FROM CAMBRIDGE TO COMMUNICATION:

MCLUHAN BEYOND MCLUHAMSM

by

Robin Tercse Perrin

B.A. Simon Fraser University 1991

Thesis subrnitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree d

Master of Arts, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University

6 Robin Tense Perrin, 2000

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

November 2000

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ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the inteiiectuai bistory of Marstaall McLuhan by examining the

concepts of modemism and the ûivium that ifluenced him while he was enrolled at

Cambridge University during the 1930s and eady 1940s. Not only did such concepts have

a lasting impact upm McLuhan, becoming recurring themes-albeit often implicitly rather

than explicitly-in his future work, but they are ultimately at the rwt of his approach to the

dynamics of the media landscape. In exploring McLuhan through his early intellectmi

development, rather than through the more traditional avenues of the McLuhan of the

popular mediaor the InnisianiToronto Schod McLuhan, the research reporteà here aligns

itself with the recent wave of biographically orienteci McLuhan scholarship and suggests

that McLuhan's amival on the Communication scene did not signal a rejection of his earlier

literary studies, but an expansion of his scope of study.

1 begin this work by reviewing the rise and fdl of McLuhan's 1% public persona,

noting the lack of attention directed towards his literary background dong the way. 1

approach modernism as a formative çontext for McLuhan's Cambridge University studies,

foçussing on bis interest in Anglo-American modemism and its Symbolist legacy as well as

the Praçtical Criticism of I.A. Richards and ER. Lavis. My discussion of the tnvium (the

fundamental group of the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric and diaiectic) revolves

around a close reading of McLuhan's 1943 Cambridge W.D. thesis The Place of Thomas

Naire in the Lemning of Hi& T h .

While 1 believe the themes of modernism and the üivium resonate throughout the

McLuhan corpus, for the purposes of this workl have chmen to investigate them through

his fimt book, The Mechical Bride: '17ie Foikfore of Indurufal Mm (1951), and what can

arguabiy be identified as his Iast book, Lmvs ofMedia: The New Science (1988). To date

neithec text has received the schdarly attention it desenes, yet both emerge as pivotal

works in the McLuhan oeuvre when examinai in relation to the continuity of McLuhan's

thought. In conclusion, 1 suggest that much of McLuhan's work has been a cal1 for a return

to aclassical education based on the arts of grammar and rhetonc, and that turning to

McLuhan's p s t may be the best way of moving McLuhan scholarship fornard.

PREFACE &

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As ao undergraduate student 1 l e a d pcimarily about the Marshall McLuhan who

coined îhe phrases "the medium is the message" and "the global village" and divided the

media wodd into two distinct camps of orai and literate w amustic and visual, the ear vs.

the eye. The main text was Unders~ndiing Media: The Externom o/Man, followed dosely

by The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typograpiu'c Man. McLuhan was usuaily

discussed in tandem with HaroId A. Innis, the economic historian whom McLuhan

enmuntered at the University of Toronto dwing the late 1940s. In such discussions the

question of technological determinism was an ineviiable one.

1 also learned that McLuhan was among the m a t famow intellectuals of the twentieth

century-a feat for any schofar, let alone a Canadian one. He was biggest around the tirne I

was born. He appeared on Laugh-ln and in Annie Hall. He was arrogant, flippant and

wacky-either incredibly insigfitful or incredibly insane, perhaps tioth. He was shunned by

the Left for getting into bed with big business, his "global village" snidely remt as a

"global pillage," and endured by the Right even though he was "not of the old school." He

had bnishes with C;tscisrn pcior to the Second World War and was ernbmced by the youth

culture of the 1960s. He was devoutly religious, yet adoreci by Madison Avenue. He was a

mess of contradictions who ûwld be credited with making communications thematic to a

gened public.

With rny feet f i d y pIanted within ihe English department, 1 was introduced to

McLuhan in a first year Communication class. How fatmate 1 was that my professor

encouraged her saidents to have a look at an early work by McLuhan eatitled Tire

MchicalBn'rde: Fokbre ofImhriufMmt-that elusive, seductive book that is the fix to

every student craving poetry and popular culture. Needless to say the book intrigued me

and 1 found myself renuning to it t h e and time again over the coming years. It is the book

that prompted me to take McLuhan seriously as well as the book that compelled me to

speculate about his pst. In between my finit glance of The Mechanical Bride and this

project there have been many studies and interests, yet to this day the Bride d l 1 compels

me and remains among my favourite texts.

1 am grateful to that first year professor for sparking my interest in McLuhan's earlier

works so many years ago. In a sense, that is where this project began. 1 am equally grateful

to the professors, b t h in the School of Communication and the department of English,

who allowed me the opportunity toexplore various facets of McLuhan's thought within the

context of their courses. Naturally, 1 am indebted to the members of my cornmittee for their

suggestions, and especially to my senior supervisor, Dr. Paul Heyer, for his patience and

encouragement Special thanks must go to those members of caffeine fueled reading groups

from years gone by who inspired lively discussion-sometimes around the subject of

McLuhan, more often not-and to Kurt, who graciously accommodated the footprint of

this work.

CONTENTS

Approvd Page

1 Approaehing An Enigma- A Figure Without a Gmund McLuhan as Media Guru- The LW Public Persona

McLuhan's Liîerary R a - The Guru Has a Pasc Fail and Recovery - McLuhan as Toronto School Member and Cyberpwik Guru

The Past is Resurrected- Biographical Scholarship and McLuhan Notes for Cbapter One

Modernism and McLuhan- Cambridge and Critical Influences

Artistic and titerary Moderaism- Modernity, Urbanization and Aesthetiçs Anglo-American Modeniism a d McLuhan- The Symbolist. and The Artist McLuhan and The h i i c a i or New Cnticism- Richards, Leavis and The Southeru Agrarians

Notes for Chapter Two

3 McLuhan and The Trivium- Educational Rivalries and Their Legacy in America McLuhan's Cambridge Dissertation- The Place of Thomas N& in the Lemning O ~ H ~ I S Tm The Ancient Quarrel Cornes to America- The Southeni S ympathy Articles Notes for Chapter T h

4 The Mecluinical Br&- Literary Studies Mamy the Media Environment The Bride- The Basics and Its Beginnings The Bri& and Modernism- McLuhan and the Literary Tradition The Folklore of Dialectical Man- The Triviwn as Industriai Critique Notes for Chapter Four

5 Laws of Media- Ricorso, Literary Studies Meet the Media Once More McLuhan's Media Theory Revisited- Acoustic and Visual Space

McLuhan's Media T heory Revised- The Brain Hemispheres and Groumi The Laws of Media- An Artistic Endeavour, a Grammaticai Device and a New Science Notes for Chapter Eive

Conclusion Parting Thoughts- The Reeovery of Ground Notes for Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

The flowing is an examiaation of the intellatual bistory of Herliert Marshall

McLuhan-Canadian academic, literary critic and communications theorist, best known Tor

revoiutionizing the way we look at media. While the McLuhan of the 1960s who spoke of

the mass media is the most well known, for tk schdar, the McLuhan of the 1930s and

1940s who imrnersed himself in likrary studies may well prove to be the most valuable.

The ideas McLuhan encountered while emtled as a snrdent of literature at Cambridge

University during tfie 19309 and w l y lWOs had a profound and lasting impact. In addition

to becoming recurring themes in McLuhan's future work, they would lundamentally shape

his approach to the media landscape. A better understanding of McLuhan and his later

media thmies can be gained through a better undersmding of these iduential ideas.

In this work 1 address the inf îuem from McLuhan's Cambridge days through two

central concepts, mademism and the îrivium. 1 approach modemism as a formative context

for McLuhan's Cambridge studies, noting the spirit of mademism as well as the aasthetics

of modemism. Specific to McLuhan, 1 consider Anglo-American modernism, and what he

identifieci as its Symbolist legacy. Aâditionally, 1 discuss the Practicai Criticism of I.A.

Richards and ER. Leavis thar emerged out of a modemist sensibility. For my discussion

of the trivium (the arts of grammar, rhetonc and dialatic) 1 tum to McLuhan's 1943 PhD.

thesis, The Place of Z7wrnus Niashe in fhe Leming olHis Tinte. 1 offer a brief examination

of this seminal piece and note its sumuent influence cm McLuhan's Iater thought Of

particuiar interest is McLuhan's identifiaiion of the historie split between the am of

grammarand rhetoric on ihe one hand and dialectic on the d e r , and his reverence for the

art of grammar.

