Robin Mathews And The Canadian Dialectic:
Forms Of Nationalist Thought In Canada

Robert Williams
B.A., University of Northern British Columbia, 2005

Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of
The Requirements For The Degree Of
Master Of Arts
in
Interdisciplinary Studies

The University of Northern British Columbia
January 2009

©Robert Williams, 2009

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Table of Contents

ii

Acknowledgments

iii

Abstract

iv

Chapter 1 - The Canadian Dialectic and Nationalist Theoretical Discourse

1

Chapter 2 - Robin Mathews and Margaret Atwood: The Nationalist Debate

30

Chapter 3 - Robin Mathews, Postmodernism and Postmodern Nationalism

49

Chapter 4 - Some Concluding Remarks

69

Works Cited

75

Ill

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks go out to my thesis committee - Linda MacKinley-Hay, Kristen Guest and
Don Munton - for their many comments and suggestions on this thesis project.
Special thanks also go to Robert Budde, my thesis supervisor, for his undying enthusiasm
for the project and for his detailed and fair criticisms of the draft thesis. Not many people
would have tackled such a controversial topic and maintained a positive and supportive
attitude.
Thank you also to Professor Ron Dart of the University of the Fraser Valley. If it was not
for his Political Science 320 course, I probably would never have come across Robin
Mathews' various works.
This page would not be complete without a thank you to Robin Mathews himself who,
despite a very busy schedule, was kind enough to engage in lengthy correspondence
about various issues discussed in the thesis and provide some of the works cited.
Lastly, a very special thank-you to Vanessa for providing great moral and spiritual
support during extremely challenging times. La Lotta Continual

IV

Abstract
Robin Mathews' vision of a Canadian dialectic is a valuable practical concept because it
works within a moral framework, inviting discussion at the same time as it creates a
specific positive Canadian nationalism. This Canadian dialectic does not presuppose a
single, unifying view of "Canadian identity," nor does it produce claims to finality. In
espousing a view that results in a dialogue between two competing visions, the dialectic
fleshes out historic debates which increase their cultural and historical significance and
promotes difference. What Mathews argues is that what is important to Canada and
Canadian identity is the fact of an ongoing dialectic that is a valid counterpoint to
traditionally dominant views of Canadian literature and culture.

1
CHAPTER I: The Canadian Dialectic and Nationalist Theoretical Discourse
Robin Mathews' work, when viewed within the broad "dialectical" framework
within which it is written, acts as a philosophical "corrective" towards individualism (as
expressed by Warren Tallman), survivalism (as expressed by Margaret Atwood) and
postmodern ahistoricism (as illustrated by Linda Hutcheon and her key work on
postmodernism in Canada, The Canadian Postmodern). Because Robin Mathews works
explicitly within an ideology that could rightly be called "communitarian," his reading of
a "Canadian dialectic" as it exists within Canadian history and identity demands and
foregrounds questions of individual existence in relation to the community. Survivalism,
while a key term in the 1970s and 1980s when defining a Canadian identity, presents a
static and negative definition of what it means to be "Canadian." Working from within
the Canadian dialectic, Robin Mathews - through a combination of nationalism and
advocacy of "struggle literature" - advanced a corrective in the form of a more positive
realization of Canadian identity; in essence, balancing Atwood's negative connotations
while at the same time accepting it as a part of the Canadian psyche. In a very real sense,
the Canadian dialectic acts as a corrective to postmodern ahistoricism in that it demands
anchors - both historical and social - to a specific place and its ideas.
What follows is a discussion about the literary and cultural criticism of Canadian
critic Robin Mathews. Mathews is often considered a maverick, but when someone like
Russell Brown suggests that Mathews "needs to be reread and freed from his own
excesses" ("Canadian Literature"), he is clearly pointing towards something of value in
Robin Mathews' theoretical work. This thesis project will focus primarily upon what
Mathews has called the "Canadian dialectic" and how it relates to a more general

2

historical sense of dialectic; that is to say, while the Canadian dialectic is not necessarily
unique or distinct it still plays an integral part with respect to Canadian identity within a
Canadian context. While Robin Mathews played a significant role in the social movement
sphere with his involvement in the "Canadianization Movement," this aspect of his career
exceeds the scope of the current project. This thesis will not focus on Mathews the
"social movement entrepreneur" (Cormier 20), nor on his short fiction or poetry. Instead,
what will be argued - in relation to Margaret Atwood and postmodernisms - is that the
Canadian dialectic is valuable as a theoretical concept because it points towards a
positive realization of Canadian literature and nationalism while at the same time making
no claims towards a concrete definition of "Canadian identity." Robin Mathews states the
importance of this last point bluntly: "Living in a continuum characterized by
contradictions, by opposites in open tension, Canadians may be excused for being unable
or unwilling to nail down their identity in simple, summary form" (Canadian Intellectual
Tradition 45). Thus, Robin Mathews realizes the complex and contradictory social
history of Canada, its relation to imperial powers, and the very important fact that
"Canadian identity" is itself a complex set of forces - a dialectic - that can help unpack
such an identity.
Recognizing the complex history of Canada, the model I chose for my
examination of Mathews is adopted from Robin Mathews' own explanation of "dialectic"
he provides in Canadian Identity. In this particular work, he uses the first chapter to
broadly define the "Canadian dialectic." From there, the following chapters examine his
concept through narrative: "The Conservative Vision," "The Liberal Vision," "The Left
Vision of Canada." In these chapters of Mathews' analysis, the term "dialectic" is rarely

3

used, but the point becomes clear: Canada, as Mathews sees it, has been defined through
tensions between forces - this is what his analysis shows. Indeed, this thesis follows the
same model used by Mathews in his 1988 publication. It examines those various
"tensions" as they are seen in the dialogue Robin Mathews had with Margaret Atwood in
the mid 1970s and, later, in Mathews' criticisms about Postmodernism. The overall effect
of this method is not to show Robin Mathews as a mere critic of Margaret Atwood or
postmodernism; rather, it is to demonstrate the "Canadian dialectic" in process.
Robin Mathews is not one to separate culture from politics. His position in this
area has remained consistent from the publication of his book of poetry This Time, This
Place (1965)1 to the current day. Add to this the fact that Robin Mathews was a part of
the "Waffle" group in the NDP, and a part of the "Canadianization Movement" of the
1960s and 1970s - a part of formal politics - and his position with respect to the absolute
necessity of culture and politics as intertwined, as one, should come as no surprise. For
that matter, Mathews' role in the "Canadianization Movement" can - and needs - to be
seen in the context of politics and literature in Canada because they provide the context
for his position on the politico-cultural issue.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, Mathews - alongside James Steele - played a key
and defining role in the Canadianization Movement, which had as its chief goal the hiring
of qualified Canadians within the Canadian university system. Both men remained strong
and firm in this cause despite facing a lot of criticism from the University administrators
and faculty at Carleton University (where the movement essentially began) and abroad
from public officials and the news media in Canada (Frumhartz 52; Macpherson 109-

1

Political Scientist Ron Dart has suggested this book is highly significant because it "signals the dawn, in
Canada, of Mathews as a distinct political poet" (Crown Prince 31).

10).2 To support their claims that Canadians had been discriminated against in their own
institutions, Mathews and Steele provided various statistical figures, which demonstrated
that the majority of recent Wrings were indeed going to non-Canadians (Universities 20).3
After years of hard work from within the "public movement community" and assistance
from the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association and some political officials
(most notably Lloyd Axworthy), the movement "had succeeded" (Cormier 190).4 Thus,
the Canadianization Movement, and other political battles fought by Mathews, can be
said to form "the 'base' of Mathews' 'vulgar Marxist' insistence on treating the
nationality of interpreters as an equivalent to their class position" (Dean 157).
Literary critic E. D. Blodgett fully recognizes the significance of this position:
"Mathews has one theme.... a clear perception of a national culture depends upon how
the bases of economic power are controlled" ("54 40" 262). For Mathews, then, one
cannot even begin to understand Canada or Canadian literature in the absence of a
political position because, as he understands Canadian literature and its production, it
mirrors life - has a didactic purpose. It is for this reason, when speaking specifically
about the novel and its relation to economics and culture, Mathews is able to write that
"the hero of the novel is passionately aware that the choices about economics are choices
about culture and social values" (Canadian Literature 6). The point is significant because
it alludes to the very real political condition under which literary and cultural texts are

2

For a controversial article documenting some of the hardships Mathews and Steele endured during their
Canadianization efforts see "Izzy Asper, Barbara Frum, Warren Davis and the Robot Right" by Robin
Mathews, written on October 15, 2003 for Vive le Canada:
http ://w ww. vi velecanada.ca/article.php/20031015220022959
3
Based on figures obtained from immigration statistics and other University sources, for instance, Mathews
and Steele showed that upwards of up to 72% of jobs had gone to "foreign" professors (Universities 20).
4
For a different view, see Robin Mathews' article "Media, Colonial-Mindedness, and the Culture of
Canada (Part Three: Higher Education)" for Vive le Canada:
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/200502281235444

5
produced. The author(s) writing a text write out of a given environment and a given
political culture. Therefore, in any text, according to Mathews, "[w]e can know
something of those experiences ["being born, loving, suffering, seeking a home, desiring
community"] in other societies by reading their literatures" (Canadian Literature 9).
Here, Mathews is stating very clearly that the production of texts (and poetics) in Canada
has been "highly political and ideological" (149). Stating such a point so directly forces
one to consider such production in terms of political and cultural power, not as mere
aesthetic. Furthermore, in raising the issue in his typically direct way, Mathews
eliminates the conventional avenues of debate. The technique or "vituperation" used by
Mathews here is designed to relate culture and politics to "real" political issues,
incapacitating any form of argument of the text as autonomous and as having no social
meaning. But if the point has been missed, Mathews - never mincing words - offers
clarification: "we are invited to believe that poetic [and other literary] styles, subjects,
theories arise from the uninfluenced poet [or writer] seeking in the wide world for the
models and ideas which suit him or her best in the fulfillment of the art. Poetry [and
literature] - in that view - is quite separate from economics, power, and the political lives
of people.... But such is not the reality. Nor has it been" (Canadian Literature 149).
Having stated all of that, it should come as no surprise that Robin Mathews differs
in terms of ideology from former UBC English Professor Warren Tallman who, in
contrast to Mathews, espouses a very liberal and individualizing view of politics as being
something personal, especially as it relates to political poetry in Canada. For example, in
his book In the Midst Tallman makes a reference to poet Charles Olson and his idea of
the "polis." He then goes on to say that the word "polis," which is the Greek word that

also gives one and all "city" and "politics," is also "individuals, is I" (13). For Tallman,
this individual form of the "polis" is much more significant than the politics of parties,
governments, and prime ministers, which Mathews argues is the more significant aspect
of "politics" to discuss because of the traditional roles these institutions have played in
Canadian society. In fact, Tallman declares government and its formal institutions to be
redundant when he states that these organizations and the groups of people that run them
- MPs, backbenchers, civil servants, and the Prime Minister - have become nothing more
"than managers in the huge hospital of the world as the atomic virus continues to spread"
(13), advocating a very individualist position. By declaring formal government to be
mere "managers" of life and country, Tallman delegitimizes the political and economic
base of cultural production and therefore delegitimizes any sort of "communal" reading
of texts.
Similarly, when writing about Victor Coleman of Coach House Press, Tallman
calls him a "political poet" because he exemplifies Tallman's liberal individualist
definition of politics. Victor Coleman writes and talks extensively about "psychic time"
as a tool to be used when one reads and presents poetry because it is far more effective
than standard "clock time." When one emphasizes psychic time over clock time, the poet
is able to drum an image in, and drum it in "until it breaks through resistance and gets
into the psyche of the listener" (Tallman 55). This effect is caused exactly because
psychic time is very different than clock time. For example, if an individual happened to
choke on a piece of bread, the "psychic time" would probably feel like hours and hours;
however, real "clock time" may actually just be a few seconds. With his "drumming" tool
- psychic time - Coleman is then able to write about a number of city, social, and sexual

7

disturbances - over and over again, drumming the images into the readers' minds. As a
result, one enters "a time limbo in which there is no time, only the disturbances he
[Coleman] is projecting" (Tallman 56). According to Warren Tallman, this form of
writing and presentation is a form of "political action" (56). Through such "political
action," Tallman notes that Coleman is able to transverse clock time and even psychic
time to make real contact with the individuals of the community in the realm of the
abstract. And it is at this point where Tallman's liberal individualist side comes visibly
into play and Coleman's "psychic time" technique gets revealed for the U. S.-inspired
model that it is because, as Tallman writes, Coleman becomes a "citizen of a human
community rather than of some programatic [sic] political community in which Mao,
Trudeau, Nixon, Brezhnev are all simply business men" (56). Indeed, the word
association used by Tallman readily emphasizes the differences - in dialectical terms between himself and Robin Mathews. For Tallman, the only meaningful "community" is
an abstraction, an idealized community of individualized perception outside of reality.
Anything else is apparently communist and "evil" ("community in which Mao, Trudeau,
Nixon, Brezhnev . . . " ) . Real community located in geographical space, which Mathews
would readily acknowledge as being the more important, is euphemistically treated.
What becomes clear here is Robin Mathews is reflecting a very communitarian
perspective of the Canadian dialectic while Warren Tallman is reflecting an individualist
side of the Canadian dialectic - those terms of reference within which both authors work.
To further the point, this distinction and its underlying importance is found quite
explicitly in the way the two authors define, in one way or another, "political" poetry. For
Tallman, the personal and individualistic becomes political: "The only political program

8

worth any attention whatsoever is that which concerns individual disturbance. Your share
in the state is YOU" (57). In contrast, Mathews suggests that political poetry is "poetry
that involves class, capitalism, and - latterly - their implications for imperialism as it
affects Canada" (Socialism 5), placing him directly in the formal and collective political
sphere. For Mathews, class as a concept plays the role of primary indicator or sign.
Unlike the liberalized poetry approved by Warren Tallman (and others), which deals with
personalist issues (locating primary value and meaningful reality in the individual),
Mathews believes that the issue of class in political poetry "is really political" in that it
points towards moral issues such as "the unequal distribution of wealth" in the
community (Treason 81). Indeed, the point offered here by Robin Mathews is not to be
taken lightly for it emphasizes, again and again, an obvious fact that is often missed: that
"concentration on mere 'individual difference' won't do" when it comes to socio-politico
analysis in poetry or any other form of literary text (Treason 81).
What the differences between Robin Mathews and Warren Tallman demonstrate,
beyond their differing worldviews, is the complexity of Mathews' thought. At a more
practical level, the exchange also alludes to why Mathews has faded into obscurity in
literary and cultural Canada: A) he is communitarian; B) he is critical of the American
empire; and C) he is a nationalist. All three of these ideas and terms relate and give depth
to his central, controlling idea: what he has called the "Canadian dialectic." While
formulations A, B and C are intertwined with Mathews' argument and help to give it
meaning, it is perhaps necessary to articulate the term enough so as to provide a historical
overview of the term "dialectic" before showing how Mathews makes it his own.
In historic and philosophic terms, the concept of "dialectic" has its roots in

