Step Down, Shakespeare, the Stone Angel Is here 1987

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Step Down, Shakespeare, the Stone Angel Is here

It has been 16 years* since Prime Minister Trudeau proclaimed theCanadian policy of multiculturalism. However, while there are signsthat the policy is beginning to affect instruction, the Englishcurriculum seems as yet untouched by it. In this paper, I will argue thecase for multiculturalizing the English curriculum, examine thetheoretical bases that demand it, and outline a framework fordeveloping such a curriculum.

The Extrinsic Factors

Good pedagogical, political, legal, and educational reasons exist formulticulturalizing the English curriculum. Among pedagogical ones,the following may be considered:

1. To enable students to understand the nature of CanadianEnglish, which is made up of different dialects, “ethnolects”(defined later in this article), and “sociolects.”

2. To enable students to understand the nature of Canadianliterature, which is made up of works by Canadians of Anglo-Saxon, Francophone, East Asian, South Asian, Latin American,and other origins, and written in Canadian English (as definedlater in this article) and/or translated from French, Native, orother languages, thereby making literary material relevant to ourcontemporary Canadian society.

* It may be noted that the essay was written in 1987.

“Step Down, Shakespeare, The Stone Angel is Here”.Multicultural Education Journal, 5 (2): 24–39 (1987).

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3. To help students widen their aesthetic experience throughexposure to:(a) a literature wider than Canadian Anglo-Saxon, classical

British, and/or contemporary American currently in usein Canadian classrooms; and

(b) variations of theme, technique, style, ideology, andworld view within each genre of this wider literature.

4. To help prepare students to live in a multicultural society bydeveloping an appreciation of literary contributions of their ownculture and other cultures, ancient and modern, thereby helpingthem to develop a pride in their own culture and an appreciationof, and respect for, other cultures and for Canadians who arepart of those cultures.

5. To help develop a generation of Canadian writers whoseaesthetic experience is rooted in a Canadian-based world cultureand whose works would reflect this Canadianized world culture.

6. To prepare students for the work world, in a global context,through exposure to world culture.

7. To help students grow to their potential as exhorted ineducational philosophy and the provincial education acts.

8. To assist teachers of English to help students achieve these goalsby encouraging them to widen their own literacy and aesthetichorizons.

The political argument can be made on the basis of a parallel insociety. In the early days of our multicultural policy, and in certainquarters even today, multiculturalism was taken to be for “ethnics”only (ethnic having, according to Webster’s Seventh CollegiateDictionary, the very early meaning “neither Christian nor Jewish” or“heathen”), or the later association of the term with minorities. Onlytoday are we becoming convinced of the argument that we are allethnics, Anglo-Saxons included, on the very visible basis that everyone of us belongs to one ethnic community or another. Ethnicity isdefined as “an involuntary group of people who share the sameculture” or “descendants if such people who identify themselves as

Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri

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belonging to the same involuntary group” (Isajiw 1974).

It was this acceptance that helped to usher in what I consider to thecontemporary takeoff phase of multiculturalism in Canada. Thatfederal, provincial, and municipal governments, Boards of Education,and labour unions have developed, or are developing, policy papersand implementation strategies for multiculturalism, affirmative action,equal pay for work of equal value, and religious holidays is evidencethat we are in such a phase.

The parallel in the classroom is that, just as multiculturalism wasthought to be for ethnics only, multicultural material also came to beused in programs intended for ethnics only. Use of such materialbecame common in the English as a second language (ESL)classroom, as teachers came to realize that Quang Chou from Chinaand Neela Patel from India could not readily identify with Dick andJane in the textbooks. ESL, however, was still non-mainstream.

Perhaps the first mainstream subject to incorporate a multiculturalcomponent was history, although this was not, by a long shot, becausehistorians were more progressive. Indeed, on the contrary, asresearchers McDiarmid and Pratt (1971) and Sugunasiri (1978a) cameto discover, they were quite archaic and offensive in the way that non-Anglo-Saxon peoples had come to be portrayed in history texts. It issuch criticism, perhaps, that pushed historians to include moremulticultural material. Since then, multicultural material has beenincorporated into other social science subjects such as Geography. Anunexpected response has come from the hard sciences as well, forexample, mathematics (Ridge 1980; Ripley 1986). The latestargument for multiculturalizing the curriculum has come in the area ofreligion (Sugunasiri n.d.-a).

However, while the curricula in many subject areas seem to beawakening to our multicultural reality, there is yet to be discerned aserious concern for multiculturalism in English—the most mainstreamsubject of all—and in English literature. To continue the parallel, then,it may be argued that, in the school context, the take-off phase inmulticulturalism and eventual multicultural maturity will notmaterialize until the English curriculum becomes multicultural.


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As for the legal/educational reasons, it need only be pointed out thatseveral Ministries and Boards of Education around the country havecome up with multicultural policies.1 In the future, teachers maysimply not have a choice in the matter of keeping the Englishcurriculum non-multicultural.