While the themes of mdeniism and the ûivium fesonate to some degree inall d

McLuhan's major works, î l e Mechanical Bride: The Folklore ojIrtdusiriul Man and Lnws

oJMedUr: Tke N m Science are my focus hem. Published in 1951, Tiie Mecira&alBn'&

has been identifml as a tfansitional book, with McLuhan's attention ciearly shifting from

the traditional literary subject maüer of authors and their works to the images of advertising

and popular culîm. In spite of this apparent "shift," however, the themes of modernism

and the trivium continue to assert themselves throughout the work as McLuhan compares

the techniques of the ad men with those of his favourite avant-garde painters and p e t s and

recasts the ancient quarrel of his theais as "the Great Books Debaie." With the appearance

of Laws of Media in 1988 readers were (re)iniroduced to McLuhan's synthesis, this time

schematicaily and graphically rendemi as the teiraci. For McLuban the tetrad was a sound

scientific tod and considerable discovery; for many of his readers it was at best a oonfusing

heuristic game. lt is in Laws of Media, however, that the signifimce of' modeniism and

the trivium to McLuhan's program are ultimately realized as the artistic training of

perception and the grammatical training of critical awareness are identifie. as the essential

meaus of educating people to appfo~ch th psychic and social effects of technology, i.e.,

McLuhan's ground.

In tracing the influentid concepts of modemism and the trivium from McLuhan's

Cambridge days through his first book, The mec han cal^, and what can arguably be

identified as his last book, Laws of Media, the research cep& here reveds an underlying

continuity in McLuhan's thought h m his formative years to his final years. Such research

adds to the growing recognition that McLuhan's arrivai on the Communication scene did

not signal a rejection of his eariier literary studies, but an expansion of his scope or study.

That is, while McLuhan's subject matter may have changed over the years, the m of his

approach did not-the key to McLuhan's career was continuity, notchge.

As an exploration of McLuhan's &y intellecimi development ttie research reporteci

here aligns itself with the ment wave of biopphically orienîeâ McLuhan scholarship that

utilizes McLuhan's pst in order to make betîer sense of him and his theories. Such

research is necessarily built on the founâations of the work of previous scholars, most

natably Jonathan Miller and DonaldTheall, who esiablished the link between the popular

McLuhan of the 1960s and his literary past over a generation ago. Writing about McLuhan

at this point in time ofCers the schditr several advanhges-freedom from the loorning

shadow cast by McLuhan's persona and the frenzy created by the introduction of his

theories, the ability to move beyond the issue of "tnith" in McLuhan's system, as well as

the question of whether or not he had a system, and, signi ficantl y, an unprdented access

to McLuhan's p s t through the archives, î ï w Lmers and the biographies. tndeed this work

couid not have been completed without the exisîenœ of the archives- the source of my

copy of McLuhan's Nashe dissertation, the insights offered in The Letters or the extensive

background material provided by the biographies. In many respects this work is an

extemwn - in the McLuhanesque sense of the term -of these works.

By examining the concepts of modernism and the trivium that infîuenced McLuhan

while he was enrolled at Cambridge University it is haped that this work makes a

rneaningfui contribution to the exisiing comrnentary on McLuhan and furthers our

understanding of this enigmatic figure. While 1 am most cerfainiy not the fint to address

McLuhan in conneciion with modemism or modemist artists, 1 hop that my m e n t of

the subject, especially as it relates to the sipifïcanœ of the rde of the artist in McLuhan's

plan, enriches such discussions. Similarly, I hop tbt my examination of McLuhan's

unpublis hed dissertation, Tke Place of Thomas Nmhe in the Lemning of Hik Tirne,

iUustrates the signjlïcanceof the tnvium to McLuhan and generates further interest in the

work itself. As for Tlie MechanicaLBticle and Imvs of Media, to date neither text has

received the scholarly attention it deserves, yet bothemerge as critical works in the

McLuhan œuvre when examined in relation to îhe continuity of McLuhan's thought.

Because of the bistoical orientation of this work and the desire to capture the nuances

of McLuhan's thoughts, 1 bave consciously opted to remain "inside" McLuhan throughout

much of this work. That is, rather than constnict lengthy analytical passages or explicit

sections of critical commentary, 1 have chosen to rely upon the biographicall y onented

literature and, in many cases, McLuhan's own commentary for insight. Frequentl y, my

approach is one of sitting back and letting the texis-carefuily selected and arrange4 of

course-speak for themselves. After years of king subjected to reductionist readings and

an array of misinterpretations, 1 have found that when it cornes to reading McLuhan it is

often best to let him have the final say.

Appropriately this work begins where most people's siudy of McLuhan begins-

focussed on the McLuhan of the 19609.1 offer a bief review of the meieoric rise and faII

of McLuhan's 1960s public persona, noting the lack of attention directed towards his

literary background dong the way, and trace McLuhan's legacy both inside and outside the

academy. 1 end the chapter with a discussion of the recent wave of biographically orientad

scholacship-the areaof McLuhan studies to which this work both belongs and is most

indebted.

CHAPTER ONE

Approaehing An Etiigma-

A Figure Without a Ground

Noiùing bas its meaning alone. Everyfigtrre must have its greesid a envircwment A singie ward, d i v d fran its Linguistic groMd, would bc useless. A note in isolation is mt music . . . Thc 'meaning of meaning' is relati0utbip.l

As afigure, McLuhan is indeed adifficuit one to approach. PurpcisefuUy ambiguous, a

willing participant in the audience "put on," imbued with a jesier quality of tone, insisting

he hi no concepts only percepts, builying the opposition with arrogance and flippancy,

one learns to approach McLuhan wiih a raiseci eyebrow. To echo the catch phrases of a

"formerly hotdow not" television series that m i m McLuhan's own cornet iike career,

'Trust No One'' yet 'The Tnith is Out There," or as Jonathan Miller says "perfiaps

McLuhan has accomplished the greatest paradox of dl, creating the possibility of truth by

shocking us al1 witb a gigantic system of lies.'g Given McLuhan's enigrnatic quality it is no

surprise to find that he was often addressed as a figure without a grouad. Undoubtedly this

phenornenon is respnsible for much oT the confusion and conflict surmunding him. To

compound the problem, McLuhan himself conspireci with the public relations industry,

invenîing and reinventing his puMic persona îluoughout his career. While this practice may

have Mped endear McLuhan to curretlt practiîioners ofpt-modemism, it has made him a

more challenging persondity to approach.

Within the discipline of Communication the conventional approach to McLuhan has

been thrwgh the Toronto School," specificaüy opproaching him in tandem with the

Canadian economic bishan Hadd Innis. Whiie Inois was a conspicuous Muence on

McLuhan and îime is much in bth their works to suggest an affinity, it must be

remembeced that McLuhan did not arrive on Inais' doorstep an intellechial blank slate.

Pnor to bis quaintance with Innis McLuhan had been heavily influenced by ideas he

encountered in the field of Iiteratwe. In fact, many of McLuhan's so-called

"breakthroughs" can be traced to his experienm in this field rather than his encounter with

Innis.4 It is McLuhan's formative years in the field of Iiterature that concem me in this

study. 1 believe they are the hidden ground to the figure of McLuhan and a latent force in

his media theories, the significance of which is only now beginning to be fully recognized.

Before embarking on my project, however, it is necessary to review the popular figure of

McLuhan in the 1960s as well as note sorne of the biographicaily oriented criticism that has

emerged almg the way.

McLuhan as Me& Guru-The 1960s Pubüc Persona

McLuhan was probably one of the most famous academics of the twentieth century.