9
ancient Greece, especially in the Socratic method of questioning whereby one attempts to
find "truth" through dialogue and debate. While Plato never used the word "dialectic" in
any of his surviving dialogues, the basic principle was indeed there. From a historic
perspective, however, Hegel is generally acknowledged to be the first major philosopher
to develop the term, giving it (abstract) meaning. For Hegel, the dialectic - although he
very rarely used the term himself - was used as an abstract framework to establish a
connection between those events that make up an individual's historical experience. On a
grander scale, the dialectic was used by Hegel to describe the movement of human
history towards a transcendental absolute "Idea." While having some connection to the
Socratic Method, the Hegelian dialectic sought, through the movement of forces and
ideas, to combine the contradictions into a synthesis, existing within one another, without
contradiction. In order to do this in an abstract manner, both sides of the dialectic are to
be held as "true." In using the one side of dialectic, the "other" side of dialectic is used as
well (since both are held to be true), creating the synthesis in which all contradiction is
apparently removed, forming the unified idea. In Hegel's words, this process
implies a gradation - a series of increasingly adequate expressions or
manifestations of Freedom, which result from its Idea. The logical, and . . .
the dialectical nature of the Idea in general, viz. that it is self-determined that it assumes successive forms which it successively transcends; and by
this very process of transcending its earlier stages, gains . . . a richer and
more concrete shape. (479-80)
Thus, the Hegelian dialectic "actualizes itself by alienating itself, and restores its selfunity by recognizing this alienation as nothing other than its own free expression"

10
(Bottomore 122). In philosophical history, the Hegelian dialectic was followed most
recently by Karl Marx and his "dialectical materialism." Although he agreed with Hegel
that world history can be seen through dialectic process, Marx disagreed with Hegel
about the idealist nature of the dialectic. Whereas Hegel sought to identify "truth"
through various elements of human experience leading to the Absolute Idea, Marx
viewed the dialectical process as a process concerned with class struggle and social
relations. According to Marx, his dialectic
is, in its foundations, not only different from the Hegelian, but exactly the
opposite to it. For Hegel, the process of thinking, which he even
transforms into an independent subject, under the name of 'the Idea', is the
creator of the real world, and the real world is only the external
appearance of the idea. With me the reverse is true: the ideal is nothing but
the material world reflected in the mind of man, and translated into forms
of thought. (102)
Thus, for Marx, the material world and the concrete idea of contradiction lie at the heart
of his dialectical philosophy, influencing generations of critics, including Robin
Mathews.
In Canadian Identity, Mathews begins by stating a broad and general definition of
the dialectical process, pointing out that "a dialectical condition means the constant
movement of ideas and forces" (17-18). Later on in the same text, he defines his terms of
reference in more detail, giving the reader a sense of what he means by a Canadian
dialectical process when he further states: "The Canadian identity is blessed and cursed
with the character of dialectic, and it is fated to work out its destiny as a moving hand

11
that writes the sentence of our being, a sentence that is never finished and one that will be
filled with surprisingly unexpected clauses and interjections" (122). In critical terms, the
statement is significant because it highlights the important fact that the use of dialectic,
when applied to Canada, brings to light important aspects of the Canadian identity that
would otherwise go unnoticed by most postmodern criticism. For example, in preserving
at least some aspects of both sides of the Canadian dialectic, Mathews acknowledges in
the above statement that certain kinds of failure can be morally important. This particular
aspect of Mathews' thought can be seen quite clearly in relation to his criticisms of
Margaret Atwood discussed in more detail later {Canadian Literature 128).
An important aspect made apparent in Mathews' definition of dialectic in Canada
is the fact that, as a leftist thinker, he sees the world in largely social power terms. For
Mathews, Canadian history has always been within the arms of Empire. Mathews writes:
"Canada has a three-part history of colonialism, first as a French colony then as a British
colony, and now as an economic colony of the U.S.A." {Canadian Literature 1). Indeed,
the preceding quotation is significant because from a very early stage, it begins
establishing the idea of Canadian history as a history of colliding forces in the form of the
various Empires that Canada has, at one time or another, endured. In very general terms,
when the French Empire was defeated in 1760, the British Empire then took over what
was then British North America as the shapers of that culture and, by extension,
literature; however, after World War II, British power in the world began to wane (a
point beautifully highlighted in Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising), and the United
States began "operating a pax americana and acting in its own interest under a rhetoric of
altruism: 'working for the defence of the Free World'" {Intellectual 97). As the United

12
States began replacing Britain as the imperial power (according to Mathews), the very
terms of dialectic began shifting. For example, it was just fifteen years after the Second
World War that American literary models and types began to heavily "influence"
Canadian poetics and fiction - as is evidenced by the Warren Tallman and Robin
Mathews differences above where Tallman clearly favoured American poetics in the
Black Mountain group and Mathews favoured earlier Canadian writers who attempted to
work within Canadian space. With that, Robin Mathews - following dialectic and
nationalism - does believe in an identifiable Canadian literature that expresses itself
clearly in the face of American cultural expansion.
According to Robin Mathews, this form of distinctive Canadian literature exists
within the "dialectical condition" of "the constant movement of ideas and forces"
(Canadian Identity 17-18). The implication here, of course, is that the literature found
within this condition is always changing, always moving - never static, but always
constant. What is of value in this statement is in the phrase "constant movement of
ideas," for in this phrase, it is implied that while the two sides of the Canadian dialectic
are jostling for position, no one side permanently overtakes the other. The dialogue
between the two sides continues, creating a synthesis between the two (which would also
bring Mathews' definition of "dialectic" somewhat in line with the classical definition of
that term alluded to above). Therefore, it can then be argued that the Mathews-defined
Canadian dialectic, through synthesis, suggests that when conflicts of literature, identity,
influence, community, and philosophy are articulated in Canada and in a Canadian
context, they can be clearly distinguished from their American and British counterparts.
In particular, the synthesis of dialectic can be said to create something new out of

13
something old or transplanted. Put in abstract terms, a novel like Hugh MacLennan's
Barometer Rising, while borrowing from the English literary tradition, creates something
new out of it - through the death of Geoff Wain (a representative of Britain), a "new"
Canada is born by novel's end. Because of the very functional nature of Mathews'
synthesis of dialectic, Barometer Rising creates two "sets" of texts. Both "sets" remain in
tension with one another, collide, and create a new text out of that collision. In other
words, the English literary models used by MacLennan are not necessarily transformed
nor are they destroyed by the forces of the Canadian dialectic; rather, one reading of the
text collides with the other - forming one - creating a new image out of something old something distinctly "Canadian," as it were.
At the same time as "the constant movement of ideas" creates a space within
which Canadian writers can express themselves, the Canadian dialectic also illustrates, by
way of synthesis, that "there is a Canadian place which is more or less constant...
WITHIN THE PERSONS OF CANADIANS" (9 April 08, Mathews e-mail). Indeed, the
preceding statement by Robin Mathews suggests two separate items: First, Mathews'
statement acknowledges the fact that while his theoretical framework is one based upon
neo-Marxist theory - a theory largely conservative and patriarchal - he has adopted and
modified it to fit what might loosely be termed the "Canadian experience." Second, the
dialectic as interpreted both embraces communitarian and individualist thought in an
equal philosophic manner as is evidenced by Mathews' statement that the "constant"
Canadian place is to be found "WITHIN THE PERSONS OF CANADIANS."
Given the implications of what has been stated above as it relates to the Robin
Mathews' interpretation of dialectic and the fact that he sees much of the world in terms

14
of power relations, his position within the Canadian dialectic would have him embracing the synthesis - reject both the British and U. S. interpretations of culture in
Canada. For Mathews, what concerns him is This Time, This Place (to play off of his
1965 book of poetry). It is in this way, when one speaks of Mathews being a
"corrective," that he can be seen as such in a way that does not present him as attacking
other literary critics like Margaret Atwood; rather, he is simply pointing out the other side
of the Canadian dialectic - pointing towards areas of theory and examination that would
otherwise be missed. Again, here is where the real value of a Mathewsian definition of
"dialectic" becomes clear: he explicitly grants that there is a Canadian dialectic - and that
it exists within history, identity, letters; that there is debate, not prematurely closing a
given discussion. Inherent in such a position is a firm belief in a sense of community (this
time, this place) - an important concept as it relates to Mathews' definition of the
Canadian dialectic.
The very belief in the term "communitarianism" sets Mathews at odds with the
general academic population. It does so because on the one hand, the term is often
dismissed as some unattainable, asymptotic ideal; on the other hand, it is often dismissed
because the "communitarian versus individualism" debate is thought of as a subject of
debate in the 1980s. As a result, communitarianism as a term is often given less serious
treatment than other political concepts like "multiculturalism" or "corporatism." A direct
result of this lack of serious treatment has resulted in communitarianism receiving
various, usually negative, definitions. It has also resulted in important aspects of
communitarian theory being forgotten in favour of far more "progressive" and liberalized
theories (i.e.: something akin to Charles Taylor's "The Politics of Recognition" which

15
combines liberal discourse with communitarian theory, creating a sort of "pluralistic"
liberalism).
When Robin Mathews speaks of the community in all of his work, he is clearly
not advocating an oppressive or imperialistic version of community or communitarianism
that would efface difference and diversity; rather, his theory is moral-philosophical with a
nationalistic bent, indicating that his definition of "community" is one based on values
that people share in common. In short, it is not a communitarianism that sees certain traits
as constitutive of "community." Such incarnations of the term are merely instrumental.
While a group (ethnic or cultural) may work with one another in order to achieve a
certain end, that does not necessarily make them a community in the moral sense as
Mathews would have it. For it is common knowledge in communitarian theory that in
order for there to be any sort of community at all, there must be some sort of uniting idea
or concept, which could range from the general in the form of a shared history, language,
or culture to the specific in the form of place, race or values. Indeed, Mathews certainly
recognizes this, for he emphasizes throughout his texts that Canadians share a variety of
things, ranging from a shared history, inherent values, and intellectual traditions. In The
Canadian Intellectual Tradition Mathews makes the point clearly: "there are and have
always been Canadians (or people in the place that came to be called Canada) who
believed in and wanted to share a society based upon concepts of human equality and
human kinship with nature in forms of community that required compassionate relations
and a strong sense of interdependence" (223). The quotation from Mathews is significant
because it sets him and his definition of communitarianism apart from most others who
claim to be communitarian, yet who fail to recognize the moral implications inherent in

16
the concept itself. At another level, too, Robin Mathews is re-affirming his belief in the
existence of Canadian dialectic and the absolute importance in shared traditions as it
relates to a Canadian concept of community.
In reading the above, the astute critic might be quick to point out that seeing the
world in dialectical terms is a contradiction to the very concept of community via shared
"concepts of human equality and human kinship with nature" (223). Yet, Mathews sees
things in quite the opposite way. For example, when speaking about the title of his text,
The Canadian Intellectual Tradition: A Modern People and Its Community, Robin
Mathews writes: "That title suggests that nations have intellectual traditions that are both
visible and significant" (xi), emphasizing a broad sense of community in Canada.
Furthermore, in discussing the text's subtitle, Robin Mathews further states: "Since the
title says, moreover, 'a modern people and its community,' rather than 'a modern people
and their community,' it implies that, over time, people gathered into nations usually
develop some ways of being and seeing in common" (xi). In other words, Canada - as
community - has shared intellectual traditions, which by the very fact of their existence
in history, implies a set of shared moments of conflict and, indeed, tensions amongst a
people. This fact does not suggest divergence nor does it suggest a contradiction in
Mathews' communal philosophy, for an argument coming from both sides of dialectic
can still constitute a shared experience.5
Yet even here, Robin Mathews seems to realize that such a notion of
"community" in and of itself does not necessarily lead to a positive realization of
community; that is to say, he is well aware of the fact that even under such ideal
5

While this does appear to be somewhat of a contradiction, Mathews does note and emphasize in a number
of areas that the experiences of, say, himself and those of a new immigrant or Aboriginal peoples are not
the same (Treason 83; Canadian Literature 140).

17

conditions, there is still the possibility that the community in question - here the
Canadian community - could, in theory, fragment into a series of Epicurean atoms. For
this reason, Mathews takes the term a bit farther, placing himself squarely within the
Canadian "socialist tradition" (McDonald 214), by requiring that those involved in the
community be "mutually concerned" with one another (217). Indeed, this final point is
one he emphasizes a number of times throughout his various critical texts. In Canadian
Literature: Surrender or Revolution, for instance, Mathews ends that text by emphasizing
that he writes primarily because he is "concerned" about "Canadian survival" (228). This
same emphasis on mutual concern is also alluded to in Mathews' 1988 publication
Canadian Identity (55). Similarly, in his later Treason of the Intellectuals, Mathews notes
that his notion of dialectic in Canada and community relies substantially upon the idea of
mutual concern: "of which a concern for the people and quality of life in Canada may,
indeed, be a portion" (115, emphasis added). In stressing the fact that in order to be a
community in a moral (and therefore philosophical) sense, Mathews sets himself apart
from various other "communitarian" theorists.
Political scientist Ronald Beiner defines communitarianism as being an ideology
that "emphasizes the cultural or ethnic group, solidarity among those sharing a history or
tradition, the capacity of the group to confer identity upon those otherwise left 'atomized'
by the deracinating tendencies of a liberal society" (30). G. B. Madison defines
"community" stating that "What above all makes a community is the communication that
exists among its members" (11). The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor similarly
defines a sense of communitarianism as simply being a set of individuals "bound to their
fellow citizens in common projects and allegiances" {Malaise 112-13). Canadian "Red

18
Tory" philosopher George Grant, often considered on the "left" side of the political
spectrum (Lipset 55; Corse 2; Miller 85-87; Horowitz 77), defines community in the
following way:
The end which any society should be working for is the elimination of...
relations of superiority and subordination in all aspects of life.... It is
often argued that by maintaining a wealthy and priviledged [sic] class
certain 'finer things' are kept alive. What are these 'finer things' that owe
their survival to the rich, and which would not continue in a more
egalitarian society? ("Ethic for Community" 71-3)
What all of these definitions (and others) have in common is a lack of moralphilosophical connection of concern. Beiner's definition simply suggests that a
"community" is a grouping of individuals who happen to have something in common like
a "cultural or ethnic group." Madison and Taylor do not fare any better in their
definitions, suggesting that a community is simply a grouping that communicates or is a
group of individuals who band together as a result of "common projects." Just as
significantly, the definitions offered are appealing in that they fail to challenge - fail to
"deconstruct" - neo-liberal values calling for reductions in the state and the autonomy of
the individual, allowing peoples to be free-floating atoms. For Robin Mathews, however,
a "concern" for the Canadian community, its future and its people is key and central
because, as he is well aware, any grouping of peoples can share common goals or even
share a culture, but even then there is no guarantee that the members of that community
will share a concern for each other - a point one of Mathews' recent articles makes all
too clear ("Colonial Canada").