The Intrinsic Factors

English as Language

I think that an understanding of what is meant by the label “English”is critical to the argument being made here, for there is a real sense inwhich Canadian English is a multicultural English. As a firstapproximation, the term “English,” in the context of the classroom,means the language in which the textbooks are written and in whichclassroom interaction takes place. But this is only one variety of whatmay loosely be called “Canadian Standard English,” ignoring here thedistinction between written and spoken standards, meaningful as itmay be.

Canadian Standard English is the variety used by government andbusiness to conduct their affairs, and it serves as the “link language”across Canada. The are also other, non-standard (not substandard, aspurists might argue) varieties of Canadian English. These are the“Regional Standard” varieties, examples of which would be theEnglish used in Newfoundland, in Alberta, or in Toronto’sCabbagetown. Since these varieties are not likely to be used for formalwritten purposes such as cross-Canada communication orParliamentary business, they may be considered spoken varieties. Inthis sense, they may be variations of the “Spoken Standard” and maypossibly overlap with the “Written Standard.” Other varieties, in theform of sociolects, are analyzable along such dimensions as Lower vs.Middle vs. Upper class, Urban vs. Rural, Young vs. Old, or Everydayvs. Trade jargon. These are all varieties well known in the literature.

I would like to suggest that, in the Canadian context, there is a furthervariant of spoken English that may be called ethnolects. This variant isdifferent from others in that it has many faces. It is English that resultswhen Canadian English comes into contact with either: (1)international varieties of English, such as British English, Black


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English vernacular (Labov 1972), or South Asian English, that havebeen brought to Canada by English-speaking immigrants (the English,the West Indians, and the South Asians, respectively), or (2) otherlanguages, as non-English speaking immigrants attempt to acquireEnglish, for example, Italian/English, Spanish/English, or even WestIndian/ or South Asian/(Canadian) English. The English spoken in theMalbay district of the French-speaking Gaspé Peninsula may be avariety of this (Mougeon 1973). The variety of ethnolects can be canbe heard on CHIN Radio or Multicultural TV (in Toronto), as sponsorsof various ethnocultural backgrounds promote their wares or asannouncers read the news. What differentiates the ethnolects fromCanadian Standard may be more phonology and morphology thansyntax and semantics.

We now see that Canadian English is, indeed, multicultural and thatmuch more variety and richness exist in Canadian English than meetsthe eye in the textbooks used in Canadian English classrooms. Thepedagogical responsibility of exposing our students to the linguisticrichness of the country is not being fulfilled. The problem is notmerely that an Albertan cannot communicate effectively with aNewfoundlander. What is at stake is much greater. It is the student’svery cognition and the understanding of the world that are in question.

The seriousness of failing to recognize the richness of CanadianEnglish can be better appreciated when we consider that English is theone subject that every student in an Anglophone school system isrequired to take throughout their school years. As the language-across-the-curriculum approach (Bullock 1975; NATE 1976) correctly pointsout, English is the medium through which every subject is taught. Inother words, it is the language of epistemology for our students. Sinceperception is “conditioned” by language, such subjects as science,history, spirituality, and others are being looked at by our multiculturalchildren through exclusive English, and thus, mainly Judeo-Christianeyes. This surely is a denial of the very concept of multiculturalism.“Conditioned” is used here to suggest that what is implied is not asimplistic Whorfian determinism, but a highly complex, reciprocal,circular, and multi-conditional relationship (Sugunasiri 1978b,199–214). Multiculturalism clearly calls for perceiving the worldthrough “multilingual eyes,” that is, through the several linguisticvarieties that we have argued to be the components of Canadian


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English, as well as other languages such as French and the Nativelanguages.

The route presently being advocated in educational circles to ensurethe continued functioning of the many Canadian “linguistic eyes” isheritage language instruction, wherein students of a given linguisticbackground would attend a class in that language outside school hours(as in Ontario) or during school hours (as in Alberta). Laudable as thisapproach may be, it is not without its possible results of “perceptualBalkanization,” if nothing else, with members of each linguistic andcultural group looking at the world through their own eyes, but beingunable to see through anybody else’s. If the current trend of studentsof different cultural backgrounds enrolling in other heritage-languageprograms were to continue with wide participation, the Balkanizingprocess might be minimized. However, this would depend too muchon happenstance. Education should surely be better planned!

A possible alternative strategy, then, for providing multilingual eyesthrough the English curriculum for all our Canadian students may beto continue to give students a solid foundation in Canadian English, asdefined in this article to include the Standard Canadian, sociolects,regional dialects, and ethnolects, in addition to instruction in their ownheritage languages. As will be argued in the pages that follow, this canbest be achieved by teaching literature. Once again, the term“Canadian literature” will be redefined to encompass a wider canvas.