His prolific media presence during the late 1%0s was unbelievable by today's standards,

let alone those of a generation ago when academics had a greater tendency to stay put

within their ivory tower walls. His popularity can in large part be anributeci to his third

book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. While not aiways

well received, the book did serve to propel McLuhan's career, pushing his name out of the

shadows of literary studies and into the limelight As one of McLuhan's biographers notes,

' 'Under~ding Media introduced McLuhan as a subject for senous debate in intellectud

cirdes in both North Amerkaand Great Britain. He became an author that anyone with

intellectual pretensions should know-with the result that his book sold nearly 100,000

copies."s By 1%6 McLuhan haâ cleariy entered the spotlight. He and his theorïes sahmted

the popular media of the day: newspapers, magazines, radio and television. In 1967, the

year McLuhan acceptecl one of the newly created Schweimr Chairs in the Humanitics and

left the University of Toronto to teach at Fordham University in New York twenty-seven

articles about him ran in The New York Tfmes aione. During his celebrity phase McLuhan

was interviewai by Phzyboy, reviewed by Tom Wolfe and featured in ForPuie,

Newsweek, f i f i , muire, Tinte, The N & d Review, Partisan Review, Look, The New

Yorker, The Niaîihn, The Saturday Review, New York Times Magazine, Encounter,

Family Circle, Vogue and Mademoiselle, to name but a few.6 He was the subject of an

hour long program on NBC and made cameo appearances on the popular comedy show

Laugh-10.7 The Gutenberg Gaiaxy and Understanding Media were translated into over

twenty languages, increasing McLuhan's global profile. The French term mcluhanisme was

coined in his honour. Between the years 1967 and 1971 eight books featuring McLuhan

were released.8 Describeci as "the oracle of an electronic age," "the sage of Aquarius" and

"Dr. Spock of Pop Culture,"9 McLuhan letured to academics, consulted for big business

and became an icon of the counter-culture. McLuhan was, so the story went, an obscure

English professor turned media guru overnight.

During his celebrity period McLuhan's previous existence in the field of literary studies

was downplayed. McLuhan's commentators both inside the academy and the media and

public relations industries tended to be more concemed with McLuhan's media theones

than his previous literary essays. Like Tom Wolfe, many wondered: "suppose he is what

he sounds like, the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and

Pavlov-what if he is right?"lo Conversely, many like George P. Elliott womed:

"McLuhan's teaching is radical, new, capable of moving people to social action. If he is

wrong it mattem"11 As for the executives of the time, it can be argued that they were

Iistening to McLuhan because he spoke of their breadand butter. As Dean Walker noied in

his artic1e"McLuhan Explains the Media" "[e]xecutives must be pnrnarily and convincingly

pragmatic; but McLuhan is a mid-century combination of pet, philosopher, social

scientist, scholar, and wit. He is the sort of person they might normally ignore but they are

7

not sure they can because he iaiks about media, ccxnmunications, advertising, aad social

patterns."l2

With litile attention focusseci on his 1itû;iry mots, the media and the puûiic relations

industty- with McLuhan's cooperation-promoted McLuhan as an ovemight sensation, a

futurist without a past if you will. As Daniel Cziirom desccibed it "McLuhan's spectacular

notoriety during the 1960's resembled the arriva1 of a streaking meteor from outer space,

and the pubüc McLuhan did everything passible to reinforce t4e notion that he came from

nowhere."l3 Undoubtedly such a presentation was advantagrnus for an industry ihat

thrives on hype, decontextualized information and a sense of "now-ness," but such a

presencation was also advantageow for McLuhan himseIf. McLuhan valued a humanistic,

literary approach to the world, but was well aware that such an approach was not equally

embmed by ail, especially those involved in the obsessively quantifiable social sciences of

his day. (One wonders how far McLuhan would have gotten promoting himself as an

English professor who happened to have a few observations about media he wished to

share). Certainl y it was no accident that a focal point for much of the con troversy

surrounding McLuhan in the l%ûs concemed his lack of scientific rigor and the

verifiability of his theories. The assertion îhat bis theories seemed to emerge out of

metapbr ratber than fact became a common cornplaint among many of his cntics.14

Downplaying bis previous existence as aa English profasor may also have enbaaced

McLuhan's mystical "pet-seer" quality. His references to a Joyce or a Mallarmé or other

favourite ariists were rarely conteWzed for his audience, thus, the connections seerned

tenuous and cryptic. Having the appearance of coming h m nowhere, McLuhan and his

insighis may have seemed more bnliant than they achially were. As one who was sensitive

to the subtleties of rhetoric and knew bow îo work an audience, McLuhaa would certainly

have understood the mie O€ s e m q and ambiguity in the appearance of briiiiance. 1 should

note that no& everyone has been so generous in expiainhg McLuhan's use of such

references. Nathan Halper was but one of many critics who fmwned on McLuhan's

treatment of secondary sources and (rnis)use of literary references, explaining McLuhan's

process as follows:

He has a generai idea d ihÊ effëct he wants. He glances at his mated and, not looking too bard, he picb any coiorful swa~cb that happens to sirike his eye. Joyce is a favorite cupboard. He is a mamy of phrases on which McLuhau can improvise. A word is Aladdin's ring: it brings bim ail U t he can possiMy desire. By and large, the maay allusions to Joyce are mt devant to his discussion. It is a form of snob appeal. l5

As for McLuhan's view on the matter, he ouce observai that he found his references to

Fiaubert and the Symbdists "uuseful for puning an audience in its inteliectual place."l6

Finally, downplaying his literary background would have lent more credence to

McLuhan's message. As an exporr who s@ with authority on the then emerging

communications technologies, McLuhan's public persona was that of someone who was

"hip" to the new media and the generation it was affecting. Terence McKenna recalls the

sense of relevancy McLuhan had for his generation:

To ihe old style thinkers, to those wc called 'straight,' McLuhan was tlippant, wigged- out, and incomprehensible. W e io ihose of us who considered ourselves hip, McLuhan was as transparent as wakr. He seemed to be giviap permission; pemission for youth culhue, rock and r d , ad pt-print libidinal iactility to fiaally, mercifuily dismaorle linem stuffed-shin Western Cirilizatioo. AU as part d the larger agenda of giobnl uibalism and fucking in h e streea, l7

One assumes that ccultivatiag such a persona was easier to do without the encumbrances of

a traditional humanities background and a doctorate in English literature-relia of the old

bodr culture venerateà by "the old style thinken."

While McLuhan's public image duxing the 19609 seems to have thrived on obscurïty,

people's understanding of him and his theones suffered because of it. As Northrop Frye

observed, "in the sixties both the anti-intellectuals, who wanted to hear that they had only

IO disregard books and watch television to get with it, and the acfiikts pursuing terror for

its own sake, found much to misunderstand in McLuhan."l8 Looking back, the degree of

misunderstanding among McLuhan's hilowers is perhaps the greatest üony and the

9

greatest legacy of his fame. The power of McLuhan's 1960s public p e m still lingers

today with many people basing their undentandhg of McLuhan upon it, uttedy mnvinced,

for example, that the aim of his program was to destroy the culture of ihe book. Like many

of his devotees during the 1- they are unaware that pnvately McLuhan condemned such

attitudes. As he once noted, 'Temperamentally, I'm a stodgy conservative. If there are

going to be McLuhanites, you can be sure that I'm not going to be one of them."lg

McLuhan's Literary Roots-The Guru Has a Past

That the dominant figure of McLuhan during the 1- was one without a p t does not

mean no one noticed it. For exarnple GE. Stearn's McLuiu111: f i t & Cool (1967). a

collection of critical articles focussing on McLuhan's popular media theories, contained a

scattering of references to his litemry mots. in the piece "The New Life Out There" Tom

Wolfe provided readers with some background information, noting that McLuhan had

sla~ed out as an English literature scholar, graduating first from the University of Manitoba

and then receiving a doctorate in English at Cambridge in England. Wolfe was aware that

McLuhan's doctorate was on the sixteenth-century Engfish writer Thomas Nash and that it

had involved a great deal of researçh in the field of rhetoric.20 In the essay "McLuhan's

Galaxy" John Freund credited McLuhan's unique perspective to his background in

English, suggesting that "perhaps it [was] his experience in this least specialized of al1

academic fields which enabled him to encompass the wide variety of speciaiized knowledge

in the arts and sciences that was necessrvy to his undemking.'Qt In the final piece in the

book, an interview with G.E Stearn, McLuhan himself identified the significance of his

eadier literary stuâies to his media studies, stating that "[m]y present interest is an

extension of, and denvative of, my literary work." Furthemore, McLuhan claimed that

"[Qf 1 could get a tearn of media students going, 1 would happiiy retire back inta literary

studies. I find mediaanalysis very much more exciting now simply Wuse it affects so

10

many more people.'Q2 Wbile such commentary did point to McLuhan's literary pst, it

tended to be overshadoweû by bis popular persona and his c m n t media theories.

