English Language, English Literature: The Creation of an Academic Discipline by Jo McMurtry

Abstract

of Blaise’s attempting to centre himself as protagonist: “Days and Nights becomes increasingly aesthetic and self-reflexive in intent. . . . Blaise’s idea of publishing the record of his quest to know another world — another self . . . [transcends] the bounds of North-American sensibility” (89). Blaise is quoted as writing: I had to integrate a narrative and a set of feelings and responses and build up a series of characters, plus I had to read and manipulate a lot of factual materials. In other words, it was a novel for me, very much a non-fiction novel, with a clear sense of myself-as-character, making me a little more naive than I was, a little more priggish than I am, in order to, I hope, create a believable transformation of character by the end. (92) The above offers an excellent illustration of how autobiography is balanced on a thin edge of fact and fiction. Ultimately, Lecker views Blaise’s protagonists as involved in an endless quest for integration of their fragmented selves. Blaise himself remains an enigmatic creation of an “other I,” the perennial subject of his stories. One is reminded of F.R. Scott’s poem, “The Dance is One,” which speaks of the dancer and the dance as one entity. Robert Lecker has contributed valuable insights into Clark Blaise’s fiction. The interesting “Chronology of Salience” by Clark Blaise (pp. 13-20) at the beginning is effective in identifying his work within the autobiographical framework developed in the book. Although one can quibble with some remarks, on the whole Lecker provides a solid critical analysis. R o s a l i n d k e e b l e s t e r / Concordia University Jo McMurtry, English Language, English Literature: The Creation of an Academic Discipline (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1985). iii, 192. $43.00 (Cdn.). This book is a welcome addition to the small number of interesting and informative volumes on the history of English as a formal discipline in Uni­ versity curricula, a subject about which current members of the profession often know very little. It is all too easy to assume that one’s own experi­ ence of the theory and practice of the discipline reflects some great tradition unchanged from time immemorial, or that all previous kinds and conditions of scholarly endeavour have been superseded by new and more sophisticated approaches. It is salutary to learn something about the evolution of English studies and to appreciate how this in turn has depended upon more general change and development in society. Jo McMurtry’s book is divided into five sections. The first contains a 483 brief account of the conditions in nineteenth-century Britain and America that led to the inclusion of English language and literature studies in uni­ versities. The most important factors were not really the product of changes in educational philosophy but rather a response to profound changes in the wants, needs, and expectations of massive sectors of society, those of mid­ dle class women and lower class men. The rise of formal English studies was in large part a practical economic and political solution to the prob­ lem of providing a relatively cheap and accessible field of study for these groups, without extending or diluting classical studies in ways that might have damaged their social and educational dominance. Noteworthy, too, was patriotism, allied to an intensified appreciation of the history of the English language and of the literary greatness achieved by some of its users: hence the Early English Text Society and the widespread adulation of Shakespeare. In each of the next four sections of her book McMurtry gives us an account of a major figure in the introduction and development of English studies within the university: Henry Morley at University College, London; Frances James Child at Harvard; David Masson at Edinburgh; and Walter William Skeat at Cambridge. We are given a considerable amount of biographical information about each of these men, this being one of the strengths of the book: dry and abstract information about the creation of syllabi and the devising of examination questions becomes more vivid against the back­ ground of an individual’s personality and career...