English as Literature

Literature, if I may try my own definition, is the outcome of an attemptby an individual, moved emotionally by a given situation, tocommunicate linguistically with his or her “co-hearts” (sahrd, to drawupon classical Sanskrit theory2) one’s creative aesthetic response tothat situation, to evoke an aesthetic experience (rasa) in the co-heartsand move them emotionally (bhava). A writer, then, seeks to express acertain content to a particular audience. The content, in turn,determines the language in which the communication is to be made,and the writer and the audience together determine the sensibility. Thefour dimensions discussed so far, namely, content, language,sensibility, and audience, can thus be considered as making up a“literary matrix”. Adding two others, ethnocultural origin and


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domicile, will help us understand the proposed expanded concept ofCanadian literature.

On the basis of the pre-multicultural notion of Canada as an Englishland, Canadian literature can be defined, using the above dimensions,as creative works that have been written about Anglo-Canadianexperiences, in the medium of English, for an English-speaking(Canadian) audience, and reflect an Anglo-Saxon (or wider Judeo-Christian) sensibility. The writers are of Anglo-Saxon origin and makeCanada their home; the notion of being Canadian-born being implicithere. The literature on ethnicity (Anderson and Frideres 1981, 41 ff.)agrees that national origin is one of four aspects of ethnicity. I haveexpanded this category to add domicile to account for the immigrationand mobility of Canadian writers. The inner hexagon of Figure I,shown later in this article, captures this category.

It would be immediately evident that national origin is a “pure”category that would, with obvious modifications, more appropriatelydescribe Japanese, Russian or Sinhalese literature, but of which therewould be no Canadian examples. The intended audience of thesewriters would not be exclusively Canadian, given Canada’s colonialrelationship with England and its proximity to the U.S. With thisexception, however, most works of such writers as Frances Brooke,Ralph Connor, Margaret Laurence, Al Purdy, Margaret Atwood, andJanette Hospital-Turner qualify as Canadian literature. Woodcockrefers to Brooke’s (1769) The History of Emily Montagu as “the firstof all novels of Canada” (Woodcock 1980, 21) and to Connor’s (1898)Black Rock: A Tale of Selkirk as “one of three or four fictional voicesthat still speak out of the Canadian 19th century with a degree ofconviction” (Woodcock 1980, 23).

When we come to contemporary multicultural Canada, the purecategory makes even less sense. For example, some English-mediumwriters have been recognized (by inclusion in anthologies, forexample) by the literary establishment as being Canadian writers.Included in this category are writers such as Mordecai Richler, whowas born and raised in Canada but is of Jewish background; IrvingLayton, who is also of Jewish background but was born in Romaniaand raised in Canada; Michael Ondaatje, who was born in Sri Lankaand is of Sinhalese-Tamil-European background but has lived in the


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U.K. and Canada since his adolescence; and Austin Clarke, who is ofWest Indian background but emigrated to Canada as an adult.

What, then, of the works of other English-medium writers living andwriting in Canada: French-Canadian writers Clarke Blaise and AnneHebert; the prize-winning, Canadian-born Joy Kogawa of Japanese(Buddhist-Christian) background; Kristjana Gunnars of Icelandicbackground; Harold Sonny Ladoo (deceased) of West Indianbackground; Bharati Mukherjee of Indian (and Hindu) origin; ReshardGool of South African background but of South Asian heritage, whosenovel The Nemesis Casket has been acclaimed as “the most brilliantexample of twentieth-century Canadian baroque” (Sutherland 1983);and the West Indian born Sam Selvon who wrote several novels whilein England and has since made Canada his home?

What, indeed, of the eleven major works (novels or collections offiction and poetry) written and published in Canada by writers ofSouth Asian Canadian origins3, not to mention the highly acclaimedyounger writers such as Neil Bissoondath (1985), whose first work isa collection of short fiction entitled Digging Up the Mountains?Finally, what of the many writers of Black origin writing in Canada?4

Given the variety of ethnocultural backgrounds of English-mediumwriters living in Canada, it would be extremely unrealistic to define aCanadian writer in relation to any particular ethnocultural background,Anglo-Saxon included. We are beginning to see the walls of the innerhexagon of Figure 1 crumbling, giving way in places to the centrehexagon.

Content, which includes setting and theme, is not what characterizes aCanadian writer either. If, for example, Margaret Laurence’s (1963)The Tomorrow-Tamer made up of stories written on African themes inan African setting, and Michael Ondaatje’s (1982) Running in theFamily, based on Sri Lanka, qualify as Canadian literature, it would, ofcourse, be difficult to exclude Austin Clarke’s (1964) Survivors of theCrossing, Bharati Mukherjee’s (1975) Wife, set in a North Americanand East Indian context, Reshard Gool’s (1976) Price, based on SouthAfrican life, or Cyril Dabydeen’s (1980a) short-story collection StillClose to the Island, most of which are based on West Indian life. Allthese works were written while the writers were living in Canada.


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However, as we shall see, domicile alone would hardly be a sufficientcondition for including a work in the category of Canadian writing.Thus far, we have extended the traditional view of Canadian Englishliterature beyond the works of Anglo-Saxon writers to the works ofCanadian writers of any ethnocultural origin, writing (in English) onany theme and setting, reflecting any sensibilities.

