Margaret Atwood Vs Robin Mathews: Canadian Identity

Robin Mathews was, in the 1960s, an important Canadian poet, also. He had, by 1972, published five books of poetry. The Plink Savoir (1962), Plus Ca Change (1964), This Time, This Place (1965), This Cold Fist (1969) and Air 7 (1972) meant that he and Atwood had published almost the same amount of books of poetry. Milton Acorn (not one to go out of his way to laud other poets) said of Mathews in his introduction to Robin Mathews’, Language of Fire: Poems of Love and Struggle (1976) this rather telling and not to be forgotten insight. ‘I’m not saying Robin Mathews is yet nearly as good as he’s going to be. But he’s so far ahead of the ruck, right now, that if he wanted to look back at them , he’d have to use binoculars’. Acorn never said such fine and kind things about Margaret Atwood, it should be duly noted.

Robin Mathews emerged on the Canadian national scene, with much firmness, force and vigor, with James Steele in 1969 with the controversial publication of The Struggle for Canadian Universities. Both the research for the book, and the publication of it, created a national stir that lit up a bonfire of diverse reactions. The core argument of The Struggle for Canadian Universities was that it was most difficult for Canadians to get jobs (even though they were equally qualified with others) in Canadian universities. The detailed research of Mathews and Steele’s indicated that those from England or the USA would be given preferential treatment in Canada, and Canadians would, for the most part, be subordinate colonial serfs to their imperial masters either across the water or to the south of us. Mathews and Steele were at the forefront and centre of a rising nationalist and post colonial Canadian ethos, and The Struggle for Canadian Universities was a counter cultural tract for the times. Robin Mathews was, in the late 1960s, in the trenches and the thick of the fray, when it came to raising the question of Canadian identity. Mathews and Steele made it clear that Canadians were not going to be colonials that genuflected to imperial masters, and public education was an area and arena where this issue had to be fought out. If the new generation of Canadians knew who they did not want to be, the question that arose was this: who do you want to be? What, in essence, is the Canadian way and identity?

The publication of The Struggle for Canadian Universities was but the start and a primer for a much bigger battle Mathews was about to wage with the Canadian literary establishment. Our present poet laureate, George Bowering, won the GG Award in 1970. George Bowering’s teacher at UBC was Warren Tallman (an American), and Tallman was on the selection committee that chose Bowering for the prestigious award. Tallman, in the 1960s, went the extra mile to invite all sorts of avante garde American poets to UBC and SFU to strut their wares. Canadian poets were made to feel that if their poetic style and content did not echo, ape and imitate the vision and view of the American Beats and Black Mountain School, they were somehow inferior. Many Canadians were convinced, in 1970, that Milton Acorn would win the GG award, and they were shocked that Bowering was offered the laurel wreath. Acorn’s brilliant book of poetry, I’ve Tasted My Blood (1969), was sidestepped and many Canadians were offended by Tallman’s decision to assist in the green light being given to his former student, George Bowering, for the coveted award. It was Robin Mathews, from the English department of Carlton University in Ottawa, who blew the Ram’s horn on the GG award being given to Bowering. Many Canadian poets such as Eli Mandel and Irving Layton heard the blast from the horn and came to Mathews’ bidding. A new award was created in 1970 as a substitute for the GG award, and Milton Acorn was given the People’s Poet Award. The battle for the Canadian identity was heating up, and Mathews was in the eye of the storm. In fact, the conflicts between the American born Tallman and Mathews never ceased. In Tallman’s book, In the Midst (1992), in which he recounts his role in bringing many of the American Beats and Black Mountain poets to British Columbia, he has a special chapter on Robin Mathews. The chapter is called, ‘September: A Necessary Politics For Stan Persky In Form of Notes On Robin Mathews’ Theatre Of The New Pyschodrama’. The article is a biting and satirical assault on Mathews, and Tallman sums up the chapter by calling Mathews ‘my enemy’. Mathews, the native born son of Smithers, BC, and Tallman the American import to Canada, did have their differences on what it meant to be a Canadian, and the GG award in 1970 bought such a debate into sharp and clear focus. In short, the American anarchist tradition as embodied in those like Tallman and Bowering, in Canada, stood in direct opposition with the Canadian nationalist tradition of those like Acorn and Mathews. The question came down to this: are we a fragmented, dispersed and regional nation or are there some essential things, as Canadians, we have in common? The anarchist took the former position, and the nationalists took the latter position.