19
Granted, the sense of community offered by Mathews may seem to be an "idyll"
in that the community cannot be said to exist unless there is no form of exploitation on
the part of its members (Grove 25), and all involved must demonstrate that mutual
concern so central to the philosophic theory. But such a realization is not enough to
dismiss the theory, for as Mathews argues, "To suggest the existence of intellectual
traditions, of a Canadian Intellectual Tradition [as community], is not to suggest that a
people necessarily develops unity and harmony. It does mean . . . that matters of unity,
harmony, disunity, and disharmony often have peculiar and continuing characteristics"
(Intellectual xii). What the preceding quotation from Mathews means is that while no
such idealistic community may exist in "real" life, the ideal is still necessary and
workable insofar as it exemplifies a level to which Canadians (and others) may strive to
achieve. Furthermore, the very fact that Mathews' own worldview is that of dialectic
entrenches a certain level of respect for individuality in cultural relations and literature,
but not unfettered individualism. In Mathews' colourful words, the distinction between
what constitutes "individualism" and what constitutes "individuality" can be stated as
follows: "Individualist as it is given to the Canadian is usually U.S. anarchist, fake
egalitarianism, presented in anti-intellectual, defeatist, and sensationalist terms"
(Canadian Literature 161). "Individuality," on the other hand, "is the natural difference
from poet to poet and . . . from community to community. To reject individualism is not
to accept regimentation . . . True individuality rejects such regimentation, requires
difference" (161). Thus, Mathews can be said to fully recognize the importance of the
self in relation to the community. Both, when working from a view of dialectic, build off
of, and feed from one another, allowing the individual to "[find] his or her greatest

20
freedom in an enlightened alliance with society and the social order" (Canadian
Literature 134).
When Robin Mathews discusses his theory of community in terms set forth by the
Canadian dialectic, he is using the term not in an instrumental way, but in a
philosophical-moral sense in which each member of the community is attributed moral
value and concern - in both the political and cultural spheres. Moreover, "community" is
not confused with the more generic term "society" when discussing a people and the
relationships they have with one another. In this sense, Mathews would not agree with G.
B. Madison, who confuses the two terms when he states that "Canada is a nation of
many communities, and it would be stretching the bounds of meaningful discourse to
speak of a single, well-defined Canadian community" (12).6 Nor would he agree with
fellow writer Robert Kroetsch who, while admitting that there "is a communal language"
which Canadians "are responsible to," implies that the communal voice is repressive: "I
get uneasy about that surrender to It [the communal voice]" (qtd. in Thomas 116).
Instead, in his writings, Mathews is searching for morally grounded principles that all
people, in one way or another, are equally concerned about and have an interest in
maintaining exactly because those individuals within the community have a concern for
one another, and are therefore assumed to have moral worth both in thought and deed.

6

GB Madison is something of an anomaly. Following his attack on communitarianism, he states even more
ahistorical banter in a footnote, making reference to the communitarian nature of Canadian community:
"Myths of course they are, since multiculturalism and communitarianism are at least as prominent on the
American cultural scene as they are on the Canadian scene" (73). Of course, Madison cites no examples or
references, nor does he define what he means by "communitarian." In failing to define his terms, he
commits a gross scholarly act, presenting his own opinion as if it were fact. But he then goes on to
denigrate Canadians even further: "[W]hen Canadians appeal to such things as multiculturalism and
communitarianism as defining characteristics, they are doing what they so often do: adopting the latest
American fashions" (73, emphasis added). In other words, Canadians are simply the colonial mimics they
have always been, at least in Madison's view.

21
The Mathews philosophic-moral model is attractive on a number of levels, then,
because it does not nullify difference, homogenize and call for "sameness"; rather, as a
philosophical-moral doctrine it embraces difference amongst peoples while at the same
time suggesting that there are certain values which people would agree are fair and
equitable. This sense of value, then, serves to legitimize the communitarian perspective in
a neo-liberal world, avoiding the stigma of atomization which would result if everyone
had nothing in common, forming a state that resembles something akin to Thomas
Hobbes' "state of nature" whereby "the life of man [is] solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and
short" (89). This very important fact is probably summed up best by Mathews who, in
capsule form, summarizes the importance of the communitarian perspective
philosophically as it exists within dialectic: "The dialectic in Canada is a real part of
individual personality. Canadians embody both forces" {Canadian Identity 121, emphasis
added). While a communitarian perspective serves as one of the key pillars upon which
Mathews' thought stands, it is by far not the only one, for intertwined with a
communitarian belief is also a strong sense of anti-Americanism.
Canadian historian J. L. Granatstein offers up a Canadian definition of antiAmericanism, which is useful. According to Granatstein, anti-Americanism can be
defined as "a distaste for and a fear of American military, political, cultural, and
economic activities that, while widespread in the population, is usually benign unless and
until it is exploited by business, political, or cultural groups for their own ends" {Yankee
A). Granatstein's definition is useful because not only does it apply to Canadians and
situate itself within a definite historical context, but it also makes clear one of the prerequisites of nationalism as Mathews understands it: that to be a nationalist in Canada one

22

must also be an anti-American and resist the American empire and its Americanization.
Simply put, to be a Canadian nationalist one must also be an anti-American because
"Canadians were the first and the model anti-Americans because the habitants and the
Loyalists both wanted to remain free of the United States" (Yankee 8). Second, Canadians
"were the ideal anti-Americans because .. . they actually understood the United States
and appreciated its idealism and passion while simultaneously rejecting much of the
American ethos" (8). Third and lastly, Canadians were also the "archetypal antiAmericans because . . . Canadians had set the terms of the debate—virtually everything
that is said of the crassness and violence of American society today . . . was first uttered
by nineteenth-century British North Americans" (Yankee 8). Therefore, one could almost
say that it is "natural" for a Canadian nationalist to also be anti-American.
Indeed, it is quite easy to speak of the "Americanization" - anti-Americanism's
cousin term - of Canada, the Canadian economy, art, literature, politics, and other
cultural items, but it is quite another to define what the term "Americanization" means at least within a Canadian context. When the term is defined within a Canadian context,
according to Mathews, it essentially means "the grasp of policy-making power by
Americans and by those who co-operate with the imposition of the United States reality
upon Canadian reality" (Canadian Literature 220). To that end, Americanization "erases,
denigrates, obscures the Canadian fact and replaces it with the terms of life in the United
States" (221), highlighting American imperialist-expansionist tendencies. In becoming
Americanized, moreover, Canadians learn contempt for their own community and its
values - relegating those like Mathews who speak of "communal" values to the margins
as being racists, fascists, or parochial nationalists (Edwardson 140). Nationalism, in this

23

instance, while being defined in a wholly negative way, reflects and re-affirms the
importance of the Canadian dialectic. For instance, with respect to the various definitions
of "Americanization," Mathews' particular definition of the term works not so much as
an instrument in proving the others to be "wrong" in some way; rather, if it is generally
agreed that "culture, then, is the great guide of human life" (Hume 44), then Mathews
here is working in a corrective capacity in so far as he is "awakening" others to his
cultural experience as it exists within power relations - the other side of dialectic in
Canada. Indeed, this is significant because, as Mathews states himself, "[s]ince literature
and cultural analysis [rarely] present such views, people get very angry if they are told
they have their views foisted on them . . . by an outside force" (Mathews e-mail 9 April
08). The implication here is that if a people do not see, or are not aware, of the other side
of the Canadian dialectic, the realization of that other side is a painful shock and
realization, but a necessary one. For this reason, nationalism and "anti-Americanization"
as Mathews defines it within his theoretical framework is significant as a general nonaggressive corrective. Indeed, without this realization, the subsequent Americanization of
Canadian literature teaches Canadians to believe in foreign excellence and local
inferiority; that is, Canadians are made to feel as if what is produced within the country is
inferior to that of the imperial country. When literary critics like Northrop Frye
denounce Canadian literature,7 the colonized mind and the continued assimilation of
Canada is well on its way to being firmly rooted as the one side of the Canadian dialectic
grows stronger (Educated 22-23; "Narrative Tradition" 151-52; "Canada and its Poetry"

7

At the beginning of his "Conclusion" to the Literary History of Canada, Frye thanked the authors for
considering a wide variety of works and authors because had "evaluation" been a core principle of the
critics, "criticism of Canadian literature would become a poor naked alouette plucked of every feather of
decency and dignity" (821).

24
133). Thus, without recourse to the Mathews corrective, Canadians are taught "to aspire
to a condition we can never really achieve, the condition of being someone from another
country" (Canadian Literature 221). For important reasons such as these - to resist
turning into mere American mimics - Mathews believes that anti-Americanism8 coupled
with nationalism is essential for Canadian survival as a distinct community and people
because the Canadian dialectic, as he understands it, demands this.
However, many in the current academic landscape do not share Robin Mathews'
belief in the necessity of nationalism. Instead, much like other political terms,
"nationalism" as a definable concept gets blurred and is given a variety of seemingly
contradictory meanings. For instance, Gibbins defines no fewer than/zve types of
Canadian nationalism: "defensive nationalism, or anti-Americanism"; "international
nationalism, or Canada as global peacekeeper"; "state enterprise nationalism, or 'the ties
that bind'"; "two-nations nationalism, or the nationalism of bilingualism and
biculturalism"; and "Trudeau nationalism, or multiculturalism in a bilingual framework"
(2). Of the Mathews brand of nationalism ("defensive nationalism"),9 Gibbins says that it
"seems, and indeed is, out of step and out of tune with the rush to embrace globalization"
(4). Furthermore, according to Gibbins, Mathews' brand of nationalism also "seems
increasingly dated and passe within the brave new world of NAFTA, Internet and the
World Wide Web, globalization, and a rapidly decentralizing federal state" (4). Aside
8

It is perhaps necessary to note that even though Mathews typically presents a very anti-American stance,
the fact that he is "anti-American" is only coincidental. For as he has stated in The Struggle for Canadian
Universities, he is "not anti-American but pro-Canadian" and that had any other country been alongside
Canada's border threatening its cultural survival (40), he would attack it just as hard.
9
It should be noted that while Mathews' nationalism does (coincidentally) include anti-Americanism,
Gibbins' formulation is much too broad. Mathews adds: "nationalism in Canada insists Canadians make up
a recognizable polity, that they have a significant identity, that they validly may claim the wealth and
resources of the country, and that they have a culture peculiar to themselves which they may - indeed must
- protect" {Betrayal 14). Nationalism is thus a political term implicitly recognizing difference as a cultural
value.

25
from the right-wing rhetoric employed here by Gibbins, it is simply enough to note that
the quotation is the accepted wisdom of the day, mirroring a shift in dialectic that
Mathews identified in Canadian Identity (121-23). Such a view, unlike the Mathews
conception of identity, forecloses any discussions of nationalism as being simply
parochial and unimportant.
In Diverse Landscapes Karin Beeler and Dee Home cite with approval some
advice given by Robert Kroetsch about nationalism when he suggests that Canadian
writers should address and develop recent changes to the Canadian literary landscape
"without recourse to an easy version of national definition" (Kroetsch vii) because, say
Beeler and Home, somewhat recent developments in Canadian literature have
demonstrated "that Canada's writing community is culturally diverse and suggest that
models of a national literature do not necessarily address some of the concerns raised by
contemporary writers" (1). Similarly, Paul Fairfield claims that "[nationalists the world
over continue to dream of homogeneity while privately regretting the real diversity of
their populations" (100). According to Fairfield nationalists in Canada "continually fail to
recognize . . . that peoples and cultures, despite their characterizations as communities,
are not internally homogeneous but are essentially contested and inclined towards
reconstitution" (100). Michael Williams would apparently agree with the above
formulations about nationalism, suggesting that it habitually categorizes people into "us"
and "them" categories according to their country of origin or their ethnicity, "more and
more intoxicated by nationalist fever, in some extreme cases the nationalist ends up
wallowing in a blatantly racist state" (88). In short, it is often argued in the contemporary
society that nationalism should be shed and ignored because it is a thing of the past and

26
that, under nationalism, a transcendent and idealist unity is created that glosses over
differences between ethnic and cultural groups. Since the majority rules, critics of
nationalism argue, the sense of Canada that is usually espoused is that of the Englishspeaking majority (Beiner 11-14; Cook 190-95; Corse 52; Crowley 149; Vickers 361; S.
Cook 589-92; Miller 86; Perkins 28-29).
Nationalism in its various forms can be broken down into two generalized camps:
ethnic nationalism and "pan" nationalism. Ethnic nationalism fragments peoples
according to ethnicity, producing racist societies and - at its most extreme - genocide
like that found in the former Yugoslavia. Similarly, "pan" nationalism suggests a unified
country, society and culture; in effect, difference is erased (or downplayed) in favour of
those qualities - whatever they may be - in order to promote unity amongst its members.
Since regional, ethnic and sexual differences are erased, nationalism should be avoided
when discussing articulations of identity, social and political issues. Yet, much like the
confusion between "society" and "community" noted above, there also seems to be
confusion between "unity" and "uniformity." In his "Preface" to The Bush Garden,
Northrop Frye makes a helpful distinction between the two terms: "Uniformity, where
everyone 'belongs,' uses the same cliches, thinks alike and behaves alike, produces a
society which seems comfortable at first but is totally lacking in human dignity." Unity,
on the other hand, "tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition,
recognizes that it is man's destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating
proletariats and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity"
(xxvi). Thus, because most arguments against nationalism confuse "uniformity" suggesting sameness and loss of difference - with "unity" - which suggests an embrace