In Raymond Rosenthal's McLAllran: Pro & Con (1968) a similar pattern emerged. Like

Stem's book, it was a collection of pieces assessing McLuhan's media theaies and

popular works, though the overd1 tone was more critical. Once again, references to

McLuhan's literary pst were made but most of these references tended to be buried,

discreetly tucked away between the van'ous compliments and condemnations. The book

did, however, contain a short biography which iniormed readers that McLuhan had

originally enrolled at the University of Manitoba with the intention of eaming an

Engineering degree, but had, as McLuhan himself describeci the situation, '"read [his] way

out of engineering and into English literature"' during a long summer vacation.23 Readers

also leamed that McLuhan had obtained his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Manitoba in 1933

and 1934 respectively, before going abroad to study at Trinity Hall in Cambridge

University where he attended lectures by I.A. Richards and ER. Leavis, studied medieval

education and Renaissance Iiterature and became so fascinated by Elizabethan rhetoric that

he subrnitted a doctoral dissertation entitled The Place ofïïwmas N& in the Learning of

iris Time. The biography also informed readers that in his previous litenry criticism

McLuhan had addresseci the works of such writers as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Dos

Passos, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce.

Most of the remaining references in the book to McLuhan's literary ps t were not so

neutral in tone. In several cases when critics were motivated to point to McLuhan's past

literary studies they did so in order to discredit his media theories. In "McLuhan's

Message," for example, Milton Klonslq mentioned T.S. Eliot and New Criticism as

possible influences, charaçterized McLuhaa's style as rerniniscent of Pound and Lewis'

magazine BLASTand clairneci McLuhan borrowed much fmxn Joyce. He complained that

McLuhan had "a propensity to forget chat he [was] not supposed to be writing literature but

I l

social criticism" and described McLuhan's cornmentary as "a kind of Delphic gibberish, in

which metaphors tum into face and fats are transubstantiated into symbols and symbols

blur into myth.''24 Similady, in his article The Modicum is the Messuage" Anthony

Burgess described McLuhan's experienœ at Cambridge with disdain, noting that he came

"under the influence of I.A. Richards," must have %en touched by the terrible magic of

ER Leavis and Scrutiny," and wrok bis rhesis on Thomas Nashe, "an Elizabethan notable

for high auditory prose and an appeal to the entire senmium." He identified McLuhan's

"gimmick" as one of "push[ingl an esthetic doctrine to the limit''2s While such critics did

identify McLuhan's literary pst , they treated it superficiaily and regarded it as a liability

rather than a source of insight.

The most detailed and insightful account of McLuhan's pst in the Rosenthal book

appeared in Neil Compton's essay 'The Paradox of Marshall McLuhan." Compton

contrasteci the pre-guru McLuhan of yesterday with the populist McLuhan of the late

1960s, noting the following discrepancy between McLuhan's "true" values and his popular

persona:

The paradox is that fhis dsdiog ufm&thg mociatioos and the switched-on set idealizes the twelfih cennuy, dislilres almat everything about the twentieth century to date (except its art), and haa never really wavered in bia loydiy io cme of the most orihodox and conservative (mt io say r e a d i ~ ~ a r y ) of intcllectual

Compton addressed McLuhan's previous literary writings, observing that he had praised

G.K. Chesterton and drawn upon the "Tory triumvirate" of Eliot, Pound, and Lewis as

well as Joyce's Thomist aesthetics and Viconian philosophy. He also mentioned

McLuhan's Cambridge thesis and the dualism of grammarians and dialecticians advanced in

the work. He pondered McLuhan's fondness for dualistic categones in his popular media

theory (hot and c d media, visual and amustic space), boasting that such a fondness

"always tempts me to offer prizes for hrther lis& of ùnaginatively paireci 0pposites."2~The

information Compton provided abut McLuhan's past was relatively detailed and bis

In bis book Miller pointed to agrarianism, Catholicism and literary studies as fmat ive

forces in McLuhan's work. He suggested that growing up on the C d a n prairie imbued

McLuhan with an agrarian socialism which made him more recepîivt to the mdical agrarian

tendencies and moral vision d F.R Leavis, a critic whom he would encounter at

Cambridge during the mid- 1930s. In addition to Leavis' moral vision, Miller also identified

I.A. Richards and his use of neudogical research as an infïuence on McLuhan during his

Cambridge Ws, nohg that "while Richards uses scientific information in order to compile

a descriptive grammar of the literary response, McLuhan uses-and in many cases

abuses- the same data in order to derive a prescription for a hedthy and rounded spiritual

life's2 In addition, Millermentioned McLuhari's interest in the modem pets, noting they

ail shared a disgust with the modern world.33

The high point of the book came when Miller huned to one of McLuhan's earlier

influences, GK. Chesterton, and explained that McLuhan was operating under

Chesterton's granddualism of %ad" vs. "heart." According to Miller this was the source

of McLuhan's inclination to group qualities such as reason, Iinear sequential thought,

science and indusq together, and as diametricaily opposed to qualities such as

imagination, metaphoricai simultaneity, religion and agriculture. Like Compton's

observations, Miller's recognition of the presence of such a dudism in McLuhan's wwk

was insighdui-even if he did misrakenly associate grammarians with the category of

"head" which, as we shall see later in this work, was highly inaccurate.34 Perhaps Miller's

greatest insight, however, was his contention that McLuhan h;id these dualisms in mind

weU before embarking on hts media studies and that the influence of a Haroid Innis mereIy

aliowed McLuhan to identify a teçhnoiogicai explanation for this pre-eiosting kd-kart

split.35Udortuaateiy the significance of this observation was diminished in Iight of the

o v e d toneof Miller's book-to prove that al1 McLuhan's thought evolved out of

metaphor rather than science and, tberefore, was unworthy of serious consideratioo. In the

book Miller pniçeeded to refute McLuhan's humanism-science dichotomy, claiming that

humanism and science were actuaily allied forces in the development of modem science,

and dismiss McLuhan's head-kart distinction as "so vague and so metaphorical that it has

no legitimate place in what can propedy be called an expianation.'q6 While he addressed

McLuhan's Iiterary past Miller was clearly hostile to it, prefemng to use it to debunk

McLuhan's theories rather than enhance understanding.

In îïze Medium is the Rear View M i m Understanding McLuhan Donald T h d l did

not criticize McLuhan from the scientific standpoint that Miller had, but ratherWaccept[ed]

the strong emphasis that McLuhan hirnself put. . . on the arts and humanities" and tried to

use it as "a way to undentand McLuha..'g7 Because Theall's own background and

interests revolved around literature, art and popular culture, he re;isoned he was better

equipped îhan other critics to deal with McLuhan's meîhod, a mettiod which he located

within McLuhan's literaty mots. Variously latielling McLuhan as a "poet-artist-manqué"

and a "Renaissance fool," Theall empbasized the importance of aaalogy and metaphor to

McLuhan and characterized him as existing "somewhere between a p e t and a

rhetorician.'q8 Reviewing McLuhan's earlier inlluences, Theall noted the importance of an

exegetical literary iradition as practiced by Bacon and the New Critics, the techniques of

modern pets, especially Joyce, and McLuhan's knowledge of the Renaissance to

McLuhan's methodology.

While Theall cleariy adniireci McLuhan's imagination and cool aphoristic style, he

found fault with it from an epistemological perspective. Echoing Miller's critique, Theall

accused McLuhan of pushing a metaphor too far and of working with "hateful contraries."

Like Miller, Theall pondered the origin of such contraries, suggesting they may have been

derived from Chesterton's paradoxicai technique. While other cntics had been quite happy

to dismiss McLuhan's work in its entirety when &ey observed similar phenornena, Theall

was more forgiving. He concedeci that it was "possible to discover a great deal in McLuhan

without necessanly accepting the general theory that weakens agreat deal of his work.99

No doubt this criticism of his geaeral theory fmm a former student was part of the reason

McLuhan spurned the book. Regardiess of his criticisms of McLuhan's overall theory,

Theall provided great insight in& McLuhan's early influences and was one of the first

commentators to seriously comect McLuhan's literary background to his attempts at

understanding the media, unfortunatel y not many scholars seemed to notice.