The issue, therefore, of Canadian identity, was very much on the front burner in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. This is why Atwood’s Survival (1972) caused such a commotion when it was published. Atwood, as I mentioned above, dared to argue that the dominating myth in the Canadian way was that of survival. Many were those who doffed their dutiful caps to Atwood’s thesis. Many were those who buzzed round the hive and paid honours to the new queen bee of the Canadian literary establishment. But, not all were in agreement or pleased with the way Atwood defined the Canadian identity. It is important to remember that Mathews was offered a worthy wave of the hand and tribute by Atwood in Survival. Both Atwood and Mathews were neck to neck, at the time, in the race to define the Canadian identity. It is true that Canadians are not Americans, but what does it mean to be a Canadian? This was the core of the dialogue and debate, and Atwood had shown her hand. Mathews was not pleased.

Many were those who felt that Atwood has said it right and said what needed to be said. But, there were others who felt her argument was reductionistic, simplistic and much too indebted to Northrop Frye and his mythic approach to literary criticism. Robin Mathews was one of the first to oppose, debunk and resist Atwood’s survival thesis. Mathews had been a student of Northrop Frye’s in the 1950s, and, even then, he had dared to question the reigning monarch of Canadian literary criticism. Frye’s student, Atwood, was carrying on a time tried tradition and torch, and Mathews, in good faith and good conscience, felt that both Frye and Atwood lacked the full light and fire of the Canadian way.

The Canadian periodical, This Magazine is About Schools (now This Magazine), had asked Mathews to reply to Atwood’s Survival in 1972. The request seemed harmless, collegial and the hope was that such a paper would further the dialogue on the nature of the Canadian identity. So, Mathews took up the challenge, and in his article, ‘Survivalism’, he pointed out, in case after case, in book after book in the Canadian literary journey, that there is much more to the Canadian identity than mere survivalism. Such a simplistic vision, monomyth and archetype would not do to adequately explain the fullness of the Canadian way. There is no doubt that survivalism is a motif and theme in the Canadian tradition (Mathews never denied this), but the Canadian literary heritage also points the way to a people who are concerned about the common good of this nation, about cooperating with one another to create a compassionate and civilized state. Canadians are, in short, more than mere survivors and victims even though such terms have become rather popular and trendy these days. Mathews, in ‘Survivalism’, was as careful and meticulous as was Atwood in Survival to point out other ways to read the Canadian identity. Neither Mathews nor This Magazine is About Schools were prepared for the assault by Atwood on Mathews’ objections to her book. The queen bee left the hive (drones well in the rear) with stinger aimed and directed at Mathews, and This Magazine is About Schools was the means she used to go after Mathews. The assault was relentless and no quarter nor grace was given.

This Magazine is about Schools published, in 1973, Atwood’s blistering and forceful onslaught against Mathews. Atwood’s article, ‘Mathews and Misrepresentation’, is about twice the length of ‘Survivalism’. The article begins in a thoughtful, irenical and charming way. Atwood makes it clear that she was pleased that Mathews had been asked to review Survival, but she soon makes it abundantly clear, she was not pleased with how he reviewed the book. It does not take Atwood long to build up rhetorical momentum in ‘Mathews and Misrepresentation’. The early phase of hopeful light soon becomes thick with more and more red heat. Mathews, Atwood makes quite clear, has totally misunderstood and misrepresented the core thesis of Survival and, as such, his article should not be taken with too much seriousness. It should be stated that, for the most part, Atwood never seriously addresses Mathews deeper probes and questions, and the article is more of a rhetorical rant rather than a thoughtful piece of literary criticism. This is somewhat tragic. If Atwood had been less reactive and more willing to ponder and reflect on some of Mathews insights, the question of Canadian identity, as thought through in the Canadian literary tradition, would have been enhanced. Atwood republished ‘Mathews and Misrepresentation’ much later in her book of literary criticism, Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (1982). The battle between Atwood and Mathews had ceased by then, but the essay reflects an important period of Canadian literary history.

