Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada

Abstract

Anna Jameson (1794–1860) was an inspirational figure to a generation of young women writers and artists including Barbara Bodichon and Bessie Rayner Parkes. Her work was reviewed by leading figures such as Mary Shelley and Charles Kingsley, and even Carlyle, though less complimentary, referred to her as the 'celebrated Mrs Jamieson'. This book, first published in 1838, secured her growing reputation as a writer of history, literary criticism and travel literature, and has been popular ever since. Inspired by a journey made to support the career of her estranged husband, one of its key themes is the condition of women, which recurs regularly in Jameson's writing. Volume 2 describes the arrival of summer, and Jameson's experiences of landscapes, towns and people from Niagara to Detroit. It includes reflections on Schiller, emigration, and the Canadian infrastructure. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=jamean

Le piège de la visibilité ? Jouer le jeu du genre dans le récit de voyage féminin britannique du XIXe siècle

“…48 In her preface to Winter Studies and Summer Rambles, while giving in to the conventional, formulaic lamentation regarding the form of her narrative and its imperfections, Jameson specifies that it was initially a 'journal addressed to a friend.' 49 What is more, the choice of a dialogic mode was not accidental, as the inclusion and mention of an addressee sometimes opportunely obscured the fact that they were indeed travelling alone. 50 32 Both the diary and the letter are genres which create the illusion of introspection and of a private space.…”

“…Revue d'études benthamiennes, 22 | 2022 their journeys. Jameson acknowledges that 'much has been omitted of a personal nature,' 51 and Bird excised and reworked extensively the material, in particular the letters concerning her budding romance with Jim Nugent. 52 Kingsley had already been to Africa and planned on sharing the observations of her second trip; she reworked her diary and the letters she sent to friends into her narrative.…”

“…The three of them thus tailored their narratives for a wider audience. Their authors' assertions that their narrative 'was never intended to go before the world in its present crude and desultory form,' 53 or that '[t]hese letters, as their style sufficiently indicates, were written without the remotest idea of publication' 54 need to be taken with a pinch of salt. These narratives reveal the forces of panopticism at work even more, as their authors were aware of their imminent exposure to public scrutiny.…”

Suitable Diversions

“…Shortly after she arrived in the colony in 1836, Anna Jameson, the wife of the then Attorney General had "the honour of assisting, as the French say, in that important occasion, " the proroguing of the provincial parliament. 71 On the appointed day, everyone of consequence-from the lieutenant governor to the judges and the law officers to the members of the legislature, and of course their consorts-took their appointed places. "My place, " Jameson wrote, "was on the right ... among the aristocracy of Toronto."…”

The Romantic Aesthetics of Settlement in 19th Century Canada

“…With inevitable variations of subject and tone, passages parallel to this appear in numerous later poems and prose works by visitors and immigrants alike. In the former category, Anna Jameson’s expression of disappointment in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838) that Niagara Falls failed to live up to expectations (entry for 29 January) is an exception that merely throws into relief the extent to which writers and artists who were already textually familiar with Canada’s scenery responded as convention required to the region’s sublime sights, be they the “terrific cataracts” of Niagara, the “boundless forests” of Ontario or, in the case of the immigrant Susanna Moodie in Roughing It in the Bush (1852), “the long range of lofty mountains” stretching away to the east of Quebec City “until their blue summits are blended and lost in the blue of the sky” (27). (As intimated by the alliterations alone in Moodie’s description, sublime features of the Canadian landscape elicited purple patches from prose and poetry writers alike.…”