Full and Recovery-

McLuhan as Toronto S c h l Mcmber undCyberpunk Guru

What goes up must corne down and McLuhan's popularity was no exception. McLuhan

was to fade from the spotlight alrnost as quickly as he had anived. After a few years of

intense media attention his celebrity status disappeared, or more accurately, it simply wore

out. Somehow McLuhan had missed the point that he had become an overheated medium.

Swn McLuhan was considered pas& the media was tired of hirn, the public forgot him

and the academy shunned him. As if to mark his official faIl from fame a 1970 wpy of The

New Yorker satirized hirn in a cartoon with me character asking another "Ashley, are you

sure it's not too soon to go around parties saying, 'What ever happned to Marshall

McLuhan?"'40 Similarly, in 1971 the GIabe arrdMaii rewnted an article from the London

Times that announced "the vogue for Marshail McLuhan (dong with that for Chairman

Mao, Che Guevara, Herbert Marcuse, and other revolutionary heroes) appears to be

over."41

While McLuhan did continue to make numerous iniemationai appearances at

symposiums and lectures during the 1970s and even had acameo role in Woody Allen's

Annie Hall, his ieputation, especially in North Amena, had plwnmeted.42 He became a

kind of bad joke that people had gmwn tired O€ hearing. McLuhan and the decade which

had made hirn a household name were "has-kens." The fremied buzz which had once

16

p t e d him and his theories was replaceù by a deafening silence. John Fekete's 1978 opus

Tire Wn'cal Ilkilighî: Eploraûo11~ in the Iüeobgy ofAngb-Mrican Liiermy Theory

from Eliot to McLuhan was a nomMe exception. In his book Fekete examined the

contributions of literary critics such as I.A. Richards and T.S. Eliot to modern critical

theory and situated McLuhan's media theory within this context, noting that modern criticai

thought had been evolving as a type daesthetics and was notoriously lacking in its

capacity for critique. Like Miller, Rkete charactenzed McLuhan's earfy phase as one

strongly flavoured by agrarianism and identifieci McLuhan's fondness for dualisms, be it in

his thoughts un America, his Cambridge thesis or his media theory. He also addresseci

McLuhan's literary p s t and atternpted to make connections between it and his popular

media theory. In the end he dismisseci McLuhan's program, defining McLuhancy as "the

ideologicai face of the aiunterrevolutionary neocapitalist reiîication of the production and

reproduction O€ everyday existellce.'*43 Like other cntics, Fekete addressed McLuhan's

l i t e r q mots, but pmved to b unsympaihetic to the tradition to which they belonged.

By ihe time of his death in 1980 a few of McLuhan's key terms echoed hollowly within

the media industries while his thewies were virtuaily banished from classrooms.~ In most

circles describing a scholar as "McLuhanque" became the equivalent of delivering a cruel

insul~45Just when it seemed as though McLuhan's name might be forgotten Save for a few

dusty relics in second-hand book stores, however, it made acomeback, or rather his

theones did. For reasons which are still somewhat unclear there was a renewed academic

interest in McLuhan's ideas during the early to mid 1980s. Mass communication had

becorne both a more cornmon and a more acceptaMe discipline, much to the chagrin of

EMmire 2 d a w ho had criticized it as an area of study in his 1%9 essay ''The End and the

Means."46 McLuhan's media theones found a legitimate home in the 'Toronto Schwi" of

Communication, where they were discussed b g s i d e the technotogicai transformation

thenries offered by like-minded individuals such as Harold Innis, Eric Havelock, iewis

Mumford and Walter Ong.47

Tbroughout the 1980s academic writings appeared that emerged out of or extended

McLuhan's main premises-from Daniel Czitrom's MediB and the Amen'can Mind: From

Morse to McLuhan (1982) to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) to

Joshua Meyrowitz's No Sense of Pluce (1985). John Fekete offered a substantial

reassessrnent of McLuhan's contribution to the field of Communication in his article

"Massage in the Mass Age: Remembering the McLuhan Maûix" (1982)-this time around

Fekete was distinctly warmer to McLuhan's theones, noting that there "is a broad

constellation of cultural inquiry into which McLuhan can be profitabl y and honourabl y

welamed if we are less dazzled by his points of excess and more open to his points of

access"48- while Arthur Krdrer contextualized McLuhan within a Canadian mindset in his

ground breaking work Technology and The Canadian Mind: InnislMcLirthanlCrant. In

academic circles McLuhan's theories were back in vogue, though his personality and

literary ps t were for the most part notably absent, If his p s t was addressed it was

generally confined to a ps t relationship with Imis.

Just as McLuhan's ideas had made a comeback in academia dunng the early to mid

1980s, the latest wave of electronic technologies harkened the guru back outside the

classroom during the iate 19809 and 1990s. When McLuhan had made his radical

predictions in the 1960s his focus had been television, more specifically, broadcast

television. This was a far cry from the techndogiml environment of the 1980s and 1990s

that captured our imaginations with virtual reality d nanotechnology and shaped our

dreams of connecting everyone with everyone else Ma the intemet and cellular technology.

Perhaps this is ihe world McLuhan was writing about? As Lewis Lapham noted in his

introduction to the most ment editioa of Understatuirng Media, "[mluch of wbat McLuhan

had to say [made] a good deal more sense in 1994 than it did in 1964."49

tt is not surprishg that amoag the first mm-demie groups to resurrect McLuhan

were those closest to îhe new iecbndogies-hackers, cyberpunks and the emerging

generation of web wotkers. McLuhan's name became associaiai with these technologies,

articles featuring him appeared in Modo 2îXM and he was named Patron Saint of Wired

magazine, As with McLuhan's media persona of the lm, myth and misunderstanding

abounded. Like their predecessors, many of these McLuhan devotees assumed that because

McLuhan had predicted the shift frorn literate to electronic culture he also personail y

endorsed it. This time around McLuhan's persoua came to represent the new on-line culture

and rhis wave of followers beIieved that in building a global village in cyberspace they were

fulfilling the p u ' s deepest desires.

Perhaps the most ielling example of the misunderstanding surrounding this version of

McLuhan's persona was tûat of Wired magazine. After p t i n g McLuhan's picture on their

masthead as their Patron Suint for nearly thee years and receiving mail from fans who

were unawm McLuhan had passed away m e years earlier the magazine final1 y published

an issue featuring the great man himself in which they explainecl what must have been a

shocking revelation to many of their readers: "McLuhan did not want to live in the global

village." In fact, "[tlhe prospect frightened him."SOThe article served to highlight the irony

of McLuhan king selected as the mascot for such a publication in the first place. One

suspects McLuhan would no more have approved of the mock religious title bestowed

upon him than he would bave approved of the content of the magazine that set him up as an

in-house idd.

If McLuhan's past as an Eaglish professor and literary critic was obscured by his

1960s media persona, it was completel y absent from the updated 198% and 1990s cyber

version. When someone within this group referred to McLuhan's pas&, chances were he or

she was not refetring to his days as a îiterary critic during the 1940s' but to his days as a

media guru duhg the 1960s. McLuhan became a visionary for the coming millennium

19

who, some discoverai, had also been big a generatim ago- when their parents were their

age Suffice it to say tbat McLuhan's carlier existence as a stuâeat and professor of

literahire remaiaed largely unknown to this p u p of followes.

The Past is Resumecled-Biogmphical Schokrnhip and McLuhan

As scholars' interest in McLuhan's theones was piquai, evennially so was their interest

in his past-a past beyond Innis. In Meda andthe American Mind: From Morse to

McLuhan, for example, Daniel Cziûom observed that "fa a very public figure, little is

known about McLuhan's p h t e life orearly Yeats. He has been deliberately vague and

even misleading on the subject of his own biography." Czitrom proceeded to pmvide a

brief biographical account of McLuhan's life and nded the influence of New Cnticism

through I.A. Richards and ER Leavis and McLuhan's promotion d modeniist writers

such as Pound, Eliot, Joyce and Yeats. He also described how McLuhan's literary criticism

"expresseci a personal variant of the Tory, neo-Catholic, antimodern tradition flouishing

on both sides of the Atlantic" and how McLuhan had perceiveci a division in Ameriun

society between the South and the North- the dualism Compton and Miller h d bth noted

in their works.sL While Czitrom's acc~unt of McLuhan was brief, it was a sound start.