27

of difference and human morality - political scientist Ron Dart has been able to write:
"Robin Mathews has argued for a healthy and moderate nationalism (not an ethnic nor
imperial nationalism) in which Canada acts as a beacon to the world, but he is ignored by
most" {Crown Prince 2). Because of the very structure of the Canadian dialectic - with
its reliance on moral-philosophic principles and progressive point of view - the
nationalism advocated by Mathews is not "pan" or "ethnic," but one in which difference,
change and debate is welcomed and encouraged.
While the concept of dialectic as understood by Mathews relies upon the
definitions of community and nationalism described above, it is also much more
complex. In his latest book of cultural and literary criticism, The Canadian Intellectual
Tradition, Mathews elaborates upon his definition of the Canadian dialectic in the
following way:
Canada, as I see it (my worldview) has always been defined by a conflict
between individualism and communitarianism. It has, that is to say,
always moved through history arguing whether reality is made up of a
condition in which the individual is released, with the fewest inhibitions,
to develop power and wealth or whether reality is made up of a condition
in which community well-being must be secured - the individual secured
as a part of the general security. (45)
The definition not only highlights the fact that for Mathews communitarianism and
nationalism go hand in hand, but it also demonstrates that he situates himself within real
history and a real place: "It [the Canadian dialectic] has . . . always moved through
[Canadian] history" {Intellectual Tradition 45). Unlike most other critics in the current

28
day, Mathews does not shield himself from the conditions of "real life" by imposing
abstract notions of time and space. For instance, while Northrop Frye and Margaret
Atwood define Canadian literary and cultural identity in myth,10 which downplays any
sort of real history from literary analysis exactly because "literature can only derive its
forms from its self (Educated 22), Mathews firmly believes that literary history can
teach real social meaning because the literature itself is rooted in a real history and is
involved in historical events and peoples. In short, literature as political and full of social
meaning is in a never-ending dialectical debate just as the hand of history never ends and
is full of debate itself.''
In a very philosophical sense, then, Mathews' work is of value exactly because it
is not explicitly searching for a single version of an elusive "Canadian identity" because,
as he suggests, the dialectic in Canadian thought forbids this; therefore, his theory is one
that suggests many Canadian identities, be they ideological, cultural or political. The
form and character of the Canadian dialectic has predetermined this. People within the
dialectic in Canada, while autonomous, contribute one part to the whole.
What follows is an elaboration on Robin Mathews' understanding of Canadian
dialectic. The following chapters, in their own ways, contribute to the unpacking of this
complex term while making no claims to finality. Chapter II, dealing with the Atwood-

Frye defines "myths" as being "expressions of concern, of man's care for his own destiny and heritage,
his sense of the supreme importance of preserving his community, his constant interest in questions about
his ultimate coming and going" ("Silence in the Sea" 196). Frye highlights the fact that his idea of "myth"
falls outside of reality when he speaks of the role of the poet in relation to society as founded in myth: "[the
poet] "does not deal in facts at a l l . . . what he deals in are myths, that is, stories of gods, historical
reminiscences, and concepts founded on metaphors" (196).
11
It is perhaps important to note that Mathews does not deny the importance of dialectics to other
countries. In his own words: "By saying that this [dialectic] condition is peculiar to Canada, I do not deny
the existence of contradictions in other countries or of major inter-defining opposites in those countries. I
simply wish to assert that beyond argument, the forces meeting, the way they have met and meet, and their
emphases in Canadian history are peculiar to Canada" (Intellectual 47).

29
Mathews debate via thematic criticism, further highlights how and why "nationalism" is
far from a static concept while simultaneously demonstrating that the Canadian dialectic,
through its very conversational structure, is far from being a clear-cut binary oppositional
system. Chapter III of the thesis, while dealing primarily with postmodernism, uses the
postmodern debate to articulate how and why the "synthesizing" effect of the Canadian
dialectic works as a general and non-confrontational corrective to postmodern theories
Finally, the concluding remarks end on a note of hope about the possibility of a renewed
interest in Robin Mathews and his version and understanding of a Canadian dialectic.

30
CHAPTER II: Robin Mathews and Margaret Atwood: The Nationalist Debate
Thematic criticism presents a useful framework through which to explore Robin
Mathews' moral-philosophical approach - as it is presented in the terms set forth by the
Canadian dialectic - in relation to Margaret Atwood's concept of survivalism. Doing so
should present some insights with respect to the diversity of the Canadian literary
tradition and the dialectical forces behind that tradition. More specifically, the overall
significance of Robin Mathews to that tradition will be highlighted in his non-static
dialectic response to the literary criticism of Margaret Atwood. The end result will be to
illustrate the role Mathews plays as a corrective towards literary criticism in Canada that
does not adequately consider the social and political impact of texts upon Canadian
identity.
During the 1960s - and especially during Canada's centennial year - great
nationalist sentiment began to build up within Canada. Proof of this statement is in the
number of "nationalist" texts produced during the late 1960s and early 1970s: Al Purdy's
The New Romans (1968), Robin Mathews and James Steele's The Struggle for Canadian
Universities (1969), William Killbourn's Canada: A Guide to the Peaceable Kingdom
(1970), Ian Lumsden's Close the 49th Parallel etc. (1970), John Redekop's The StarSpangled Beaver (1971), Northrop Frye's The Bush Garden (1971), W. L. Morton's The
Canadian Identity (1972) , Margaret Atwood's Survival (1972), and Robin Mathews'
Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution (1978), to name a few. In this regard,
given the high nationalist feeling in Canada at the time - and the growing questions about

Morton would seem to have much in common with Mathews. In his text, Morton defines Canadian
identity in what can be interpreted as dialectical terms: "Canadian destiny is an evolution in progress. It has
not yet been defined. It cannot yet be defined . . . Canada is united at the top by allegiance .. . [which is]
the moral core of Canadian nationhood" (83-5).

31
the possibility of a distinctive "Canadian identity" - Northrop Frye's The Bush Garden
and, later, Margaret Atwood's Survival became key texts in helping literary and cultural
Canada articulate and define some form of a Canadian "identity." Frye affirmed this with
his "garrison mentality" and Atwood with her "survival" thesis.
Indeed prior to Frye and, especially, Margaret Atwood, the attention paid to
Canadian literature was almost non-existent. Atwood's comment about the Canadian
literary experience during the late 1950s and 1960s speaks volumes about this: "Novels
by Canadians were almost unheard of... When I reached college . . . I spent many
arcane hours reverently grubbying the pages of the handful of Little [Canadian]
Magazines then in existence" ("Messianic Stance" 86). In the same article, she further
notes the growing nationalism amongst Canadians at the time and the growing need to
define a sort of Canadian identity, almost always in opposition to Americans (87-88). All
of these feelings would eventually culminate, in Canada, under the literary guise of
thematic criticism and, ultimately, Survival. Thematic criticism in Canada was usually
defined by its focus on a single theme, relying "on paraphrase and plot" (MacKendrick
277), having a "strong nationalist agenda" (Brown 656), and attempting to articulate
some sense of continuity in literature. Yet, while it is admitted that thematic criticism in
Canada played a useful political and cultural role at the time, such literary texts did have
their shortcomings. For example, most were usually descriptive in nature, emphasizing
plot summary as opposed to textual interpretation. Thus, Barry Cameron and Michael
Dixon point out that such criticism "consists simply of theme - and a single theme at
that" (137), suggesting that thematics were reductive in nature, exclusionary and, perhaps
most significantly, very static in terms of creating any form of a Canadian identity. But

32

be that as it may, a lot of the above readings come from just one side of the Canadian
dialectic, ignoring the other side - the side dealing with community and struggle values.
It is only when the two sides of the Canadian dialectic engage in discussion, emphasizing
differing points of view that the real value of thematic criticism, and especially that of
Robin Mathews, becomes clear. For that reason, the Atwood-Mathews dialogue is
significant because it reveals "an insistent force of interrelation" between "philosophic
ideas of human meaning" (17).
Margaret Atwood is being compared with Mathews in this general discussion
about "Canadian identity" because they share many views. For instance, Margaret
Atwood and Robin Mathews are both Canadian nationalists, both were honing their craft
in the 1960s, and both have spoken much about the need for a distinct Canadian literary
and cultural identity. For these reasons, Atwood and Mathews have both written essays
and fiction concerning Canadian literature and culture, have realized the dangers of
Americanization, and have continued to be active in the literary and cultural arena. While
Atwood tends to take a more liberal nationalist route in dealing with Canadian literary
and cultural identity, Mathews remains a "radical democratic socialist" in terms of his
position (Crown Prince 61). Why both Atwood and Mathews take their different paths is
perhaps best illustrated with their respective books of literary criticism. Margaret Atwood
suggests that the unifying symbol for Canada is "undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance"
(41, italics added). By contrast, Robin Mathews argues that there is a distinct type of
"struggle literature" in Canada that, instead of seeing Canada as a mere victim as
Atwood's text does, emphasizes instead the "possibility of a distinct Canadian sense of
community" (120). In stating that, the difference in approach by the two authors already

33

begins to make itself apparent from within a dialectical perspective. On the one hand,
Margaret Atwood emphasizes the defeatism and "failure" of Canadian literature, placing
greater emphasis on the liberal "right" side of the Canadian dialectic (Survival 44), while
Robin Mathews emphasizes a much more positive and powerful view of Canadian
literature with his emphasis on the communitarian side of the dialectical framework
1^

(Canadian Literature 135-6).
A critical examination of the Mathews-Atwood dialogue, however, demands a
precise understanding of some terms that have commonly been used to refer to Robin
Mathews and Margaret Atwood. First, both literary and social critics have been labelled
as "cultural nationalists." When the term is used, critics and social commentators who use
it often fail to give any sort of definition of who constitutes a "cultural nationalist" or
what their goals might be. Roger Frank Swanson defines "cultural nationalism" simply as
"a euphemism for the overall Canadian concern about the U.S. cultural impact" on
Canadian life and Canadian culture in general (57). Swanson rightly argues that the term
"cultural nationalism" is much too vague to be useful in any type of policy analysis
because one can include under the rubric of "cultural nationalism" anything ranging from
concerns about American spelling, textbooks, and teddy bears to chewing gum. For this
reason, he suggests a new term that can be better defined and, in the long run, is much
more useful in a study dealing with cultural nationalism: "cultural retrofitting" (57).
Indeed, to understand the use of this term, it is perhaps necessary to define "retrofit" and
then show how and why it can be incorporated into the broader theme and analysis of
13

In stating this, Robin Mathews no doubt fits into the "socialist" Canadian literary tradition Larry
McDonald wrote of in his article "Socialism and the English Canadian Literary Tradition." In the article,
McDonald notes that "socially conscious writing remains a key characteristic of the mainstream of
Canadian modernism" of which the socialist tradition is a part (228).

34

cultural nationalism, especially with regards to Mathews and Atwood and their differing
points of view. In the broad industrial sense of the term, "retrofit" simply means to
substitute new or modernized parts or systems for older equipment. For example, if an
individual were to upgrade to a tin roof instead of a tiled one so as to protect the roof
from constant high winds, the house would be "retrofitted"; that is, upgraded and made
better so as to prolong its life.
When the term "retrofit" is applied in a political and cultural sense - applied to
cultural nationalism - one can see how Swanson's term is appropriate. Unlike the vague
term "cultural nationalism," which could theoretically include practically anything a
nationalist or slandering critic would want it to include, "cultural retrofitting" speaks
directly to and for the purposes of a people wishing to engage in policies (formally or
informally) of national cultural protection and, as an added bonus, the term also escapes
the stigma of nationalism as dated, infusing it instead with an aura of "progress." Thus,
the term becomes progressive and gains a deeper meaning for those concerned negatively
or positively with "nationalist" politics. For example, in the late 1970s when the
Canadian government implemented the two-tier hiring system in Canadian universities
(after much hard work and campaigning by Robin Mathews, James Steele, and a host of
others), it was taking steps to improve and strengthen that particular part of the
"Canadian cultural infrastructure." "Cultural retrofitting" can therefore simply be defined
as those actions in politics or the public sphere "which serve to upgrade and further a
distinctive Canadian culture by encouraging a hospitable economic and socialpsychological environment for its production" (Swanson 58). Based on this definition,

35
one can easily surmise that the overall objectives of "cultural retrofitting" are to make the
process of cultural growth operate to the benefit of the "home" country.
As "cultural retrofitting" relates to the Atwood-Mathews dialogue in the context
of the Canadian dialectic and literary identity, the goals and objectives of "cultural
nationalists" like Mathews and Atwood should be fairly clear. Both Atwood and
Mathews sought, throughout the years of struggle (especially the 60s and 70s), to
articulate and define - to "retrofit" - a unique sense of Canadian character that differed
from both the American and British literary traditions. Doing so, both believed, would
not only help Canadians to understand themselves better ("To know ourselves, we must
know our own literature; to know ourselves accurately, we need to know it as part of
literature as a whole" [Survival 24]), but it would also help Canadians to wake up out of
their colonial slumber and call forth a "revolution - violent and/or other" if necessary
(Canadian Literature 228). Indeed, even within the statements just given the differences
between the views of Atwood and Mathews can be seen. Atwood, unlike Mathews,
sought to "retrofit" Canadian culture and literature in a fairly negative way - a point often
raised by literary critics. In response to such criticisms, Margaret Atwood has always
noted that she does not say Canadian literature is a literature of "failure"; rather, it is a
literature of "survival." Yet, one cannot help but notice the negative connotations
inherent in Atwood's articulation of Canadian identity in Survival. Speaking about the
Canadian hero, for example, Margaret Atwood writes that "Canadian history and the
Canadian imagination . . . conspire to make a plausible heroic death — a death that
accomplishes something, means something in terms of its society - almost impossible"
(Survival 204). About Canadian literature in general, Atwood articulates a similar

36
negative view: "a reader must face the fact that Canadian literature is undeniably somber
and negative, and that this to a large extent is both a reflection and a chosen definition of
the national sensibility" (Survival 291). Because of statements like these, Alan Twigg when interviewing Atwood - pointed out the dangers inherent in her position: "Either
way, being victimized politically has created a nation that is lacking in self-respect"
(130). Mathews, while acknowledging Atwood's position,14 emphasized what he has
called the "struggle literature" (Canadian Literature 120), which emphasizes the
communitarian side of the Canadian dialectic. According to Mathews, "struggle
literature" is everything the "literature of surrender" is not. Unlike the "literature of
surrender," "struggle literature" is not wholly negative, does not emphasize victimization,
and it does not potentially lead into a world full of fragmentation and dis-unity. In other
words, the "struggle literature" advocates a sense and view of a positive Canadian
community (in a moral and practical way) and it does not submit to foreign theoretical
models. For this reason, political scientist Ron Dart was able to write that "Atwood
remains the moderate nationalist and social liberal and Mathews represents the more
radical democratic socialist" (Crown Prince 61). What Dart is alluding to here is of key
importance as it relates to Atwood and Mathews. Both literary critics, while emphasizing
a need for nationalism and dialogue, do so in very different ways, emphasizing the power
of dialectical forces within Canada.
The differences in approach between the two thinkers as writers, while partially
illuminated here, is perhaps articulated more fully in the historic dialogue that Robin
Mathews and Margaret Atwood had in the mid-1970s shortly after Atwood had published
Survival in 1973. This Magazine had asked Mathews to write a critical review of
14