French is the other official language of Canada, and therefore, asSutherland (1971) argues in advancing his concept of comparativeCanadian literature, one can hardly ignore Canada’s linguistic duality.Works written in French by such Canadians of French extraction(Quebecois or other) as Hubert Aquin, Rejean Ducharme, GarielleRoy, and Roch Carriere can hardly be excluded from the category ofCanadian literature simply because they are not written in English! Todo so would be to court national disaster. Once we include French-Canadian literature, the literary works of Francophone Canadians ofother origins, such as Acadian, Haitian, Jewish or Polish, wouldobviously have to be included as well.5

Canada may have a multicultural practice, but it has no officialmultilingual policy. So, what do we call the works of Native Canadianpeople, such as works in Inuit, Iroquois, Cree or Ojibway. By nostretch of the imagination can we exclude such works.6 What of thefive Punjabi novels, only one of which—the novel by Kesar SinghGyani7 of British Columbia, who has been in Canada longer than manyof the English-medium writers listed above—has a Canadian setting?Or what, indeed, of the works of Doukhobor bards and poets(Kolesnikoff 1982), from Peter Diachkov to A.J. Potnikoff; Ukrainiannovelists (Aponiuk 1982) such as Illia Kyrijak, Oleksander Luhovyj,and Ulas Samchuk, writing on the Ukranian Canadian experience;Josef Skovrecky and Pavel Javor writing in Czeck about Czeck themes(Bresky 1978); Sikimin Ary, Rachel Korn, and J.I. Segal writing inYiddish about Jewish themes (Sinclair and Wolfe 1981); Shaheen,Irfana, and Ashfaq Hussain writing in Urdu about Muslim themes(Khan 1988); or even Ashok Aklujkar, of the University of Alberta,writing personal communication in the Indian classical language ofSanskrit? Even though these works are not written in either of theofficial languages, it would be ludicrous to exclude so many works ofliterature written by Canadians8 because they were not written inEnglish or French.


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Although the intended audience for which Margaret Laurence andMichael Ondaatje write is Canadian, the potential audience is theentire English-speaking world, as would be the entire French-speakingworld for Francophone Canadian works. Part of the audience for theworks of Bharati Mukherjee, Uma Parameshwaran, Saros Cowasjee,and other Canadians of South Asian origins who write in Englishwould be Indian. The works of the Punjabi-Canadian dramatist Ajmer

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SENSIBILITY

other/non-W

estern Christ

ian

Judeo-Christian/Nativ

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Other (Buddhist/

Hindu/

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born and living

in Canada born/living in

Canada/elsewhere

born elsewhere, now in Canada;

lived in Canada, but le

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anently

BIRTHPLACE/DOMICILE

ETHNOCULTURAL ORIGIN

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Anglo-Saxon/Native/

French/Jewish

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on life in

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on life in both

Canada and elsewhere

on life else

where

CONTENT

Figure 1

A Canadian Literary Matrix from a Contemporary Multicultural Perspective

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Rode9 are intended for, and produced before, live audiences in Canada,but they have a potential audience in Punjab as well. Many heritagelanguage plays are staged at multicultural theatre festivals, eventhough some of them may have been imported from the motherlands.These are all, then, examples of the “third category.”

When we consider the variety of media in which literary works areproduced in Canada; their multicultural (and international) contents,settings, and themes; the plethora of sensibilities reflected in them;their intended beyond-Canada audience; and the ethnoculturalbackground of the writers and their residence; it is obvious thatCanadian literature must bee seen along a continuum of severaldimensions. It is this Canadian literary reality that Figure 1 seeks tocapture.

It is important to note that the figure represents only a contemporaryCanadian perspective. It shows Canadian literature as a continuum, arange, or a melange. It reflects the presence of “contiguous,intermingled, and encapsulated groups” and takes a “broad andencompassing view of what constitutes a Canadian writer,” asadvocated by Batts (1984). It also recognizes Canada’s linguisticduality and its ethnic diversity, as argued for by Sutherland (1983).Thus, while the inner hexagon represents the traditional definition ofCanadian literature (although wider than the pure category), the nexthexagon shows the ever-widening notion of Canadian literature, whichmay now be defined as:

The literature written by writers of any ethnoculturalorigin, who were born in Canada or elsewhere but arepresently living in Canada or have lived in Canada as acitizen, landed immigrant, or resident, and whose writing isin English, French, a Native language, or another heritagelanguage, about the content, theme or setting in Canada orelsewhere and is primarily, but not exclusively, intended fora Canadian audience, reflecting a sensibility that can bebest described as a “Canadianizing world culture.”

“Canadianizing world culture” here is meant to be an emergent variety,somewhat along the lines of the notion of ethnolect, but in the field ofculture (values, attitudes, behaviours, and folkways) of the given

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writer (of any origin or religion) with whatever cultural traits thewriter identifies as being Canadian. While the ideal outcome of thisprocess can be a “distinct Canadian consciousness” (Sutherland1983), the outer hexagon represents a writer who is furthest fromdeveloping such a consciousness but who nevertheless serves as acontinuing source of the world culture within the very borders ofCanada.