In 1984 the Canadian govemment archives acquired the McLuhan papers, a collection

of McLuhan's jounials, conespondence, notes, manuscripts and other miscellaneous

materials which gave schdars access to a plethora of McLuhan's pnvate thoughts

throughout the years. In reviewing the 225 volume collection, WilIiam Lindley noted that

while McLuhan was "often chided for haphazard ways as a scholar, [hd evidently was

good about saving matend."52

In 19û7 a book of Ietters appeared which had been selected and eâited with the help of

Corinne McLuhan, McLuhan's wife, While the volume of material in the book was

m i n d e mpared with the archivai papers in Ottawa, the selestion of correspondence

20

was addressed to a range of notable persoaalities, included a variety of subjects and

spanned most of McLuhan's adult life. The book opened with a letter McLuhan had written

to his mother in 193 1 while attending the University of Uaaitoh In it he expressed a

reserved admiration for Bernard Shaw, noting he was no Shakespeare, and pondered

scholarship opportunities. The fiid McLuhan letîer in the book was a 1979 letter to Pierre

Elliott Trudeau. McLuhan observed that Trudeau's beard had " d e c i " his image, that

Jimmy Carter's problems could be explaineci as a culture-clash between his oral tradition

and the bureaucratie world of modern politics and goverment, and that the Toronto Centre

for Culture and Technology had a monopoIy on the study of effects of media and

te~hriology.~~ The Letters was the first work that served to fil1 in the gaps for scholars and

introduce a new side of McLuhan to his fans. The work provided texture and depth to

McLuhan's media personas, contextualized his public work and documented the unfolding

of his ideas.

This is not to say that al1 the carrespondence revolved around scholarly insights and

revelations. The quivalent of smdl talk was aiso present, as when McLuhan discussed

overestimating the cost of meals duriag his break at Cam bridge and described his

accommodation as a boarderat the Odams' in a letter to bis family, ail of which served to

imbue him with a nonnality that was notably absent fom his public work.54 ï7te Leners

was especially useful for highlighting McLuhan's early years, providing a sense of

McLuhan's passion for English studies as well as his pwing concern for matters outside

of literature. Of particular interest are his letters to iduential thinkers such as Ezra Pound,

Wyndham Lewis, Harold Innis and Walter h g .

After The Letrers it was ptedictable that the remaining store of material in the archives

would be tapped for knowledge and Pfiilip Marchand, a journalist who had taken a course

from McLuhan in the late 1- and catalogued the McLuhan papers for the National

Archives, was the fmt to do it. His biography, Mmshall McLuhn: The Medimand the

21

Messenger, was released in 1989 and presented a detailed account of McLuhan's life,

especially his public life. Marchand's biography was dnven by the events and personalities

in McLuhan's life, especially those of the media and pubiic relations indusûy. Marchand

did a particularly good job at poriraying the public personas McLuhan presented during the

1960s and 19705, capturing the guru's flippant brilliance as well as his more difficult

moments. Marchand also outiined McLuhan's farnily history-warîs and dl-and his days

at the University of Manitoba and Cambridge, noting the importance of eariy influences

such as G.K. Chesterton, I.A. Richards, ER. Leavis, T.S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis and

others, though none were explored in depth. In providing a sound, accessible, well

researched biography Marchand had provided an ideal structure upon which to hang TIre

Leners.

Gordon's biography was released in 1997, just eight years after Marchand's biography

had appeared. Gordon was no stranger to McLuhan. Earlier that year his McLuhan For

Begimrs had been released, a documentary comic book version of McLuhan's life and

theories that in spite of its brevity-or perhaps because of it- brilliantly ~ ~ t ~ r € ! d the spirit

of the McLuhan phenornenon. In his full length biography Gordon leaves the clever

cartoon tone behind and discusses McLuhan in an eamest and thoughtful manner.

Gordon's biography presents us with a kinder, gentler McLuhan than Marchand had

delivered.55 Gordon pays significantly less attention to the McLuhan who flirted with the

media and public relations industries-Marchand's McLuhan-and instead tums his focus

to the persona1 McLuhan-the family man, the Catholic, the educator-and to McLuhan's

ideas, which he explores with significantiy more ngour and depth than Marchand.

The other area in which Gordon excels is in dealing with McLuhan's &y y e m as a

schotar of English, perhaps this is because he is from the discipline of English. Gordon,

for example, is perhaps the first person 1 have encountered who does more tban merely

note the importance of McLuhan's Ph.D. The Phce of Thomas Nashe in the Leamhg of

22

his Time and offer superficial ammentary gleaned f im skimming the first few pages, he

actually discusses it in a way that suggests he has delved into it. It is this kind of treatment

of McLuhan and his ideas that enables Gordon io present McLuhan in a more scholarly

light, as one who warrants our respect and is worthy of further study.

Through the archives, The Lemrs and the two biographies McLuhan's litecary pst was

brought forward, made available to scholars for study to an unprecedented degree. As a

result, the 1990s saw McLuhan stretched and recontextuaiized in a variety of ways.

Richard A Lanham pitioned McLuhan within a discussion of rhetoric in his 1993 book,

The Electronic Word: Demaclacy, Techbgy anâ the Arts, while Judith Stamps examined

McLuhan dongside the unlikely Company of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno in her

1995 book Unthinking Modernity: Innis, McLuhan, anà the FrankJùrt School. Stamps

proposeci that McLuhan and Innis were dialecticians who had created a uniquely Canadian

version of critical theory with k i r own variation of the Frankfurt School's "negative

diaiectics." The following year Glenn Willmott located McLuhan at the rupture point

between modemism and postmodernism in his historically oriented book Mchhan, or

Modernism in Reverse. Willmott points out that the curren t postmodernist sensibili ty has

created an environment which is more raptive to McLuhan's style and approach than the

empiricail y driven one of the 1960s.36

Such works emerge out of a new found familiacity with McLuhan's literary p s t and

point the way for future McLuhan scholarship-using the biographical information to

infonn our readings of his works, to enhance our understanding of his theories and to

appreciate McLuhan on his own tenns. The biographical information released over the pst

decade and a hdf has established that McLuhan's ps t mattered and suggested that links

between McLuhan's early influences and later media theories are more than superficiai,

causîng us to reassess McLuhan's contributions in an entirely new light. This work is but

an example of such a reassessment.

Notes for Chapter One

Appmachîng An Enigma-A Figure Wlthout a Ground

lMarsbaU Mctuhan with Bamngtoa Nevitt. T h Today (New Y& Hâicourt Brace Jwanovich, 1972). p. 3.

2MarsbaU Mc~ubao, Ka- Hutchon and Fxic McLuhaa City as CIarsroom: Ubsfanding Languageund (Agincourt, (intario: The Bodr Society of Canada, 19n). p. 14.

3~00athan ~iller, Mc& (London: William Cdüas. 1971), p. 132.

4While the patbs of the two scholars met only briefly (McLuhan became aquainted with M s during the late 19409, Innis passed away in 1952) ïnnis bas becn identifieci as amjm idurncc on McLuhan and credited wilbtumùig McLuhim's attention to communication tecbnology and viewing media as societai change agents. McLuhan bimsell ensured his cmnection to huis wben he anwuaced in bis Govemor General's award witming Gutenberg Galaxy b t tbe book was but "a f m t e of explamion to [Innis'] wOIYI ami when he reiterated bis &bt to innis in h e inboductioa be wrote for the 1 W edition of ùuus' Bi# of Comw~iccuion. Ever Jince it seans k t schoim have been & M g the rde of b i s in McLuhan's thought.

