Crouched in Dark Caves: The Post-Colonial Narcissism of Canadian Literature

Abstract

When Stephen Leacock received an invitation to deliver a lecture, he sent the organization issuing the invitation a memorandum on possible topics. There were two kinds of public lectures: 'some of them are serious lectures on Educational, Political and Literary topics, in which anything humorous in the treatment is merely incidental'; the second category, less serious in intent, comprised lectures which were intended to be of a purely humorous and amusing character as their main feature, but to contain also a substratum of philosophy and common sense. These lectures consist of literary and dramatic burlesques, with a running comment. They are in different parts and the parts are very largely interchangeable, so that the subject matter in the lectures may be combined and recombined in various ways to suit the audience and the occasions.