The Canadian guru of the American Beats and American anarchism, Warren Tallman, had called Mathews ‘my enemy ‘, and Margaret Atwood, the emerging queen bee of the Canadian literary establishment, felt that Mathews was thick with ‘misrepresentation’. The task of sifting and sorting through all these arguments is fine fodder for someone with more time and place than this article, but such a task should be approached. The nationalist-anarchist issue, and the way such an issue is played out when making sense of the Canadian identity is what is at stake in this ongoing dialogue.

There was a parting of the ways between Atwood and Mathews with Atwood’s volley in Mathews’ direction. This Magazine is About Schools decided, after much thought and deliberation, not to grant Mathews the opportunity to reply to Atwood’s long and sustained assault on Mathews’ different reading of the Canadian literary tradition and the means to interpret it. The fact that the discussion, debate and dialogue was shut down meant that the issue had to be unpacked in another place and time. Survival continued to have its many acolytes and disciples, and many was the school that was using it as the standard text by which the Canadian literary identity could and should be interpreted.

Mathews took his time, pondered the issue and question of Canadian identity in more depth and detail, sent out more probes and did deeper research. There was a need to reply to Atwood’s Survival not only through articles, but a book was needed to unfurl the weaknesses in Atwood’s argument. Mathews was very much up to the task. The gauntlet and challenge had been thrown down. A reply was needful and necessary. Mathews response finally came in 1978, and the book was called Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution. Canadian Literature is divided into three distinct yet overlapping sections. Section 1 deals with ‘Literature and Colonialism’, section 2 with ‘Literature, the Universities and Liberal Ideology’ and section 3 focussed on ‘Surrender or Revolution’. Canadian Literature was, for all intents and purposes, Mathews’ sustained rebuttal of Atwood’s Survival. Each chapter takes the dialogue to a much deeper and more demanding political level than Atwood had dared to go. Each chapter challenges the colonial mentality that dominates so many Canadians.

It is important to note that both Mathews and Atwood would have agreed that Canadians must challenge their internalized colonialism, they must oppose the empires that had dominated them, and Canadians must develop a post-colonial national ethos and spirit. They did not differ and these questions. They did differ on what such a national identity might look like as it was fleshed out in some depth and detail. The task of bringing into the clearing these sorts of issues, and why Atwood and Mathews walked different paths opens up for Canadians the question of who defines what the Canadian identity is and should be. Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution answers such a question in one way. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature answers such a troubling question in yet another way.

The fact that most Canadians have heard of Margaret Atwood, and the fact fewer Canadians have heard of Robin Mathews speaks much about who the liberal literary family compact have moved forward and who they have marginalized. Why have so many heard of Atwood and so few of Mathews? What does this tell us about how the Canadian identity is defined and understood? Canadians are not Americans: Myths and Literary Traditions offers Atwood a full and free voice to speak about the Canadian way, yet we hear nothing about or from Mathews in Canadians are not Americans. We might want to ask why this is the case? Robin Mathews has, much more than Margaret Atwood, attempted to clarify and unpack why we are not Americans and what such a difference means, yet his voice is absent in Canadians are not Americans; this is a serious flaw and failing in Morrison’s otherwise quite commendable book.

The late 1970s ended the more intense and horn butting phase of the Mathews-Atwood debate about the nature of the Canadian identity. Mathews and Atwood went in different directions, and there has been little interaction between them since such a fateful clash of perspectives. Atwood has, of course, written many more novels, books of poetry and literary criticism. Mathews went ever onward and forward to write and publish much more, also. Canadian Identity: Major Forces Shaping the Life of a People (1988), Treason of the Intellectuals: English Canada in the Post-Modern Period (1995) and The Canadian Intellectual Tradition (2002) have yet further developed and clarified Mathews’ thinking about the complex nature of the Canadian identity.

An MA and Ph.D. thesis, I suspect, is yet waiting to be written on the important dialogue between Mathews and Atwood on the nature of the Canadian identity. This short paper has merely skimmed, like a pebble, the surface of the water. The deeper dives for the pearls are yet to be taken. The deeper the dive, though, the richer will be the find. Mathews and Atwood can yet teach us much about the question of Canadian identity, and it is as we heed and hear them, what it means to be a Canadian in the True North will be brought to greater clarity.

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Ron Dart has taught in the department of political science, philosophy, religious studies at University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC since 1990. He has published The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes (1999) and Robin Mathews: Crown Prince of Canadian Political Poets (2002). Ron’s forthcoming book will be called The Canadian High Tory Tradition (2004).