Much bas been written on the relatimship between McLuhan and Innis. McLuhan gives bis reading of innis in his artide T h e Later Innis," Queen'sQut.umly, 60.3 (1953): 3S94, anticipating his introduction to Innis' Bias of Communication by adccade. Wu1 Heyer and DavidCrowley offer an excellent couterpoint to McLuhan's introduction to innis' Bias in heu introduc iion to the 199 1 edi tion of Bias flomato: University of Toronto Press. 1991). pp. U-xxvi. McLuhan's long thne friend and coiiabontor Edmund Carpenter offers his take on the McLuhan-innis relationship in bis article "Remembering Explorations," ~Olûdj~NotesturdQUerie~, 46 (S@g 1992): 3-13, in which he suies that he remains unconvinced of McLuhan's allegiance to innis. James Carey's piece "Harold Adams Imis and Marshall McLubao," The Anitoch Review, 27.1 (Spnuig 1%7): 5-39 identifia! McLuhan as exaggerating a small detnil in laais' system over k e &cades ago ancl remains a key vantage poDnt in the [Mis-McLuhan debate, For a more generai discussioa of the ibeones and ibe legacy of McLuhan aod aods see, James P. Winter and Itving Ooldman. "Comparing the Early and Latt McLuhan to U s ' Political Discouse," I l ieCdim Journal ofCommunicoiion 14,4&5, (December 1989): 92-100. Graeme htterstm's Hirwryand Communications: Harold Inn&, Mushall McLuhan, the Inrerprefaibn of History floronto: University of Toronto Ress, 1990). Robert K. Logan's "The hianatics of inais and McLuhan," McLuhan Snrdies, 1 (1991): 75102, Roman ClnuErijchuL's "Introduçing InnislMcLuhan Coticluding: The Innis in McLuhnn's 'System,"' Continuum: The A K T R ~ ~ M JournolofMedia & Cullure. 7,1(1993), a d Arthur hker 's Technology and the Cunœfian M i d : InWMcLuhanlGrunt (Mont& New World Perspcciives, 1985).

SMuch to McLuhan's dismay a Titne rnagiukreview describai Underslanding~d!as'T~~~y-mioded lacking in perspective, low inckf~tionanddaia, reduodent andmtemptuous of logical sequencecDce"See Phüip Marchand, MmsM iWhhan: The &dim Md rhe Messenger flmnto: Viniage, 1989). p. 170.

'%atie Molinaro, Corinne Mduhaa, and William Toye, eds. Lezzers of Mmshull McLirhon (ïmnio: ûxford University Press. L W ) , p. 175.

7~oshua ~eynnvitz, No Senre of Phce: ï k Thenpacr of EIectronic Media on Socid Beh&or(New Yok Oxford University Ress, 19û5), p. 21.

8~heeight books published berneen l%?and 19fl were McfAm Hot 8 Cool(l%7)edited by Gedd Esiumuel Stem; ~ L a r h o r o : R o undcon (1968) edited by Raymond Rosenthai; The M d u h Enplosion (1968) edited by H q Crasby and Gearp R Bond, Sense undNomense of McLuhan (1968) by Sidney Finkelstein; Mmhdl McUion (1969) by Denuis Duffy; M ' (1971) by Soaaihan Millet; The Me& 1s the Rear View Minor: Understanding McLuhan (1971) by W d m. ad, in Frexh, M W (Paris, 1971) by Alain Bounisin. See Mdinato et. d., h, pp. 175-176,

g~eytowitt, NO &me ofphce. p 21.

"%m Woife, 'The N ~ W ~ i f e ~ut~here," m McWwt: Hot & Cd, G E Sieani, ed, (New Yo*: Signet Books, 1967). p. 30.

24

l IGeorge P. EUiott, "Marshall McLuhan: DwMe Agent," in Mc*: Hot & Cool. p. 76.

1 2 ~ c a n waJker, "MC- hpiaim the Media," in McLuha~~ Hot & Cool. p. 58.

13~aniel I. Czit.com, Media Md t k American Mind: From Morse to McUiM (Chape1 Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1982). p. 166.

14Faexample, Harold Rosenberg described McLuhan's account of ihe effects of the media as lying benveeu f a a d metapbor and accused McLuhan d taking bis own metaphcm d the media too literdy in his essay "Pûiioaophy in a Pop Key," in McLuhan: Hot & Cool, pp. 1%. 201. Jonathon Miller contendeci that McLubaa's discussion of television as a t;sctile medium was yet another example of ' a metaphor iIlicidy conjiaed hto aumcrete reality," in McLuhan, p. 121. M d Tbeall aüeged tbat McLuhan's use of the term "visioa" in Gutenberg Galaxy was inspireci by metaphor and did na wak aü that weiî in The Medium is the Rem View Minor: Understanàing McLuhan (Monireal: McGill-Queen's UP. 1971). p. 88.

lS~athan ~alper, "McLuhan and Joyce," in Mc,Cuhtw Pro & Con, Raymond Rasenthal. ed., (Baltimore: Pcnguin, 19681, p. 80.

l 6 h h w ~ Z'he Medium and the Messenger. p. 180.

'fTerence McKenna, "Marshall McLuhan: the Cognitive Agent as Cyberpimk Godfafher," Mondo 2000 (Summer, 1990). p. 48.

18~ortbrop Frye, Divirionson A Ground: Essays on C d i m Culme floronto: Anasi, 198'2). p. 38.

l 9 ~ c ~ cited in Mdinaro et. al., LPtms, p. 179.

20~ee ~ o l f e , 'The New Life û i t There," in McLuhan: Hot & Cool, p. 35.

*'~ohn Freund, "McLuhan's Galaxy," in McLuhan: Hot & Cool, p. 169.

2 2 ' ' ~ ~ialo~ue-~arshal l McLuhaa aadGerald Emanrsel Steam," in McLuhan: Hot & Cool, p. 26 1.

23~c~uhaa ciied in"~c~uûan, [Herbert] Marshall," in McLuh: f'ro & Con, p. 16.

2 4 M i i ~ Kloosky. 'Tbe iàradox of Marshall McLuhan," in McLuhan: Pro & Con, pp. 128, 13 1, 137.

25~nthony Burgess. "Tht Modicum is the Messuage:' in McUian: Pro h Con, pp. 229-230.

26~ei l Compton, "The h d o x d Marshall McLuhP in McLuhan: Pro & Con, p. 107.

2'1bid.. p. 109.

*qemnce W. Oonbn, Mmhall McLuhan: f icap in10 Understunding-A Biogrophy (I'omnto: Stoddart, 199'7). p. 245.

29~arshall McLuhan, The Inmor LMdrcupe: The Literury Criticim of Mashall McLdum l!W3-1%2. ed b n e McNomara (New Y&. McGiaw-HüI, l m ) , prefacepp. v-ri.

3%cLuhan was displeased with both bodts, pnhaps because he felt he had been m e d upon by his allies-Miller had praised McLuhan pria to the puMication of his book, wbile Theall bad been one of M c W s graduate students. ïhe critical excbange betweerr Millerand McLuhan went public in The Lzstener. whiie McLuhan's commcats about T W s work w a e rcstricted to private concspondem- It lm been suggested ibat Miller's b a k was signilimdy marc damaging to McLuhan's repufation because dits widecirnilatiai. SeeGorQa. Ercapeinlo Undetsranding. pp. 214-215.253-254, Marchand, The Medium MdtAeMes~enget~ pp. 232-233; Mdinaro et. al., Leners, p. 425,426.435,439.442#5,

341f iller wouid have been famiiiar with McLuhan's &D. lhesis this oversight wouid not bave o c c d lrooicaüy, one of McLuhan's cornplaints about Millet's book, and îhem were many. cMEwtned just such an

omission: "Quite deiibaately. he igmredmy Cambridge work on Thomas Nashe and ihe history of rhetoric, of the tnvium and qmdivium from the liftb century io the pxent. He igaored al1 my symboiist poeûy shidies in order to -te the aostalgic image of a paiee boy yearniag for ihe fleshpots of cuiiure." McLuhaa to M d Fishwick, 30 November 1972, NAC. volume 23, file 79. Cited in Gordon, Efalpe in& Undentanding, p. 215.

51bid... pp. 84,8889.

37~heall. The Medium 1s the Rear View Mirror, p. xiv.

381bid., pp. 6. 12-15. 16.32.

4%artoon depicted in Gq wolf, "ïhe W i h of Saint Marshall, the Hdy Fool," Wuad. 4.1 (January 1996). p. 125.

"~oliamo et. al., Letm. p. 43 1.