When stated this way, the definition may sound nebulous and evenelusive, but this is merely being reflective of the fluidity ofcontemporary Canadian society, currently in the throes of greatsocietal change. Time alone will tell whether this definition willbecome more definitive.

The flexible nature of the definition, however, has its advantages. Forexample, we could now legitimately call Stephen Leacock and RobertStead, along with a host of others such as Michael Ondaatje, AustinClarke, Joy Kogawa, Reshard Gool, Sam Selvon, and JosephSkvorecky Canadian writers, even though there were not born here.Canadian literature can include the works of such writers as MavisGallant, who, though born in Canada, lives in Europe; MargaretLaurence, who, having been born here, has returned to Canada after astay in England; Bharati Mukherjee, whose three novels were writtenwhile in Canada but who now resides in the U.S.; and, in the extremecase (and in a few years), Sam Selvon, all of whose works were writtenbefore he arrived in Canada.

Learning/TeachingLanguage Across Literature and Literature Across Language

We have seen that both Canadian English and Canadian literature arewider than what is being taught in today’s classrooms or recognized byclassroom teachers and, perhaps, English professors. To return toliterature in the medium of Canadian English, Figure 2 (next page)indicates the literary pool that the English Curriculum would be ableto draw from a mere recognition of the contemporary nature ofCanadian language and English-medium literature, shown under thefour aspects recognized in the literature on ethnicity (Anderson andFrideres 1981).


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As can be seen from Figure 2, widening the English curriculum toinclude the works (original or translated) of all Canadian writers, ofvaried ethnocultural backgrounds, that is, multiculturalizing it, opensup new vistas for students, teachers, and professors.

Figure 2

Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Variation reflected in English-Medium Literary Works

(Original and Translated)of Canadian Writers

(of different Ethnocultural Backgrounds)

EthnicBackground

Language Variety Folkways ReligiousBackground

Standard Canadian (SC)Colloquial English/Medieval English

Anglo-Saxon/BritishUrban

an SC/Colloquial EnglishCanadian Dialects(translated)

French/EuropeanUrban

SC/Colloquial English Native Rural

SC/Colloquial English(original/translated)

Jewish/Euro-Middle EasternUrban

SC/Colloquial EnglishEthnolects(original/translated)

West and EastEuropeanUrban

SC/Colloquial EnglishDialects/Ethnolects(original/translated)

Black/Rural

SC/Colloquial EnglishDialects/Ethnolects(original/translated)

Far Eastern/Rural/Urban

Anglo-Canadian

Franco-Canadi

Native Canadian

Jewish Canadian

Doukhobor,Ukranian, etc.

Black Canadian

East AsianCanadian

South AsianCanadian

SC/Colloquial English(original/translated)

South Asian Rural

Western (Judeo-Christian)

Western Judeo-Christian

Native Christian

Western/Judeo-Christian

Western /Judeo-Christian

Judeo-Christian/Afro-American

Buddhist/Confucianist/Taoist/Judeo-ChristianHindu/Muslim/Buddhist/Sikh/ Judeo-Christian

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Judging by the second column, multiculturalizing the Englishcurriculum enriches the language experience of students. The works ofAnglo-Saxon (and Jewish) writers would be the obvious first strengthof such a curriculum. It is these works that would help providestudents with a solid foundation in English and prepare them for suchtasks as writing applications, reports, and correspondence, so much apart of literacy. Such works would be the best textual source forexposure to the colloquial varieties as well (as, for example, inSteinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Laurence’s The Stone Angel).However, that is as far as they can take us.

It is to works such as Austin Clarke’s (1971) “A Wedding in Toronto”and Cyril Dabydeen’s (1980a) “Memphis,” subtitled “A Story in WestIndian Pidgin,” that we have to turn for exposure to Canadian dialectsof Canadian English (or ethnolects, as they emerge in contact withCanadian Standard English). As a bonus, these dialects and ethnolectsmight even introduce the reader to Old English through encounterswith usages like “What o’clock?” (meaning “What time is it?”),fossilized from an earlier time when English was introduced to theWest Indies or to Newfoundland.

Similarly, one can reasonably expect to encounter British English inthe work of a South Asian Canadian writer. Reading the works of aFrancophone writer, we may be exposed to the variety of Englishspoken in the Gaspé Peninsula, which includes fossilized Englishusages. While such exposure would be cost effective as well, since onedoesn’t have to go to Jamaica or the Gaspé Peninsula, it may triggerthe more inquisitive student to undertake a trip or, at least, to makepersonal acquaintances with peers who might be using the variety oflanguage in question.

Column three and four of Figure 2 show how multiculturalizing theEnglish curriculum would help students to cope better with the worldthrough coming to understand the world culture as reflected in thesensibilities. Anglo-Canadian literature would, again, be an importantsource. For students of Anglo-Saxon background, it would provideeverything that any literature provides a given people. For others, itwould provide a window for understanding the culture of one of ourfounding fathers.