See Canadian Literature 119

37

Atwood's text and Mathews readily agreed, thus beginning the dialogue. Once Mathews
had written his piece on Atwood's book (called "Survivalism"), Atwood was asked to
respond to Mathews, which she did. At the beginning of her long reply, she lets it be
known that she was initially pleased that This Magazine had asked Robin Mathews to
review her book. After a few short lines, however, Atwood makes it abundantly clear that
she disagreed strenuously with Mathews' reading of her text. While the debate has long
since passed, it remains significant because in terms of the Canadian dialectic, it
articulates the different views of both Mathews and Atwood and how they see the
Canadian literary identity in their criticisms. In doing this, the Canadian dialectic
articulates itself further within the encounter between the two literary critics, pointing
towards a framework within literary criticism that ultimately suggests that a definition of
"Canadian identity" is not yet completed, nor will it ever be as it is "filled with
surprisingly unexpected clauses and interjections" (Identity 122).
For Robin Mathews, questions of identity are clearly important. As was discussed
in the opening chapter of this volume, Mathews firmly believes that Canada's unique
colonial condition - having been and remaining in the arms of empires - makes the
question of identity of prime importance. It is of such high significance because Canada,
having been within the arms of empire - and especially the American empire - for so
long has created a fundamental shift in the dialectic. If we agree with Mathews in saying
that "[t]he conflict between a balanced communitarianism and an unleashed competitive
individualism has been evident throughout Canadian history" and that "[t]he two sides
incarnate the root dialectic in the country" (Identity 6), it should naturally follow, given
Canada's post-cold-war history, and the "influence" of Americanization, that an aspect of

38
the Canadian dialectic should see itself as being sort of American. Robin Mathews
certainly recognizes this: "But that is a fact of the Canadian dialectic [that part of the
Canadian psyche sees itself as American]. U.S. sensibility has become so insistent a part
of the Canadian life it has become a real part of Canadian being" (Identity 3). The
preceding quotation is significant. It alludes to a very important point that has huge
implications for any discussions of Canadian identity - be they literary, cultural, political
or social. Simply put, the statement by Mathews points out that Canada is a colony. As a
colony, it is a country that is "done to rather than doing or doing to" (Canadian
Literature 1), according to Robin Mathews. The result of this imperial realization is that
Canada-as-colony of the United States is one that contains "a sense of helplessness, of
uncertainty, and of complicity with the imperial power" (1). More significantly, writes
Mathews, such a psychological feeling "hampers and obscures definitions of identity"
(1), putting powerful pressure on the inhabitants to adopt the imperial belief system,
which in this case is radical liberal individualism. Therefore, it is exactly for this reason that the terms of the Canadian dialectic have created, fundamentally, a colonialist
position and that this position has gained greater advantage since the 1960s - that
definitions and articulations of a Canadian identity are so significant. Robin Mathews'
answer to such a fundamental issue is a position built upon dialectic and an idea of moral
concern.
Stated in concept form, Mathews' response is his "struggle literature" (Canadian
Literature 120). While the concept itself has been defined negatively above, against
Atwood and the literature of "survival," it is far more complex than has been
demonstrated thus far. For example, Mathews' struggle literature is a very significant part

39
of his understanding of the Canadian dialectic. But even more importantly, it is heavily
integrated and intertwined with Mathews' moral-philosophical position outlined earlier.
Such integration, then, implies concern (otherwise it does not fit the theory). Indeed,
Mathews does not write without it: "I do so [write] as part of a consideration of the
failure of Canadians to deal with serious threats to the quality of life here for all
Canadians" {Treason 121). Clearly, the concern, and maybe even a little bit of
frustration, is evidenced in the preceding statement. In all of his writings, Robin Mathews
never writes without a concern for the Canadian community, its people or its culture. To
that end, his concept of struggle literature has, as a fundamental base, a philosophical
moralism and level of concern inherent in its functioning.
Thus, Mathews' approach towards defining a form of Canadian identity makes
itself radically different from the approach and methodology used by Margaret Atwood.
Mathews, in taking the moral-philosophical approach, ensures that his articulations of
Canadian identity are grounded in politics and culture and, perhaps most importantly, that
they act as a sort of corrective to normative views of the subject; that is to say, they seek
to deconstruct Canada's colonial mentality, relating the roles of the individual to the
political and economic sovereignty of the Canadian community {Canadian Literature
138). In doing that, Mathews partakes in a very important task as it relates to the
Canadian colonial condition. In foregrounding the importance of the moral and political,
Mathews engages the reader and challenges him or her to see and read texts socially, as
having social meaning and implications for the community. He does not, in short, endorse
a view that would see the text as being autonomous, a thing unto itself. The view
advocated by Robin Mathews is socially significant, and theoretically positive.

40
In relation to Mathews, there can be no doubt that Margaret Atwood articulates a
certain kind of identity for Canada; however, unlike Mathews, Atwood generally does not
explicitly acknowledge that texts, as a result of their very production, are political. In
fact, her very definition of what constitutes the Canadian identity is negative, further
entrenching Canada's colonial, dependent condition upon other forms.15 Indeed, it is for
this reason that Mathews writes of Atwood that while Survival "attempts to establish our
literature in relation to colonialism, [this attempt] becomes mired in a celebration of 'the
need to be a victim'" (119). Thus, Mathews does not deny that Atwood's position exists;
he openly admits it (Canadian Literature 129). However, in his view, "the Canadian
artist, the Canadian writer" as someone who "has been one of the fighters for
humanization of Canadian life, for life lived with nature and not over it, for exposing
imperial capitalism and the fundamental danger of a colonial" plays a far more prominent
role in Canadian literature than Atwood seems to allow in her analysis (129). Mathews, in
arguing for the struggle literature thesis, which explicitly acknowledges both the
individual and the community, allows for movement and malleability or, in brief, a moral
view that does not deny either side of the dialectic in Canada. In stark contrast, Margaret
Atwood consciously or unconsciously forecloses the question of identity, creating a sort
of stasis in her model. This is accomplished by the (denied) method of evaluation used in
Survival. According to Robin Mathews: "[W]hat Atwood puts in, she obviously selects as
valuable to put in, to quote, to analyse. What she leaves out (or barely mentions) is, for
15

For example, Bonnie Lyons, when responding to Atwood's claim that Canadian literature is "undeniably
somber and negative" {Survival 291), points out that this is not necessarily the case - especially with
Atwood's own writing. To that, Atwood responded: "I was writing about classic Canadian literature,
everything before 1970, and it w a s . . . . The earlier books were produced by a colony, a colony without
very much cultural self-confidence. It was somber and negative" (232). Of course, for this statement to hold
up in the face of Canadian literary history, Atwood would have to ignore authors like Archibald Lampman,
William Kirby, Stephen Leacock, Susanna Moodie, TC Haliburton, EJ Pratt, FR Scott, and a whole host of
others.

41
the reader, not there" (119).1 In other words, at a very basic level, Atwood does what
Mathews does not: she denies a side of the Canadian dialectic. At a more fundamental
level, too, Atwood, in selecting her "literature of surrender," "surrenders the possibility of
a distinct Canadian sense of community" (Canadian Literature 120). Atwood surrenders
the possibility of Canadian community because her terms of reference dictate it.
According to Robin Mathews, Atwood selects "liberal individualist" solutions for each of
the selections she studies in her text (Canadian Literature 122). Because of this
psychological acceptance of U. S. terms of existence and experience, Robin Mathews
further postulates that Atwood "cannot read the literature, cannot read what much of
Canadian literature is saying" (122). Her "survival" thesis dictates that success in English
Canadian fiction "is the gaining of money or power" (122). For this reason, Atwood is
apparently unable to see what Mathews is referring to - when talking about struggle
literature - when he says that most Canadian writers (at least pre-1960), when writing
about success, see it as "the ability to work through adversity to a comprehension of
human purpose and human limitations" (122).17 Again, the statement is important
because it places Mathews' struggle literature squarely within the Canadian dialectic and
firmly roots it within a moral-philosophical base. The statement suggests that while
humankind may feel free to go after and achieve material ends, the "instruments of
modern technology" must be channeled towards communal ends (Canadian Literature

Russell M. Brown makes a similar observation about Atwood's text in his lengthy article "The Practice
and Theory of Canadian Thematic Criticism: A Reconsideration" published in the University of Toronto
Quarterly, Volume 70, 2001. Significantly, in this same article Brown notes that while Mathews' Canadian
Literature has "many limitations," it should nonetheless be praised because it "attempted to look at
Canadian literature" in an uncommon way at the time.
Appearing to prove Mathews right, Atwood states, when writing about the victim, that "we have to
consider the relationship between victim and society.... The thing about Canadian victims is that they tend
to be representative of society" ("Misrepresentation" 132).

42

67), ensuring a thriving of community and imagination. According to Mathews' struggle
literature, then, it would seem as if "success" implies an even greater moral character.
If English Canadian writers see "success" as more than the mere gathering of
money and see it as a "comprehension of human purpose and human limitations," then it
must be readily acknowledged that struggle literature, as it exists within Mathews'
Canadian dialectic, contains a strong moral element that is generally absent from most
other formulations of Canadian identity, including Margaret Atwood's. For Robin
Mathews, this "moral fact" as it were is what separates him, making him unique amongst
Canadian literary and cultural critics. In this, Mathews does not disappoint. Talking about
"struggle literature," dialectic and its relation to community, Mathews states: "English
Canadian writers are always interested in the kind of spiritual, material and social
participation that creates community. Canadians, therefore, undertake what is an antiimperialist rejection of the domineering 'other' even while attempting forms of
reconciliation" (Canadian Literature 1-2). Furthermore, "[t]he English Canadian writer,
not yet having broken through to a revolutionary consciousness which rejects the sell-out
compromise, often rejects, warns and yet attempts to reconcile within the same works"
(2). What that means is that the struggle literature creates something new out of a
reconciling of opposites. It works within the Canadian dialectic, combining, separating,
and overlapping. In that sense, Canadians can be said to be undertaking "an antiimperialist rejection" of the "other" even while attempting some sort of synthesis because
the very nature of Mathews' position demands this. In Mathews' words, "[fjacing the
United States as a large and powerful other, Canadians would take from it and add their
own structures of thought and creation rather than submit to it as centre in the face of

43
Canada as region or hinterland" (Treason 96). Significantly, Mathews is not doing what
Atwood and others have done with respect to literary and social forms; that is to say, he is
not adopting "elsewhere community" ideologies and applying them to Canada. To do
so, for Mathews, would be to delegitimize the Canadian community, enhancing the
colonial condition.
Clearly, for Robin Mathews, then, struggle literature involves a strong sense of
community; the individual becoming self-aware of his or her role in relation to the
community; a strong sense of concern; an anti-imperialist bent, and a need to reconcile
opposites. In Mathews' book of literary criticism, Canadian Literature, he names a
number of individuals whom he believes fairly represents his definition of Canadian
identity and experience: Major John Richardson (13-25), Susanna Moodie (27-44),
Charles G. D. Roberts (45-62), F. P. Grove (63-74), and Hugh MacLennan (75-90) are
named as major examples. Also named in the text, but studied to a far lesser degree, are
Stephen Leacock, William Kirby, Harold Innis and Irene Baird. To that list, it might also
be appropriate to list Mathews himself and another contemporary writer, Jacqueline
Baldwin.19 Mathews' reasoning for selecting these authors (and my reasoning for
including some) is that "[his] tendency is to look for quotations [and texts] that are
examples of recognition, decolonization and struggle - seeing Canada positively and
making space for its imagination" (124). In this regard, Stephen Leacock's Sunshine

18

Atwood does this with a trivialization of community: "There are certainly communities in Canadian
literature; so are there in almost all other literatures" ("Misrepresentation" 133). Similarly, GB Madison has
recently written (2000) that communitarianism in Canada is a mere "myth" because "multiculturalism and
communitarianism are at least as prominent on the American cultural scene as they are on the Canadian
scene" (73).
19
To cite just one example of Baldwin's, her poem "C'est la situation tragique." In this work, Baldwin
explores Canada's colonial condition with special reference to cultural items like music discs and film. The
clerk asks the speaker if the artist she seeks is "new" (line 5). Later, in the search for film, the speaker finds
Canadian movies "are displayed in an obscure corner / under a sign that reads: / 'foreign'" (40-42).

Sketches of a Little Town serves as a fine representative example, illustrating through
process, the functioning of Mathews' "struggle literature" through dialectic.
Of Leacock, Mathews writes, his humour "is ironic because it knows that
civilized virtue does not exist without an admixture of 'natural' energy - that the letter
and the spirit must somehow be reconciled.... [Leacock's] humour, moreover, insists
upon a whole view of life, and in doing so must recognize and manage the Wacousta in
our nature" (Canadian Literature 109-10). The statement clearly places Leacock within
Mathews' moral-philosophical outlook. It also places him squarely within the Canadian
dialectic and "struggle literature." At a more significant level, Mathews is pointing out
that Leacock, much like the other "struggle" writers listed above, fully realizes that
material success should not be the driving force within the Canadian ethos, a point also
made by David Lynch (131). It does need to be noted, too, that when Mathews is
referring to "the spirit," he is not necessarily referring to God; therefore, "the spirit" is
not "an escape from society, a flight to idealism. Living in the spirit had to involve the
building of the highest possible civilization" (Canadian Literature 68). In that sense,
Leacock's defense against unrestricted individualism is not only a turn to a much more
"conservative" ideology, but also a selective recovery of past events because if one were
to forget the past, the meaning of life and preservation of the self within the community
would be lost forever much like that "little Town in the Sunshine that once we knew"
(Leacock, Sunshine Sketches 156). While Leacock's conclusion here is somewhat
idealistic, it is still representative of Mathews' struggle literature because the narrator, the
"I," fully realizes by the end of the text, "L'Envoi: The Train to Mariposa," that he must

accept a compromise between the town and the city in order to advance morally and
meaningfully in relation to the community.
While Stephen Leacock may have been writing about a specific region and place
(a thinly disguised Orillia, Ontario), his themes were universal in the sense that they can
be applied (with some modification) to other areas of Canada, something Mathews says is
true of most "classics": "These experiences are universal.... We can know the
uniqueness of our own society only when we come to understand our own genius and can
read our own classics" (Canadian Literature 9). Mathews also recognizes that pre-1960,
"writers were unashamedly regional without rejecting a necessary national centre"
(Treason 175). In other words, most English Canadian writers pre-1960 wrote about
region, but did so with recourse to the larger national community, realizing that they
could find and understand his or her full identity only in conjunction with the larger
Canadian community and its moral language demanding compromise. Thus, when
Margaret Atwood accuses Robin Mathews of completely manufacturing his concept of
"struggle literature," referencing Leacock's Sunshine Sketches, as an example of its nonexistence,20 one is left fairly baffled because Mathews himself acknowledges a certain
strain of regionalism inherent in the struggle literature, which is, for the most part, a
byproduct of the Canadian dialectic itself.
While the approaches of Mathews and Atwood differ significantly both in design
and methodology, the two critics do nonetheless share some affinities. For example, both
have realized and agreed in a general sense that Canada went from being a British colony
to a colony of the U. S. A. ("Canada-US Relations" 377; Intellectual Tradition 97), both
20

