinceour two humoris ts, Haliburtonand Leacock, rankamo ng the great names (173) _
Both Belangerand Thompsonacknowledgeproblems creaeed fo r humoristsbythe gentilityof eneli tera e i , wh om Thompson calls "Canada'5li t e r a ry aristocra cy". Thompsonre ma r k s that "Cana d a's l ieeraryaristocracy did inde e d triumph, for not since Haliburtonhas 't r i v i a l , commonp lace, melodramatic and even vulgar' been able to 'usurp the placeof dignified artisticli t e r a t ure ' " (82). Significantly, this conclusion is a more accurate reflectionof thestateof Cana d ian humour cr i t icismthan an accurate descript ionof Canadian humour_ One cannot stateto o freque ntly th e extent to which Canadians have been trained to overlook their humour (which
is "t r i via l , commonplace, melodramaticand evenvulgar;")
and , if they do notice it, to considerit irrelevant.
Canadian humour fares be t t e r wh e n i t is studied as satire, bu t not muchbet ter. In his doctoral dissertation,
"The SatiricTradition in the Works of Seven Canadian Satirists" (1968), VincentSh a rman examines the writingsof Ha liburton, McCulloch, Le a c o c k , Earle Birney, Robertson