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Just as Mordecai Richler’s works expanded the Canadian literaryhorizons taking us to the workings of the Jewish mind, so indeedwould we be taken through the mind caves of other Euro-Canadiancultures by reading the (English-medium) works of writers of French,Icelandic, Romanian, Italian, and so on. Works by Native people, ofcourse, take us not only to the northern realms but to a completelydifferent culture and ethos—a rural one, also shared by writers ofBlack, South Asian, and East Asian backgrounds.

The works of these latter writers take us into the furthermost realms ofthe human psyche. The writers are influenced by the world’smultiplicity of religions: from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, andSikhism that continue to shape the lives of South Asians toConfucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in East Asia. An importantdimension of these sensibilities is the particular variations ofChristianity that have developed in non-western parts of the world. Afinal dimension of the world culture that has been brought to ourdoorstep is the African and the Afro-American cultures.

Implicit in all such varieties of sensibilities, as well, are the influencesof varied political systems, from capitalism to socialism, and fromindividualism, which are very much a part of western society, to co-operativism inherent in the Native, African, and Asian cultures.

If a widening of the English-medium literature alone does all this, wecan imagine how much more the breaking down of linguistic barrierswould do for us. For example, a shift from an exclusively urban focusto one of both urban and rural indicates the kind of literary richnessthat an expanded curriculum is likely to bring. Myths and folktalesassume a new importance, and works by native writers come to be readand evaluated not from the perspective of structures contained in thecontemporary short story, novel, or poem, but on the basis of theirinternal structures, just as Japanese haiku has come to be accepted asa unique type of poetry.

An openness to a variety of structures and genres would invite a lookat literary works and genres of other cultural traditions. The Ghazaltype of poetry in Urdu, essentially “love poems” in which “an idea isfully expressed in a single line divided into two hemistichs of equalsyllabic lengths” and using “rhyming words at the end of each second


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hemistich” (Qureshi 1982) would be an example. The Gi (pronouncedas in go, long i) of the Sinhalese tradition, which is “unrhymed,” andin which each stanza is divided into four sections (lines or feet) and themeters depend upon the total number of matras—“a matra or syllabicinstant being equivalent to the length of a short syllable, in each foot”(Reynolds 1970)—would be another. Earlier Canadian animal storiesby such writers as Ernest Seton or Charles Roberts may also bebeneficial as curriculum writers search for non-traditional material.

A continuation of the search beyond Canadian shores might lead to adifferent style of storytelling, as contained in the Pañcatantra, “thefive looms,” written in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, usingthe structure of a parenthetical mathematical problem. In thisstructure, the main tale leads into a sub-tale, then into another, theninto another, each of which is developed to completion before movingto the next level. A variation of this technique would be found in acontemporary novel.

Interest in historical literary material from far-away lands might takeus to the world’s first novel, and the first by a woman, GenjiMonogatari, “the story of Genji,” written in Japanese in the tenthcentury by Shikibu Murasaki. In Buddhist Jataka (birth) stories (circasixth century BCE), one would be fascinated to find the earliest modelof the modern short story. Jataka stories are short and focus on asingle event or character, but delve deeply into the character’s psyche.An example is found in the story of the jealous king who, afraid thathis Queen’s affection for their child would take away her affection forhim, had the baby mutilated and killed, in front of the queen’s eyes,deriving a sadistic pleasure as well.10 Even though the great NorthIndian epic Mahabharata (100,000 couplets) and the Dravidian (SouthIndian) Silappadikaran may not add to the diversity of technique, theywould at least show that epic writing is not the sole preserve ofwestern culture. Students would be led to the same conclusion as theygo on to the works of the ancient Indian dramatist Kalidasa, in whichthe kings and nobles speak in a different language (prakrit) and/ordialect. Of even more interest might be the traditional Noh plays andthe kabuki theatre of Japan, as well as the Nadagama of theSinhalese.11

In poetry, the technique of using the last word of a line as the first


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word in the next line is also used in ancient India and Sri Lanka, therules relating to the choice of sounds (and letters) between goodletters/sounds and bad ones to bring about the desired mood for thepurpose. One surprised by this would be forced to take an even closerlook at the relationship between language and literature.

As we enter the realms of literary criticism and appreciation, we canwiden our horizons by going beyond Northrop Frye and I.A. Richardsto incorporate the Chinese; for example, the Confucian scholar LiuHsiang (77–6 BCE)12 and the Indian (Hindu and Buddhist) theoristssuch as Dandin and Bharthrhari (Keith 1966) as well.

Galloway’s (1980) criticism of traditional male bias in literature,though made in the context of English literature, has general validity,and as we discover the psalms of the Buddhist nuns (Therigatha) ofthe sixth century BCE13 and other works such as those from Murasakiand Atwood, we might even be able to overcome this bias.