According to Atwood, Leacock does not qualify as a candidate for "struggle literature" because of his
"condescension and portraits of quaint provincials" ("Misrepresentation" 141).

have pointed out that the United States only sees its nationalism as "good" while
Canadian nationalism (and the nationalisms of other countries) is often perceived to be
"communist" ("Canada-US Relations" 388; "Canadian Responses to U.S. Torture"), both
have agreed that there is a need to define and articulate a uniquely Canadian identity, and
in articulating that, both work within the broad dialectical framework argued for by
Mathews. Nevertheless, even in these similarities there are differences to be noted. In
terms of the idea of "Canada as colony," Atwood sees the U. S. influence as coming
much more from cultural items like comic books and magazines whereas Mathews
blames U. S. policies and Canadian "compradors"21 in general. Similarly, in terms of the
question of Canadian identity both Mathews and Atwood differ on how to read the
Canadian literary landscape. While Mathews concurs that there is a "literature of
surrender" and that "survivalism" is important (Canadian Literature 129), he does not
agree that they should be the defining "myths" in Canada or that the Canadian literary
identity should be defined by myth alone. Rather, he tends to view Canadian literature
and society in dialectical terms; that is to say, he sees Canadian society and literature as
being defined by a sort of conflict between individualism and communitarianism - a
battle between those who see the reality of peoples being defined by the release of the
individual (as a sort of Epicurean atom) into society to do as he or she sees fit and those
individuals who believe that the commonweal secures and benefits one and all. Atwood,
on the other hand, does not explicitly acknowledge the Canadian dialectic, which is not to
suggest that her views are wrong, but to point out that Mathews' theory is valuable

"Compradors" are those individuals born in the native country who, in one way or another, seek to be in
an "elsewhere" community - here in Canada that community being the United States.

47

exactly because it does not deny the validity of Atwood's myth. Instead, it is flexible and
incorporates it.
Having said that, the view advocated by Mathews is appealing because not only
does it ask difficult questions, but it also allows for both sides of the Canadian dialectic to
have a voice and engage in meaningful dialogue with one another. The dialectical view
does not set out to misrepresent ideas, nor is it "just interested in defining [its] own purity
as opposed to the evils of everybody else" (Twigg 129). In other words, the Canadian
dialectic, built as it is upon layers of meaning and past dialogue, recognizes that it is not
perfect and not without its problems, but as a practical tool in literary theory, it offers an
alternative view that places a greater emphasis upon the moral and social meaning in
literary texts.
On the surface of things, the Atwood-Mathews dialogue should give some
preliminary insights into the minds of both authors and how, despite some similarities,
the two differ in approach and ideology. At a deeper and more meaningful level,
however, the debate should illuminate the fact that "nationalism," as Mathews
understands it, is not necessarily narrow-minded nor is it a static concept. Instead, it has
been proven to be a very flexible concept with numerous meanings and connotations,
depending on how the concept is examined. Thus, it can be said that the Robin Mathews
and Margaret Atwood discussion reveals a great deal about the nature of the Canadian
dialectic. The dialogue between the two literary and social critics has illuminated the fact
that discussion and debate is important and that it is indeed acknowledged through the
process of dialectic itself. Further, the two literary critics advance the concept of a
forward-moving, inclusive and open nationalism and "Canadian identity" through a

48
process of moral-philosophical debate, refusing to foreclose the question of identity.
Indeed, it is here - within the "third space" provided by the Canadian dialectic - that the
real value of the Mathews-defined Canadian dialectic can be found: it provides a valid
space through which Canadians can study and analyze movements and theories within a
Canadian space without completely closing off the possibility of including outside
theories and influence.

CHAPTER III: Robin Mathews, Postmodernism and Postmodern Nationalism
The preceding chapters have shown Robin Mathews to be a significant figure in
Canadian literary and cultural life in the 1960s and 1970s, and have shown his "Canadian
dialectic" to have some theoretical value. The following chapter examines Mathews and
his theoretical framework in light of recent developments in literary theory. It takes the
form of a broad overview of Robin Mathews' theory in relation to postmodern ideas and
methodology. In stating that, the structure of this chapter is not so much "Mathews as
central" to the discussion; instead, Mathews' argument for the existence and importance
of the Canadian dialectic as it is expressed philosophically will serve as a framework in
relation to various representative postmodern thinkers, illustrating the overall value of
Mathews as moral corrective.
The Mathews-defined Canadian dialectic is still highly significant in the
postmodern ethos because it offers a potential framework in which Canadian specifics are
deemed an essential element. In particular, in shifting to international theories of
literature without due diligence shown to place and situation, Canadian history and its
cultural differences get lost. The shift to postmodern theories helps to explain how and
why Mathews and his dialectical approach have diminished in importance with respect to
the study of Canadian literature. Whereas Robin Mathews might have played a key and
pivotal role in the 60s and 70s when questions about nationalism and "Canadian identity"
were at their peak, the shifting to postmodernism has necessitated a turning away from
Mathews and his ideas in favour of those ideas seen as being without borders or
"universal." Therefore, in a very real sense, Mathews and his brand of what might be
termed "moral nationalism" loses significance exactly because it places its emphasis,

first, on a specific place (Canada) before moving to the international arena. Again,
Mathews and his Canadian dialectic - as intertwined as it is with a sense of concern for
national place - can be seen as a sort of "corrective" to postmodern theories as they are
related to Canada through the work of literary theorist Linda Hutcheon.
Granted the malleability of the term "postmodernism," it is perhaps necessary to
arrive at some kind of understanding of its premises and implications. In her text, The
Politics of Postmodernism, literary theorist Linda Hutcheon traces the beginnings of the
postmodern discourse to the late 1960s, suggesting that it was a sort of offshoot and
continuation of the revolutionary spirit of the times and that it was also a conscious
rejection of modernism. She defines postmodernism as "self-conscious, selfcontradictory, self-undermining" and working to "de-naturalize some of the dominant
features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience
as 'natural' (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism) are in fact
'cultural'; made by us, not given to us" (1-2). In Reading Canadian Reading, Frank
Davey defines what he calls "sociological postmodernism" as being characterized by
"fragmentation and multiplication, by the relativity of authority, by the problematic
growth of global 'multi-national' structures which paradoxically both alienate local
humanity . . . and demand its assent and participation" (106). Within the literary sphere,
Davey suggests that this postmodernism is "characterized by a multiplicity of aesthetics
and discourses, by decentred, discontinuous forms, by process rather than structures"
(106). E. Ann Kaplan makes a further distinction between two types of different (yet
related) forms of postmodernism. Kaplan defines what she calls "utopian"
postmodernism as being a type of postmodernism that "involves a movement of culture

51
and texts beyond oppressive binary categories" (4), and she defines what she terms "coopted" postmodernism as "radically transforming the subject through its blanketing of
culture. Inside is no longer separate from outside; private cannot be opposed to public
space; high or avant-garde culture no longer stands in stark contrast to the all-consuming
popular" (4). The Marxist critic Frederic Jameson, in contrast to Hutcheon, Davey,
Kaplan, suggests that postmodernism is "a periodizing concept whose function is to
correlate the emergence of the new formal features in the culture with the emergence of a
new type of social life and a new economic order" (15). Speaking from a democratic
socialist position, Robin Mathews has suggested that postmodernism "is a secular attempt
to find a basis for reality in a rejection of all former 'grand narratives,' 'meta-narratives,'
and other apparently superimposed . .. explanations for social structure, belief, and
meaning" (Intellectual 56). In other words, postmodernists deconstruct traditional beliefs,
literary myths, and concepts that have supposedly provided "totalizing" views of Canada
- "views that assume logical meaning can be given to history and event" (56). In terms of
the Canadian dialectic, the above mentioned points are significant because they allude to
an often un-stated fact which implies that postmodernism as a theory sits outside of the
dialectical forces - outside of history. It does this in its attempt to question "both" sides
of the Canadian dialectic. However, even given these shortcomings, Robin Mathews emphasizing dialectic - does not outright dismiss postmodernism. Perhaps seeing
potential in the theories, he states that postmodernism(s) can be "stimulating and
informative" (Intellectual 56). In a sense, then, Mathews' criticisms of postmodernisms
are not so much to de-legitimize the theories, but simply to illustrate and emphasize
theoretical differences within the Canadian dialectic - moral-philosophical

52
(communitarian) and individualist-postmodern.
The various and varying definitions above give a glimpse into the contradictory
and paradoxical world that is the postmodern. While postmodernism does have many
attractive qualities that can be said to play an integral role in the Canadian dialectic
(particularly its use of subversive humour, Hutcheon's historiographic metafiction and
significant use of intertextuality), the definitions reveal a number of un-stated premises
about postmodernism (especially the latter two), namely that it is a homogenizing
metanarrative, that it is ideologically political and therefore advocates a certain world
view while consciously excluding others, and that it does not really place history within a
historical context. In contrast to the contradictions listed above, the Mathews definition of
"Canadian dialectic" has much to offer in terms of stability. For example, Robin
Mathews does not deny the fact that his vision is based on ideology ("Canada, as / see it
(my worldview) has always been defined by a conflict between individualism and
communitarianism" [Intellectual 45, emphasis added]), nor does he exclude other voices
from shaping the Canadian dialectic and its processes because the very nature of the
concept denies the ability to eliminate, demonstrated in the previous chapter. Perhaps
most significantly, Mathews, in contrast to postmodernism, situates history within a
specific place; that is to say, Canadian specifics are not erased and Canada's unique place
in history is acknowledged when considering Canadian history and culture (Identity 2330). For Mathews, this situating of the self within a specific place and space is of
significant importance because for him it "forces us to recognize a fundamental
consciousness in Canada of unique relation between the individual, the community" and
the "human condition" (Canadian Literature 63). There is no doubt that this is, in some

53
respects, an idealist statement, but it is a statement that Mathews wants to be taken
seriously. He wants it to be taken seriously because it points towards those areas philosophical, moral and specific - of meaning that construct and give life to Canada and
Canadian identity - areas that current postmodern analysis displaces.
Perhaps a part of the problem comes from the very term "postmodernism" itself.
As "postmodernism" the concept is singular, speaking about a single "postmodernism," a
single theoretical critical school. To critics like Hutcheon, it is strictly an aesthetic
concept concerned with art as self-reflexive, art as conscious of its constructed nature, art
as political parody, and art as critical to authority. For Davey, postmodernism is all of
those things Hutcheon describes and it is also related to the growth of multinational or
transnational corporations, implying a sort of periodization. For Kaplan postmodernism is
all of the above in two separate forms (Utopian and co-opted), and Jameson sees it
specifically as a periodizing concept, as a form of the capitalist homogenizing that
postmodernism claims to deconstruct.
For Mathews, the postmodern project places itself outside of social history when
it displaces the "grand-narratives" of society, displacing social meaning and embracing
unencumbered fragmentation of society and the individual as he or she is related to that
society. This is made clear when he suggests that the postmodern "disconnects from
sources of humane evaluation as traditional anchors of value are dislodged, and it permits
at best trivialization of values, at worst outrageous human desecration" (Treason 18).
Whereas the dialectic, as defined by Mathews, refuses to "disconnect from sources of
humane evaluation" exactly because it works within a moral framework and therefore
does not endorse fragmentation or a re-writing of language. It does this because Robin

Mathews, being on the "left" side of the Canadian dialectic, and working within a
nationalist discourse, recognizes the inherent dangers of re-writing language, erecting
new meaning. For Mathews and the vision he represents, if language (and social
meaning) is declared "bankrupt," it becomes "an inadequate instrument with which to
formulate the reality of Being now" {Treason 76). Therefore, without a stable base upon
which to place meaning, "evaluation - and . . . meaningful response - become
impossible" (76). Because of this - the recognition of the importance of Canadian place,
history and culture - Mathews offers a progressive alternative to postmodern theory.
One of the unstated problems of postmodern theories makes itself visible: that it is
in fact its own metanarrative. Time and time again in the literature, statements such as
these are seen: "[postmodernism] often presents radical philosophical and political
concepts . . . " (Deer 9), "post-modern[ism] may be a perednovok"

(Onufrijchuk 3), " . . .

postmodernism may perform its enlightening magic" (Canadian Postmodern 12), "The
postmodern . . . searches for new presentations, not in order to enjoy them but in order to
impart a stronger sense of the unpresentable" (Lyotard 79-81). Postmodernisms, in
contrast with the much more antiquated modernism (or any other social theory or
movement), present views that are revolutionary in their liberating, deconstructionist
ways with reference to all of the grand or metanarratives, binarisms, imposed
superstructures and colonialism and gender relations. But postmodernism in taking on
such importance in the universities has no doubt marginalized those views that believe in
social and communal agency and that therefore believe that society and its traditions
(whatever those may be) have socially agreed upon meaning. In place of such solid
22

A perednovok being "a time in the spring when food stored for the winter is gone, yet the winter wheat is
only just turning the fields a promising green" (Onufrijchuck 3-4). Postmodernism is thus seen in a
promising light, bringing something new and wonderful along the horizon.

