E.J. Pratt: The Evolutionary Vision by Sandra Djwa

Abstract

484 En g l is h St u d ie s in C a n a d a of letters by and about the Bloomsberries. It too would be a fascinating portrayal of an exceptional group of people. But it would not, any more than the present anthology, be a “ wholly satisfactory way of defining what Bloomsbury means." Only the literary history promised by Rosenbaum can aspire to that. And if “ literary" is to be interpreted strictly, a further volume will be needed to treat Bloomsbury and the visual arts. Meanwhile what we have is precisely what Rosenbaum more modestly claims near the end of his foreword, “ a scholarly sourcebook for a collectivity of writers, artists, critics, and political economists who have been the object of two generations of widespread interest, admiration, and abuse" (iv). That a sourcebook intended for scholarly use should have no index is a matter of serious regret, but it is one of the few regrets a reader is likely to have in exploring this excellent book. g e o r g e h . Th o m s o n / University of Ottawa Sandra Djwa, £./. Pratt: The Evolutionary Vision, Studies in Canadian Litera­ ture (Toronto: Copp Clark 1974). viii, 160. $2.25 Why is it that any discussion about E.J. Pratt seems more interesting to the critics than a look at his own work? This tendency was noticeable at the Pratt Symposium, University of Ottawa, reported in some detail in cv/11 and since the object of considerable controversy. The answer might be that Pratt's poetry is looked at for all the wrong reasons. And Sandra Djwa's new survey of the man and his work tends to becloud the issue even more. Come to think of it, have you ever met a reader of Canadian poetry (or a poet) who "just loved" Pratt's poetry? In fifty years I never have. There is admiration, yes; even awe at the man's range, scope, narrative skill. Yet the question must be asked: do the lines sing and soap in your mind so that (in the old cliché) your skin ripples with gooseflesh? Ned Pratt gives us a fascinating display of fireworks through language, erudition, dramatic tension, but even in his short lyrics he does not stir the sort of emotion created in reading Roberts's "Tantramar Re-visited" or "The Skater." Pratt uses fine words about love, hate, fear; but somehow they fail to create empathy between himself and the reader. Elis talents, I feel, lie in quite another direction. These are the questions about Pratt's poetry to which a new critical study might have addressed itself. But it is precisely this approach that Sandra Djwa avoids. Her admirable and competent book describes "the smiling public man," his indefatigable research, his literary and philosophical ideas steeped in late Victorian thought; but one is left with the feeling, "Where's the bloody horse?" 485 R e v ie w s To give Djwa her due, her intent took her in a different direction. Her subtitle, "The Evolutionary Vision," is the line she adheres to throughout the book. She documents thoroughly the fact that, rather than by Methodism, Pratt was fathered by Huxley, Darwin, Strauss, Frazer, Wundt, Freud. But, we may ask, so what? These were Thomas Hardy's influences, as well as those of Pratt's immediate poet-predecessors in Canada: Roberts, Lampman, Scott. The influences do not explain the creative work, nor the differences between all these poets. A book which spent two-thirds of the space discussing their reactions to the philosophical, religious, and scientific arguments of the day would be thought of as a waste of time and energy: it is their poetry we would want to see appreciated and criticized. So perhaps this returns me to the question in my opening paragraph. Why is it that Pratt is more fascinating to the Canadian critics as a representative public figure than as a poet? I would suggest that this emphasis has been wrong, all along: and that Pratt saw himself, not as a lyric poet nor as a learned philosopher, but as bard, as the voice of the people, a story...