The widening horizons indicated here, could be characterized aslearning literature across language and language across literature.The pedagogical outcomes of the approach are, as outlined in the goalsat the beginning of this article, that our students would be exposed tothe varieties of Canadian English and Canadian literature, as they arealso attracted by its contemporaneity and, thus, higher relevance. Asthey deepen and widen their aesthetic experience, they are alsoexposed to a wider world view. The practical advantages resultingfrom all of this would be the facilitation of living in a multi-culturalsociety, the potential emergence of newer writers whose works wouldreflect the multicultural reality, and the better preparation of studentsfor living and working in the wider world, made up as it is of the verysame cultures to which they have been exposed within their ownborders. Teachers would also benefit as they prepare to teach in a waythat better meets the needs of their students.

Among the “nationist”14 outcomes of the approach is a recognition ofour ability to meet, in keeping with our rising multicultural andnationist expectations, a Canadian content requirement, and to achievemore contemporaneity, a better representation of women as authors,subjects, and critics in the curriculum, and a population moreworld-minded, yet strongly with a Canadian consciousness—all of


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this, however, without affecting quality. Success in overcoming theunderutilization of our cultural (literary) resources would result inundermining what have been described as cultural imperialism andcolonialism. It is better described as “literary imperialism/colo-nialism,” or the underdevelopment—to use the term in the sense ofone’s weakening in the same process of the growth of the other (Frank1966)—of our own Canadian culture, or the siphoning of its growthpotential, under the heavy hand of such factors as a disproportionatenumber of American authors and titles on our class lists, and theoveremphasis of Shakespeare, with all the ramifications of, asGalloway (1980) points out, sexist and stereotypical biases. A finaloutcome, for students and teachers alike, might be the psychologicalflexibility that stems from the exposure to variety—linguistic, cultural,political, thematic, and so on—the very process that has, through theages (Jespersen 1905), made our English a flexible tool.

A Multicultural English Curriculum

Both the intrinsic and extrinsic factors discussed in this articleencourage us to expand our present definition and understanding ofthe English curriculum to incorporate Canadian English in its differentfaces (dialects, sociolects, and ethnolects) and Canadian literature (inits different multicultural manifestations) with the wider worldliterature. “Wider” is used here in both the contemporaneous and thehistorical senses. A model Canadian-English curriculum would theninclude the following features:

1. Literature written in Canadian English (as defined earlier);

2. Translations of works falling under the rubric, “ComparativeCanadian literature,” but defined in a wider sense thanSutherland’s, to include works of not only Anglophone andFrancophone Canadians but also of (to coin a term along thesame lines) “autrephone Canadians”—works written in Nativelanguages and other heritage languages;

3. Contemporary world literature written in English, giving accessto British, American, African, West Indian, South Asian, andother sensibilities;

4. Contemporary world literature not in the English medium,


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including myths and folktales, giving access to French, Soviet,German, Spanish (both European, and Latin American), andother Indo-European languages; Scandinavian languages;Chinese, Japanese, and other Sino-Tibetan languages;Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Bengali and Sinhala;Dravidian languages such as Malayalam and Tamil; Africanlanguages such as Swahili; and Semitic languages such asHebrew and Arabic;

5. Classical world literature, beginning, no doubt, withShakespeare, but going beyond to include Irish, Greek, Hebrew,Chinese, Persian, Sanskrit, ancient Sinhala,15 and so on; and

6. Literary theory to the extent that it is used in classroomdiscussion, drawn from beyond the European context.

An implementation model would have to address such issues as: � how much Canadian vs. non-Canadian material; � how much English-medium vs. non-English-medium, by grade and

level (basic, general, advanced, and enriched); � political issues such as how best to sell the model to a School Board

whose student population might be homogeneous, ethnoculturallyor religiously, or whose student population might lack suchhomogeneity; and

� educational planning issues such as gradual phasing-in withminimal disruption, provision of funds, professional developmentfor classroom teachers and professors of literature, enlisting thecooperation of publishers, and so on.

These are all issues that need careful thought and creative leadership.The question is whether we are going to be dragged into amulticultural society kicking and screaming, or whether we are goingto meet our responsibility as educators by taking on the reins.

Conclusion

In this paper I have argued the case for multiculturalizing the Englishcurriculum in Canadian schools as a way of teaching CanadianEnglish and, in step with the developing world trend, as a way ofpreparing students to live in a world culture. Our contemporary


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Canadian society is, within our own borders, a global village. Theterms “Canadian English” and “Canadian literature” were given awider interpretation, and a model was proposed to reflect this widernotion.

The name “Shakespeare” in the title stands for the contemporary narrowdefinition of Canadian literature and language. It is intended tosymbolize the over-reliance on Canadian, British, and American writersof Anglo-Saxon origin, on literary works dealing with upper-class life,and on medieval (British), non-Canadian, or American English inpreference to contemporary Canadian English. As Shakespeare isdethroned, his place is to be taken by “the Stone Angel.” I use the titleof Margaret Laurence’s novel to represent the wider interpretation givenin this paper: an emphasis on contemporary and Canadian Englishworks with Canadian multicultural sensibilities. The Stone Angel is awork of multicultural literature in that the Curries are a first-generationimmigrant family whose struggles to adapt to a new society are typicalof those of other immigrant groups. And, to stretch one’s imagination toits limit, even Hagar, the main character, can be said to represent afurther multicultural aspect in that she stands for traditional (Christianand other) religiosity (consider, for example, the Biblical characterAgar), as well as for rebellion, suggestive of the emerging andincreasing acceptance of religious plurality in Canada. Hagarferociously fights to retain her pride and self-reliance, powerfullysuggesting another multiculturally linked aspect of Canadian life,namely, the struggle for women’s rightful place in society.