55
concepts - real objects and relations - the postmodernists place abstract ones, essentially
arguing that all is relative. With imperialism denied in the form of postcolonial and
gender relations, such ideas, based as they are in history and culture, can be replaced by
abstract ideas that perhaps redeem the imperialist cause. Indeed, it is observations such as
these that have allowed Ziauddin Sardar, offering a non-Western perspective on
postmodernism, to comment: "postmodernism avoids, by glossing over, the politics of
non-western marginalisation [sic] in history by suddenly discovering Otherness
everywhere, and arguing that everything has its own kind of Otherness by which it
defines itself (13). In other words, the vast and complex cultures of the "Other" - that is,
of non-western societies - becomes homogenized within the theory of postmodernism,
becoming "simply a new wave of domination riding on the crest of colonialism and
modernity" (Sardar 13). This point is significant because it points to a problem inherent
in the postmodern project that is often ignored. That problem is that, rather than
supporting a diversity of views, of "Otherness" (in its numerous nuances and meanings),
postmodernisms - because of its own theoretical structures - adopt such terms for its own
ideological usage showing that the term itself is without significant meaning. As all
things are considered relative, so too is the identity of the non-western "Other." A
similar point is made by Warren Montag when he suggests that postmodernism is a
crypto return to totalization in the form of "a mode of exposition" that is problematic
because the various "overviews" created by critics like Lyotard and Hutcheon on
postmodernism "are situated at such a great distance from the diverse objects they seek to
describe that real specificities resolve into one blurred, harmonious totality" (91-92).
Robin Mathews echoes this observation when he comments on postmodernist

56
methodology: "The methods of the post-modernists, generally, reduce distinction, erase
moral factors, and relativize information" {Treason 34). These key observations work on
two interrelated levels. First, Sardar, Montag and Mathews all point out that social elites
(the academic class) are prescribing models to de-naturalize, deconstruct and undermine
various metanarratives. Second, and metaphorically speaking, the vast distance from "the
people" clouds judgment. Most academics are socially and financially so far from the
people they attempt to speak for (appropriating their voices), that difference becomes
indivisible. Third, the methods employed by postmodernism are generally outside of
society in some transcendental space, denying its very role in the creation of a
metanarrative designed to end all metanarratives and create a world of fragmented and
baseless individualism; or, in Linda Hutcheon's words: "[postmodernism] does not reject
or exemplify, lament or celebrate, the result of our decentralized, post-industrial,
communications-obsessed age. It does both - and neither" {Canadian Postmodern 183).
Postmodernism thus seeks to question the self as it is defined by culture and society; that
is, the self in culture as being some kind of coherent and unified whole. Of course, if
postmodernism "laments" and "celebrates" the current age while doing "neither," that
implies that it is without ideological loyalties and that it does not advocate a certain
political position, which is clearly not the case as Mathews, in his The Treason of the
Intellectuals: English Canada in the Post-Modern Period makes all too clear.
One of the stated and sometimes unstated claims of postmodernists is that they are
outside of ideology - without political loyalties. The very fact that some postmodernists
will admit to ideology while others deny it, some might claim, is just a part of the

After all, one could hardly call academics, professors and well-known authors of postmodern theories an
"average" citizen.

57
postmodern paradox and "playfulness." Many critics of postmodernism have noted this
tendency to contradiction, including Glenn Deer. In his book, Postmodern Canadian
Fiction and the Rhetoric of Authority, Deer notes that postmodernists in Canada and
elsewhere are "distrustful of political conservatism, or indeed, distrustful ofpolitics in
general" (9, emphasis added). The fact that postmodernists are distrustful of "political
conservatism" should indicate the political ideology postmodernists are generally loyal
to. That ideology would rightly be called "liberal individualist" in the terms set forth by
Mathews. However, many postmodernists will still deny any political loyalties. For
instance, "Mr Canadian Postmodern" (Canadian Postmodern 160), Robert Kroetsch has
said that he is "quite aware of being without ideology" (Neuman and Wilson 33).
Similarly, Linda Hutcheon has avoided politics by claiming that postmodernism can do
"both" and "neither" in its analysis (Canadian Postmodern 183). Frank Davey, on the
other hand, while seemingly recognizing the contradiction,

still offers a position that

escapes direct political implication when he says that there is not a "direct
correspondence between style and politics but that style necessarily has political
implications whether or not these come under an author's conscious control" (Reading
Canadian Reading 44). It is thus implied by Davey that the author of the text is not
completely responsible for what he or she writes, further highlighting a point made by
Mathews earlier when he suggested that postmodernists escape moral implication with
their methodologies. Tellingly, though, Hutcheon states in The Politics of Postmodernism
that postmodernism is inherently political exactly because of its realization that all forms
are ideological and therefore cannot avoid being engrossed in political issues. She then
24

Writing about ideology in Reading Canadian Reading, Davey later says that "All writing is informed by
ideology [and] . . . any argument that 'good' literature is non-ideological will normally serve to divert
attention from its ideological indicators" (71).

58
states that the belief that the postmodern is non-political or absence of ideology is
"politically naive, and, in fact, quite impossible to take in the light of the actual art of
postmodernism" (3). Hutcheon is indeed right here. The postmodern is inherently
political, but not for the reasons she suggests (i.e.: that the postmodern is grounded in
history and culture); rather, it is political exactly because it presents itself as sort of antiideological. Adopting a very liberal position without openly admitting it allows
postmodern theories to "have the appearance of progressive radicalism at every point but
the ones in which challenge class, capitalism, and imperialism" (Mathews 36).
Paradoxically, it might even be possible to agree with the postmodernists when they
claim to be non-political and without ideology because - as far as ideology as a concept
goes - the only form it takes is the most anti-political of all ideologies insofar as it is
agreed that ideologies in general refer to some form of social concepts of community or
individual as "free" within community: the liberal individualist ideology.
Postmodernism works within a liberal ethos that not only supports the continued
secularization of society but also its increasing fragmentation. This point is something the
Canadian philosopher George Grant foresaw when he wrote his Lament for a Nation back
in 1965: "the United States supports a large beat fringe. Joan Baez and Pete Seeger
titillate the status quo rather than threaten it. Dissent is built into the fabric of the modern
system. We bureaucratize it as much as everything else" (78). The status quo, built as it is
within the liberal ethos, has worked to smudge history and frame everything in false or
semi-false terms so as to suit the liberal capitalist project. That is why, for instance,
critics like Robin Mathews have suggested that the postmodern is ahistorical in its
research. On numerous occasions, he points out, postmodernists smudge and appropriate

history to suit their needs while at the same time - especially in Canada -work to deny
the existence of American imperialism. To that end, in contrast to the view(s) offered by
postmodernism, Mathews and his definition of Canadian dialectic as it relates to history
and identity clearly situate literary and theoretical study within the specific Canadian
place. Indeed, this is significant in terms of offering an alternative to postmodern
paradigms of thought because, as Mathews writes, "For the Canadian, a reasonably
strong sense of self grows from a reasonably perceived sense of place" (Canadian
Literature 222). In other words, when theories are situated within a specific place - in
dialectic - Canadian history and identity grow and flower, increasing relevance to
researchers and enhancing a sense of Canadian pride.
Within the Canadian context, Linda Hutcheon provides an excellent
representative example of postmodern ahistoricism while Mathews works as her counterforce on the "leftist" side of the Canadian dialectical spectrum. For example, in the first
few pages of The Canadian Postmodern, Linda Hutcheon not only ignores the existence
of American imperialism, but she begins with the odd claim that "The 1960s are
generally accepted as the years that saw the flowering of Canadian fiction" (1). This date
is questionable at best and is arbitrary. This has been pointed out by a number of critics,
some of whom are postmodernists themselves. For instance, Frank Davey has noted
many authors in "prefaces" (he includes himself in this group) have, in one way or
another, announced that Canadian literature has somehow matured and "flowered" from
the period of the 1960s onwards (Reading Canadian Reading 253-54, 264). Similarly,
Stephen Henighan has pointed out that while it is true that after the 1960s more
Canadians were writing, publishing, and living off of their writing, "To claim that this

signals an advance for literature (as Toronto-based commentators are fond of doing) is to
confuse art with commerce" (165, emphasis added). Reading the selection of the year
1960 from a Mathewsian perspective, it becomes clear that selecting the 1960s as the
"flowering" point for Canadian literature allows Hutcheon to downplay those Canadian
fictions and authors not associated with the liberal individualist side of the Canadian
dialectic. As a result, gone from her study (or hardly mentioned) are people like Susanna
Moodie and Stephen Leacock, to name just two well-known Canadian authors. No doubt
Hutcheon is relying here on the assumption that it was not until the 1960s that Canada
received a national consciousness - especially after the Centennial Celebrations of 1967 and began to create a "national" literature, inserting people like Leacock and Moodie into
the "canon" only retroactively,25 but to do this is to denigrate the accomplishments of
those who came before the postmodern period; that is to say, the preceding generations
are viewed as being a mere process towards the setting up of the postmodern. If Hutcheon
had said that the 1960s was the "flowering" point of Canadian postmodern fiction, she
would be right. In choosing the authors she does for study, Hutcheon is unintentionally
prizing those "mainstream" writers who take their cue from literary models that are
completely alien to the Canadian experience - a danger that has been pointed out by
numerous critics.26 Therefore, it may be said that Hutcheon is manifesting "a depressing

See Sara M. Corse's Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United
States. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997, chapter three.
26
Ironically again, Frank Davey, a fellow postmodernist, points out the danger of applying critical theories
developed in other countries to Canada without due regard for social and cultural circumstance: "Most of
Canadian literary criticism .. . view[s] the critical theory activities of other countries as occurring in some
academically pristine dimension uncontaminated by interests or contention" {Reading Canadian Reading
8). Following such an "internationalist" perspective, these theories are seen to exist outside of a cultural
context, decontextualizing and dehistoricizing them. Martin Allor has pointed out something similar in his
article "Projective Readings: Cultural Studies from Here to There" in which he states that using theories in
this way cut them off "from the specific political and epistemological debates in which they emerged"
(135), forcing Canadian experience to fit the imported theory.

61
alienation from Canada and an equally depressing enthusiasm to identify with U.S. [and
Continental] imperialist ideas" exactly because she applies the theories she uses without
due regard being paid to the Canadian historical experience {Treason 10). That is to say,
Hutcheon, in applying the theories as she does to Canadian texts, fails to acknowledge
that there is an "other" view - ignores the existence of dialectic in Canadian experience.
Indeed, the various ways postmodernism was defined above speaks volumes
about Mathews' assertion that postmodernisms in Canada and elsewhere generally tend
to shy away from traditional elements and history in their respective societies. To
reiterate a statement from earlier, while Hutcheon defined postmodernism above as being
"self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining" and working to "de-naturalize
some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we
unthinkingly experience as 'natural' (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy,
liberal humanism) are in fact 'cultural'; made by us, not given to us" (1-2), she defines it
97

slightly differently for the Canadian context in The Canadian Postmodern:
[Postmodernism] would seem to designate art forms that are
fundamentally self-reflexive - in other words, art that is self consciously
art (or artifice), literature that is openly aware of the fact that it is written
and read as part of a particular culture, having as much to do with the
literary past as with the social present. Its use of parody to echo past works
signals its awareness that literature is made . . . out of other literature. (1)
On the surface of things, the new definition claims to want to be engaged in a serious way
with Canadian history, society and culture, offering perhaps a glimpse of light. But at the
27

It might be worth noting that even in the preceding definition Hutcheon seems unsure if postmodernism
can properly deal with the capitalist discourse and liberalism: "they might even include capitalism,
patriarchy, liberal humanism." The word "might" indicates the very unsure nature of Hutcheon's statement.

62
same time, Hutcheon silences this possibility by saying that her views on "history" are
fragmentary via her comments about the self-reflexivity of art (i.e.: historiographic
metafiction).28 Thus, Hutcheon not only upholds the ideological status quo within
Canada, but she obfuscates Canadian history and its dialectical foundational framework,
rejecting at the same time any sort of national framework upon which to work and base
some form of identity.
According to Robin Mathews, the very postmodern process of displacing
traditional values and meaning has significant implications for Canadian society and
history. He points out that it suggests, amongst other things, "a process of atomization in
society because people believe they are invited to shape their own value systems, and so,
in fact, it furthers the power of thug aristocracies" {Treason 18). The individual becomes
prized over and above the community, essentially embodying liberalist values while at
the same time denying a solid communal historical perspective. In contrast, the Canadian
dialectic as defined by Mathews prizes neither the individual nor the community, instead
seeing both entities as equal players in the cultural field while at the same time situating
both within a historical perspective.
One of the key criticisms often brought up by critics like Robin Mathews, then, is
the claim that postmodernism is "ahistorical" and that it is divorced from any real sense
of history. For example, while Linda Hutcheon claims at the outset of The Canadian
Postmodern to want to "deconstruct" imperial myths and traditions in Canadian literature,
she does not do what she says she will in that regard. She only acknowledges British
imperialism as having influence over Canada: "[Canadians] have first... had to
28

For instance, Hutcheon states that historiographic metafictions are those works that "are intensely selfreflective but that also both re-introduce historical context into metafiction and problematize the entire
question of historical knowledge (285-86).

63
deconstruct British social and literary myths in order to redefine their colonial history"
(6). In making this statement, Hutcheon does not address or even acknowledge the impact
of American imperialism and American cultural myths on Canada and Canadian fiction.
In so doing, she paints what can only be called a very Wordsworthian view of history,
acting as if there is no such thing as U.S. imperialism, despite the obvious fact that
American imperialism existed and exists in Canada, not only in literary form, but also in
numerous cultural and fiscal policies as well (Granatstein 50; Levitt 61-64; Resnick 97109). For this reason, Hutcheon ignores "what is potentially the most interesting aspect of
the Canadian post-modern [sic] - U.S dominance and influence" (Treason 40-1).
One last point about postmodernism's ahistoricism as it relates to the Mathewsian
dialectic and the Canadian context is necessary because it will highlight the claim
investigated above that modernism has much to learn from postmodernism
(demonstrating postmodernism's need to set itself apart from its predecessor). Again, in
The Canadian Postmodern, Linda Hutcheon states most clearly: "But gone now is the
modernist belief that art can really be autonomous or separate from the world.... For
many Canadian novelists, from Timothy Findley to Audrey Thomas, the act of making
fiction is an unavoidably ideological act" (10). This claim perhaps epitomizes
postmodernism's ahistoricism better than any other because it, again, places emphasis
upon Canadian literature written after the 1960s onwards as being superior to what had
gone before it. Indeed, Robin Mathews argues otherwise in Canadian Literature,
dedicating whole chapters to writers who wrote well before the 1960s (Major John
Richardson, Susanna Moodie, T. C. Haliburton, Hugh MacLennan, to name a few) about

64
explicitly political issues, creating what he termed the "social-political novel" (134).
Mathews is certainly not alone. Literary critic Larry McDonald, speaking more from the
communitarian side of the "Canadian dialectic," states the matter boldly when he says
that Hutcheon's claim "is an ahistorical travesty of modernism in Canada, which got a
late start and was shaped in the 1930s and 1940s" (43). McDonald goes on to note that
most of the Canadian writers who "led the break from residual Victorian conventions of
writing were deeply influenced by the Depression and by the Marxist challenge to
established ways of thinking and writing" (43). For example, FR Scott assisted in the
formation of the CCF partly because "the social decay of the Depression altered his ideas
about politics and economics" (Bennett and Brown 335). This change in perception had
also altered Scott's views on poetry, which came to reflect his socialist ideological
underpinnings. Poet Dorothy Livesay can also be included in this group because, much
like FR Scott, she was very active in the CCF and, as a result, her social democratic
leanings inevitably led her to write modernist poetry dealing specifically with what Robin
Mathews has referred to as the "location of real power" (Treason 10): poetry that
challenged the ideology of social and cultural relationships in Canada,31 pointing towards
the other side of the Canadian dialectic. Alex Callinicos makes very much the same point
(without the Canadian references) about postmodernism's attempt to carve out for itself a
distinct niche within the contemporary world, citing numerous examples of modernist
works that have engaged in political dialogue and a challenging of so-called

29

Mathews defines the social-political novel as being "a novel with a purpose. It may be a thesis novel
involving politics, religion or social theories. It may have as its basis party propaganda, ideological
advocacy, a desire for reform or the furtherance of policy" (Canadian Literature 134).
30
See for example FR Scott's poems "WLMK" and "Trans Canada."
31
See for example Livesay's "Letter from Canada" and "Improvisations on an Old Theme" or her 1947
publication, Poems for People.

