Zoom class - The History of Emily Montague within its historic context

6 Abril 2020, 14:00 • Cecília Maria Beecher Martins

I would like students to watch part 2,3,5,11,12,& 14 of the TV Ontario series  Origins: A History of Canada the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN5xmRScYeU

The History of Emily Montague (1769) was originally published in four volumes.  The first Canadian novel to be written in English and for an English audience, it is part travelogue, part political report, part love story.   It is an epistolary novel – a compilation of letters exchanged between the eight main characters – like her previously work The History of Lady Julia Mandeville. This format was popular at the time.  Although at times a stilted device, the epistolary format does convey the distance of the colony from England, and the isolation, especially during the winter months when dramatic news would be months in arriving.

Edward Rivers, a British soldier has recently retired to Québec where his meagre salary will stretch further than it would in England.  He writes to his sister Lucy and satisfies her curiosity regarding life in the new colony.  Of the 228 letters, only five originate from Lucy, for she is the stand-in for the audience - the "relatable character" for the reading public in England.  Edward also continues a correspondence with an old friend, John Temple, a cad with a propensity to break young hearts.  Almost immediately, Edward Rivers meets and falls in love with Emily Montague, a young British woman living in Québec. By setting this love story in the "exotic locale" of colonial British North America, Frances Brooke is able to have her characters express their love of nature and the grandeur of their environment to their English correspondents.  The repeated adjectives "noble," "awe-inspiring," and "sublime," capture the drama of the unspoiled landscape; for Québec is a kind of Edenic paradise to the characters. This trope is in keeping with the spirit of Romanticism. However, as we saw in the texts, we looked at, overexposure to this natural beauty “alone” also had its problems.

It was written at a very unique time in Canadian history between the Treaty of Paris (1963) and the signing of the Quebec Act (1774), offers insight into the colony of Quebec after the fall of New France when Québec became a British colony. The tone of colonialism is very evident, and the native tribes are described as simple or savage – there are many references to this in the extract of the text in the manual. Moreover, none of the letter-writers are complimentary to the French Canadians, nor to natives they encounter.  In fact, they are more likely to be described with the words "idle," and "indolent," "ignorant," "lazy," "dirty," and "stupid."  The vagueness of these descriptions give the impression that perhaps Frances Brooke may have had only limited exposure to those outside her own class, and also re-enforces the superiority of the British over the conquered races. This tone of superiority is also found in her scathing descriptions of the how convents of Quebec and the “Romish” religion negate women a full life.

 

Frances Brooke uses The History of Emily Montague as a political tool to forward her own and her husband, Rev John Brooke’s political agendas to eliminate French cultural references from Quebec countering the leadership of Governor James Murray. Murray served as governor from 1760-1768 and believed that the smartest way to rule over the Canadian population was in a tone of tolerance. He considered that any successful government of British North America needed to recognise and accept the French language, law, religion with their own clergy and bishop, and even to allow Protestants to convert and remarry according to Roman Catholic rites when desired.  This did not suit John Brooke who believed the colony should have a national religion (Anglican), with little allowance for those of different beliefs. Brooke worked to facilitate the transfer of the colony from Roman Catholic to Anglican (including all property). The Brookes and the English merchants believed this conversion should occur as quickly as possible with the enforcement of English language and laws. Because of his conflict with the British merchants, and men like John Brooke, Murray was recalled from his post in 1766.