Dealing in further abstraction and symbolism, the “Stone” of theStone Angel can be said to represent the apparently unchanging outercore of Canadian society, with the “Angel” representing the morecompassionate and understanding dimensions of our society, to give avery liberal interpretation of the changes taking place in Canada.

Finally, to the extent that a work of literature represents the psyche ofits creator, the Stone Angel also stands for Margaret Laurence herself,which again means several things. Dubbed as Canada’s Tolstoy(Woodcock 1980, 40–62), she stands for all the Tolstoys around theworld and in Canada, namely, all the non-English-medium writers,both classical and contemporary, to be chosen for their high-qualityworks, and to be studied in translation. Laurence’s first work, The


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Tommorrow-Tamer, is set in Africa. Laurence symbolizes theCanadian writers writing about non-Canadian themes and makes iteasier to include in Canadian literature the works of first-generationimmigrant writers. Her changing domiciles—Canada to England andback to Canada—facilitate the inclusion of writers, particularlyfirst-generation writers, whose loyalties are not firmly established andwho, therefore, seem to be seeking to serve two nations, Canada andtheir native country.

In many ways, then, Shakespeare and the Stone Angel stand foropposite ends of the spectrum called Canadian literature and CanadianEnglish. Should we banish the former to the backwoods, if onlytemporarily, until we begin to accept the reality of the breadth anddepth of Canadian literature and Canadian English and are able to dealwith it in a mature fashion, in keeping with the rising multicultural andnationist aspirations and expectations of all Canadians, unfettered byour colonial past? This is the challenge facing the English teacher andthe English professor.

NOTES

1. See, for example, Ontario Ministry of Education (1983, 8, 22); TorontoBoard of Education (1979, 12).

2. See Keith (1966) for a discussion on some of these classical Indianliterary theories.

3. See Canadian Ethnic Studies (1982) for works by, or background on,Suknaski and Gunnars; see Sugunasiri (1983) and Sugunasiri (1985a)for works by South Asian Canadian writers.

4. See for example, Elliot (n.d.; 1985) and Ontario Ministry of Education(1983) for their works.

5. See Canadian Fiction Magazine (1983) and several issues of theCanadian Review of Comparative Literature (1976 to 1986) for somerepresentative works.

6. See, for example, Jenness (1956) for such a collection of “tales fromIndian Canada.”

7. This work is Sahid Mewa Singh Lopoke (“Martyr Mewa Singh of


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Lopoke”), based on the Komagata Maru incident of 1912, when ashipload of Indians, mainly Sikh, were denied landing in Canada andarrested on returning to India. Following the incident, Mewa Singh, aCanadian, shot an Anglo Indian informer. See Kalsey (1983c) for adiscussion of the works of Gyani.

8. See Yates, Lilliard and West (1971) for other works.

9. See Sugunasiri, ed. (1983) for a list of his works.

10. This is the gist of the Culladhammapala (name of child) Birth Story,items 358 (out of 550) in the collection compiled in Pali, the languageof the Buddha, under the Jataka; see Cowell (1895–1907). A Jataka isa story told by the Buddha about one of his past lives to make a pointabout the present. The Jataka is made up of two parts, the historicalstory and the contemporary, each of which can be read and enjoyedindependent of the other, even though the historical connection ismade in the end.

11. See Sarachchandra (1953) for a discussion of the Nadagama.

12. See Liu (1975) for a discussion.

13. See Norman (1971) for a discussion and the Compendium of thiscollection of 522 verses of great literary value by Buddhist nuns(Theris). The work is part of the Tripitaka, the Buddhist Canon, datingback to the fifth century BCE in its written form, easily making it thefirst major literary achievement by women writers.

14. The term “nationism” was introduced by Fishman (1968) to overcomethe conceptual confusion associated with the term nationalism. I havecoined the term “nationist” on this basis (Sugunasiri 1978b).

15. As pointed out elsewhere (Sugunasiri 1985b), Sinhala, in Sri Lanka, isperhaps one of the few living languages, if not the only, with anunbroken written tradition, the earliest rock inscriptions dating back tolate BCE times. One of its best manifestations of its literature is seenin the works of the Sigiri poets (Paranavitana 1956), being theresponses to 500 “heavenly nymphs” (apsara) painted, in the Ajantastyle, on the rock of Sigiri, recorded by average citizens on the “mirrorwall” (ketapat pauwra) that can be seen even today in its originallustre. This ancient literary tradition has continued up to today inpoetry, fiction, drama, film, etc.; see Sugunasiri and Suraweera (1984)for a collection.


Step Down, Shakespeare, the Stone Angel Is here 1987

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