65
metanarratives in their own way acknowledging the very pluralist world of which they
were/are a part (10-16). When Mathews (and others) suggest that postmodernism is
ahistorical, he is not necessarily suggesting that postmodernism is wrong; rather, he is
pointing towards the fact that place is essential when it comes to studying Canada (or any
other place). For instance, with respect to language as signifier of place, Mathews has
pointed out that it becomes useless as an "instrument of expression . . . when its
foundation of meaning is declared bankrupt" {Treason 75). For Hutcheon to imply that
Canadian modernists have much to learn from the Canadian postmodernists about how
writing "is an unavoidably ideological act is a claim that says more about
postmodernism's levelling accommodation of our history to foreign models than about
Canadian modernist poetics" (McDonald 44). Such a statement, no doubt, is one with
which Mathews would rightly agree because it emphasizes the fact that - according to
him - postmodernisms neglect not only the dialectical process, but "history" as specific
space.
When Robin Mathews is thus attacked in The Canadian Postmodern for
apparently making "a very common - if undefended and indefensible - claim that the .. .
postmodern is apolitical and ahistorical" (77), one would have to disagree. Robin
Mathews has pointed out that the postmodern is very much apolitical because it does not
take a firm stance on political issues {Treason 34) - something Hutcheon mentions
herself in both The Canadian Postmodern and The Politics of Postmodernism {Canadian
Postmodern 18; Politics 16). Attempting to have it both ways and attempting to
downplay postmodern ideological underpinnings, the postmodernist is forced into a form
of stasis whereby questions are asked, but no solid answers are given. While this still is a

66
form of argument within dialectical terms, it is the most apolitical of all ideologies
because it calls for the destruction of the traditional political process, of politically
meaningful questions. When Hutcheon attacks Mathews for claiming that postmodernism
is "ahistorical," Canadian history just does not bear this claim out (nor European history
as Callinicos has demonstrated). Rather than present her readers with a sense of historical
analysis, she instead presents them with a supposedly detached, "objective" view of
fragmented history whereby history serves as a mere backdrop for the postmodern. For
instance, because there is much ambiguity about the nature of a "Canadian" identity (i.e.:
whether it is regionalist, anti-American, political, multicultural), Hutcheon appropriates
this ambiguity to make a common rhetorical claim amongst literary (and some nonliterary) theorists: that history has been a mere process of setting up the postmodern.
Hutcheon states this in the following manner: "Canadian writers, then, may be primed for
the paradoxes of the postmodern by their history . .. and also by their split sense of
identity, both regional and national" (4).32
Thus, postmodernism attempts to paint itself through various complex arguments
as a new and liberating theory while at the same time downplaying its own homogenizing
tendencies. It similarly paints itself as being deeply concerned with historical analysis
and political culture while simultaneously denying these two concepts through its
position within the Canadian dialectic, undermining its own subverting tendencies
because it encourages and emphasizes the relationship of Canadian texts to transnational
theories. In doing this, the Canadian texts and culture become lost because they are

For a similar claim see Neuman and Wilson's interview with Robert Kroetsch (112); also, see Robert
Fulford's essay "A Post-Modern Dominion: The Changing Nature of Canadian Citizenship" in Belonging
where he talks about the constant shifting of Canadian meaning over the last few decades, resulting in
Canada becoming a "post-modern dominion" (118).

67
incorporated into these deconstructionist theories that are more cosmopolitan in scope in
comparison to the Canadian thematic criticism discussed earlier. Simply demonstrating as Hutcheon and others do - how numerous texts conform to various aspects of
postmodernist theory does nothing "to balance a legitimate sense of transcultural
similarity with a sense of cultural difference" (McDonald 49). In other words,
demonstrating conformance to an international set of postmodern theories does nothing to
temper a healthy "influence" or protect a certain level of cultural autonomy.
Given all that has been said, it is possible to conclude that just as postmodern
analysis (in whatever form it may take) seeks to deconstruct metanarratives of society
into atomistic pieces - essentially creating its own homogenous form of neo-liberal
ideology - so too does postmodernism dismiss Robin Mathews and other "leftist" critics
with a sleight of hand. In setting up its own binarism against nationalism (Dean 154;
Polan 51), postmodernists are able to reduce the complexity of Mathews' thought down
to that of a supposedly reactionary nationalist and anti-American. The underlying
assumption to this logic, though, is that since postmodernism seeks to remove all
metanarratives, Mathews and his theoretical framework should be dismissed. To that end,
since he writes from the left side of the dialectic in Canada, those terms associated with it
should also be erased from the socio-cultural vocabulary. While Robin Mathews may
have occasionally been referenced in works of the past, he is largely absent within
postmodernist discourse because his work is politically ideological and therefore part of a
metanarrative (something Mathews does not deny). Gone from postmodern views of
Mathews is the complexity of the Canadian dialectical process in which he works and
articulates being, the theory underpinning it, and the values he fights for. But to all of

68
this, Mathews and other critics who follow his ideological line could say, following John
Pocock, that the various fragmented pluralities advocated by postmodernists "while
conceding that each and every allocation of allegiance is partial, contingent, and
provisional, is denying one the freedom to make a final commitment which determines
one's identity, and that is plainly the post-modern danger" (47). While postmodernists
thus advocate fragmentation and inclusion at the same time, Mathews can rightly ask
what this inclusion actually means, what sort of substance is behind the idea? Can there
be inclusion within a society that has become atomized and particular? In order for any
sort of national community to exist, there must be some sort of universality; otherwise
what exactly is it that the marginalized voices postmodern theory claims to speak to
trying to gain entry? It is here where Mathews has something to offer. In pointing
towards potential problems within postmodernism, the Mathews-defined Canadian
dialectic implies, overall, that while Canadian writers and theorists may borrow from
postmodern and U. S. theories of place and region, they should not "submit to it as
centre" nor should they accept such theories as "universal truth" because "to do so would
be a lie and would deny Canadian reality and integrity" (Treason 96). Robin Mathews
offers a ground upon which to theorize what is lost by the shift to postmodernism that is
not offered or evident in the various models and variations of postmodernism mentioned
here. In advocating research and theory with a Canadian base that does not exclude the
"influence" of outside theories, the Canadian dialectic can be said to offer a valid
nationalist perspective in contrast to the more "cosmopolitan" view advocated by
postmodernism.

CHAPTER 4: SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS
The inherent complexity of Robin Mathews' work and ideas is revealed through
an examination of the Canadian dialectic, which itself illustrates how various forces in
Canada work to create some semblance of a Canadian identity. This dialectic as shown
through an analysis of the Margaret Atwood and Robin Mathews dialogue and a look at
postmodernism is far from being monolithic and exclusivist; rather, as a positive
corrective to individualism, survivalism and ahistoricism, the Canadian dialectic has
shown itself to be a very malleable concept, allowing for a wide variety of positions but
demanding a foregrounding of specific place within Canadian history, identity and
literature. Frank Davey - of whom Mathews is well aware - has suggested that a
dialectical vision of society is "bi-polar" (Reading 47), and therefore, by its very nature,
oppositional. For him, "The conflicts among ideologies," therefore, "are not strictly
dialectical" (47). Yet, as has been shown, a dialectical vision is not inherently
oppositional. There are, after all, numerous small nuances and shades in political
ideologies. The Canadian dialectic's very design makes dialogue, debate and compromise
a pre-requisite. At an even more significant level, it is through such a structure that the
real value to Canada becomes self-evident: while the construction of the political and
ideological production of texts is hardly considered a Canadian innovation (something
Mathews never denies), he does argue that the Canadian dialectic - through creating two
separate yet interrelated readings of texts - articulates something "new" and relevant to
Canadian experience. Mathews' definition of a Canadian dialectic and its importance to
Canada and Canadian history would lose its shape and meaning if one side of the
dialectic were to significantly overpower the other.

70
What Mathews and his idea of a Canadian dialectic demonstrate, amongst other
things, then, is that it is possible to work within a moral theoretical framework that does
not wholly rely on imported theories like those of postmodernism. It also clearly
illustrates that nationalism is still a viable concept in contemporary Canada within a
theoretical and practical context. To that end, Mathews and his critical texts can still
teach the curious Canadian and international scholar a great deal about this country, its
attitudes, psychology, culture and history.
In that sense, the overall importance of the Canadian dialectic can be summarized
as follows: In adopting and modifying a classic Marxist term to suit the Canadian
situation, Robin Mathews has articulated a stable theoretical framework that acts as a sort
of counter-measure to culturally pervasive positions.
The chapter dealing specifically with the Atwood and Mathews dialogue, for
instance, focused primarily on the importance of thematic criticism in relation to the
concept of Canadian nationalism and identity. Throughout the discussion, emphasis was
placed on the very different nature of nationalism in Canada according to Mathews and
Atwood, creating what might rightly be called "nationalisms" in Canada. The dialogue, in
using the Canadian dialectical perspective, illuminated the two critics' points of view as it
relates to thematic criticism in Canadian literature. Through the process of dialectic,
Mathews was able to develop a concept of thematic criticism (through his book Canadian
Literature: Surrender or Revolution) that allowed Canadians to study in a specific
geographical space at the same time as it allowed for the "influence" of other literary
methodologies. In demonstrating such a point, Mathews and his dialectic re-enforced the
importance of political "values" in relation to place. Lastly, the chapter on

71
postmodernisms demonstrated how and why Mathews, while a very important figure in
the 1960s and 1970s, has become less prominent in recent years. Yet, at the same time as
the Canadian dialectic suggests reasons for Mathews' less significant role in Canadian
literature, it also alludes to how the Canadian dialectic and Mathews can still be of
"value" in the modern day.
Given that Mathews' theory is that of a Canadian dialectic of a certain bent,
inherent within this concept is an assumption of dialogue, debate and synthesis. This
synthesis, while providing a stable "third space" within which to articulate Canadian
experience as interpreted by Mathews, also works towards elaborating upon its role with
respect to alternative theories to dialectic. For example, in the "Introduction" of this
project, the synthesis was used to explain the communal nature of Mathews' world views
and elaborate upon how "nationalism" could still be seen as a valuable concept in the
modern era. In particular, the theory introduced the Mathews communitarianism as being
one that worked within a moral-philosophical framework, suggesting that while people
themselves are agents in society contributing to the whole, the people themselves
consciously or unconsciously agree that certain value-laden principles are necessary for
the realization of a common, yet different sense of identity. This paradox of dialectic, it
was suggested, was what held community together. Yet, at the same time, this holding
together of community also acknowledged that individualism has just as much a right to
existence and debate - a point made tellingly clear by Robin Mathews and his abstract
notion of Canadian place within the individual. With this acknowledgement, the
dialectical theory - as argued by Mathews - attempts to "awaken" peoples into realizing
that the Canadian dialectic itself exists.

72
The title of Robin Mathews' 1978 book of literary criticism Canadian Literature:
Surrender or Revolution is useful in summarizing what the Canadian dialectic does in
terms of being a corrective. At the conclusion of this text, Mathews ends on what can
only be called a very militant note. Discussing the need for Canadians to wake up out of
their colonial slumber, Mathews writes that a "revolution - violent and/or other" may be
needed {Canadian Literature 228). Granted, this is an extreme position (and historically
dated), but if one reads into Mathews, it makes perfect sense. For example, as he pointed
out in a recent e-mail, the Canadian dialectic, in his view, "is a war because people define
themselves by what they think the world outside them is all about and what a true
definition of the individual human being is" ("9 April 08"). If people "define themselves"
by the world they see outside, and the Canadian dialectic is largely absent from such an
interpretation, it stands to reason that there is no imperial war being fought. This, of
course, is where the Canadian dialectic comes in and is emphasized, pointing out that
"other" side in the literature and culture. Indeed, this was the point of Chapter III of the
thesis project which dealt mostly with postmodernisms. The intent was not to prove
postmodernisms "wrong," but simply to rearticulate the role of dialectic as alternative,
complimentary, and previously under-represented modes of thought.
In stating that, it must be emphasized that what Mathews is advocating when he
suggests that Canadians need to ground themselves in Canadian experience is not that it
is "wrong" to study and apply international theories to other contexts. In fact, Robin
Mathews would be one of the first to point out that to limit oneself to the study of one's
own country is a very parochial activity. The Canadian dialectic, as it has been

73

articulated, welcomes outside "influence," but points towards the dangers of downright
"dominance."
What has been written, however, has only begun the long task of, in Russell
Brown's words, "resuscitating Mathews" ("Canadian Literature"). There is still much
work to be done. Still left largely untouched are the many books of poetry by Robin
Mathews, his short fiction, letters, and his colourful academic career. When Mathews
wrote his Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution, he was recognized as having
done something very uncommon (and still uncommon) - providing a view of literature
grounded in politics, culture, economics, and history. In doing that, Mathews not only
questioned many of the socio-political assumptions of the day, but he also provided a sort
of corrective in his critique of the inherent relationship between literature and politics via
a moral framework of dialectic. This dialectical structure is often missing from literary
and cultural analysis here at the start of the twenty-first century.
When Robin Mathews is eventually freed of his rhetoric, perhaps he will one day
be granted significant inclusion in literary and cultural works like W.H. New's A History
of Canadian Literature where he currently receives a cursory and largely forgettable
mention (171). After all, it usually turns out to be those marginalized voices in society
that prove to be amongst the most valuable, since innovation and originality tend to begin
at the periphery. Robin Mathews recognizes this all too important fact. He has, in his
various books of cultural and literary criticism, written - and continues - to write about
the importance of those marginalized voices. In Mathews' words, Canadians "have
engaged in major arguments and major collisions of values that are recognizable as

74

certain kinds of basic philosophical differences about the definition of humankind and
human community. That is what I have called the Canadian Dialectic" (Intellectual 223).

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