42AIthough Annie Hall waa filmed in 196. McLuhan was clearly relyhg on bis media guru siatus from the 1% for the scene. Acconhg IO Phiüp Marchand the filming was somewhat straining fa McLuhan, only a short Orne later he s u f f d a minor strokc. in addition, McLuhan d Men were moured to have argiLed on set and in the end McLuhan waa uohappy with his prformaace. In spite of these difficuities the sane is quite clevcr wiih Woody Allen's characm puiiing McLuhan lm bchind a billboard (a suitable place to stasb the media guru) b put a puffed up @essor from Cdumbia in his place. The professor, in an attempt to impress bis date, had bacn aitempting to explain McLuhaa's theoies and had mixed up McLuhan's terms hot and ad-smetùing many people did Woody Allen's chnracter offers a rebuthl in letting Mc- himself critique the professoc "1 hcard what you were saying . You know n o h g of my work. You mean my whole fdacy is m g . How yw got to teach a murse in anything is totaily amazing." The sent concludes wiih Woody Allen's cimacmnnning to the muera and saying. "Boy, if Me were only Like ihis." See Marchand The Medium arPd the Mimenger. pp. 25826û & Gordon, Escape into Underssianduig. pp. 2ïû-279. For more infoemation about McLuhan's activities during the 19709 see Mmhand. The Medium and the Messenger, pp. 22û-269 and G d m , Escopeinro Understanding, pp. 246- 290.

"~ohn Fekete, The Criticai Twilight: ErpEorations in the ldeology ojhglo-American Literary Theory Rom Eliot to McLuhan (hodm Routledge, lm) , p. 137.

44~eyrowitz, No Sense of Place, p. 22.

4 S ~ ~ e Ferguson, "Marshall McLuhan W i e d : 1%0s Zeitgeist Victim or Pioneer Postmodemist?." Media, Culture ond Society, 13 (1991). p. 80.

4 6 ~ a uitiqued the "so called science d m = communication'* as one h t "offers so many advantages to myom who wants to impoverish his mind: it levds oratory, thetoric. logic, and Literaiure, reducing ail of ihem to means of cornmunicatian among homogemous members of ihe mm. It also removes tbe stightest suspicion chat it might be possible for aw to escape the yoke dsociety or individuai interesis so as to break freeiy in an objective spùituai wodd, sincc it subordinatw ewry impulse of the heart and miod to the development of the means dcanmuMcatioa" ElCmire M a . 'The Ehd and the Means:' in McLuhan: Pro & Con. pp. 178179.

47~or more information on t k~omoto Schooi see M c k & Kerchove, "'McLuhan and the 'Toronto S c h d of Communicaiim,"' The CaMdtoRJodof Conmuuuèrclion 14,4 & 5 (kember 1989): 73-79.

48~oùn kkek, "Massage in h e M W Age: Rewmbering î k McLuhan Matrix." C d i a n J o d o f Poliizkaid Social ïïteory 6.3 (Faü 1982). p. 64.

49Marshall McLuhan, UndetsrMding MMed ia: Themions of Man (McGmw-Hill, 19% Cambridge, Maasr M1T Pms, 19%). p. xi.

l c z i ~ , Mdia and the AmnCan Min& pp. 16% L68.

5 3 ~ t ~ r to Eîsie McLuhaa, Febniary 19.1931 &lem to Pierre EUiaa Trudeau. Seprember 7,1979 in Molinanr et. da l.,, pp. 9-10.54596.

55~t is warb noting W thE M c L u b estate was hostile to Marcband's enterpise. while Gordon's received theh seal of appoval. Pabsps ibis fitctorkiped sbape the kiader, genilaversioaof McLuhan we are greeted by in Gurdoa's bodc.

5%imilar senîïmenis have been apreaqed in Marjoie Fergusm's article "Marshall McLuhan Rensited: 1- Seitgeist Victimor Koaecr hhooderaist'?". Media, Cui- andktiety, Vol. 13 (1991): 71-90 and Lewis Lapham's introduction to tire 1% editioa d UhIsmdirlgMedia, Matshall McLuhaa, Understanding Media Tfre Ertensio~ of Mn (Cambridge, Mass: ha Ress. 1944; 1964).

CHAPTER TWO

Modernism and McLuban-

Cambridge and Critical Influences

After a conventional and devoted initiation to poetry as a tonantic rebellion against mechaaical industry and bureamtic smpidity. Cambridge was a shock Richards, Leavis. Eliot and Pound and Joyœ in a few weeks opened ihe doon of perception on tbe poetic process. anâ its role in adjusiing the màer to ibe contemporary world My siudy of media began and remains rooted in the work of these men.l

Having already received a B.A. (1933) and an M.A. (1934) frorn the University of

Manitoba McLuhan d v e d at Cambridge University in the fail of 1934 with the intention of

expanding his scope by eaming a graduate degree at anoiher university. If McLuhan had

been considering attending an Amencan institution for ihis purpose he was forced to

reconsider because of linguistic requirements.2 Marchand, McLuhan's first biographer,

tells us that McLuhan had ben studying the Oxford calendaras an undergraduate student in

Manitobaas early as 1932, but his failure to win a Rhodes scholarship dong with a candid

conversation with Oxford aiumnus Professor Noel Fieldhouse, in which Fieldhouse

advised the eager scholar against attending his aima mater, made Oxford decidedly less

appding.3 With the necessary funding secured through an IODE War Memoriai

scholarship McLuhan embarked on what would be a fortuitous intellectual jo~rney.~ NOL

only would Cambridge provide him with three additional degrees-a B.A. (1936), a titular

M.A. (1940) and a Ph.D. (1943)-it would become one of the most significant expenences

in his inteiiectual development.5

Marchand tells us that McLuhan did not have a high regard for contemporary Iiterature

while studying at the University of Manitoba6 This was, however, to be blamed on the

curriculum rather than McLuhan. While more current literature, including the modernist

literature that was defining future literary trends duhg the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, was beginning to fiud its way into the Cambridge curriculum, it was

virtuall y locked out of the English curricula in Canadian institutions. As Hugh Kenner

points out, English studies in most of Canada, as well as Oxford, tended to end at about

1850, the death of Wordsworth. Literature after this date was simply not dealt with.'

Similarly, Marchand informs us that ihe teaching of English at the University of Manitoba

was based on the tradition of ~llesl&res-"the Victorian ideal of the cultivated amateur

seeking aesthetic pleasure and dification from the acknowledged masters of literatuce:

Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, the gmt Romantic poets." Hence McLuhan's acceptance in

his pre-Cambridge days that "a busy man cauld ignore anything written after 1842 with no

hurt to his intellect." McLuhan was furtherdismced from modem writers by the

environment of Manitoba itself. As Marchand poinis out, "in 1930 in Manitoba, it was as if

Joyce, Eiiot, and Pound did not exist. It is psible that their books were not even in the

university library at the time or in any of the bookstores in Winnipeg." Undoubtedly one

of reasons Cambridge would prove so illuminating to McLuhan was because of where he

had corne from.

It is important to remember the uniqueness of Cambridge in the eariy part of the

twentieth century. Cambridge virtually pioneered what we now regard as English studies in

a large part by establishing the controversial King Edward VI1 Professorship of English

Literature in 1910 which subjected literature to critical analysis rather than philologid

study, as was the case at Oxford? It was this revdution in Engiish studies which prompted

Nœl Fieldhouse to betray bis alma mater and encourage McLuhan to attend Cambridge

rather than Oxford. It was also the reason McLuhan may have felt like he had to "virtually

unleam . . . everything he had absorbed about English literature at the University of

ManitoWlo The literahue and the approach to it that McLuhan was to encounter at

Cambridge was markedly different fm the idPalized Romaaîic notions of poetry that had

coloured his bicycle trip thniugh England wiîh Tom Easterbrook oniy two years ear1ier.l'

WMe McLuhan would undertake a broad range of studies as a student at Cambridge, it

would be the modemist poetry and lirerature of the early twentieth century and the critical

methodologies they gave rise to that would make a lasting impression. Modemist poetry

and Iitemture demonstrated a sensitivity to the contemporary urban scene that foreshadowed

McLuhan's own attempts to read the coatemporary envimunent throughout his career.

While the influence of a Harold Innis upon McLuhan cannot, and 1 might add should not,

be denied, it may well be that McLuhan's awareness of technology and its surround was

spurred by his exposure to this litemture during his time at Cambridge. Before exploring

the relationship beîween McLuhan and modernist literature, however, it is necessary to first

examine the concept of modernism.

1 will kgin this section by briefly outlining the modemist movernent as it was

expressed in the art and literam of the laie nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with

respect to modemity, the mtemporary urkn environment ;ind modernist aesthetics,

drawing primarily on the work of Marshall Bennan, Monroe K. S p m , Sanford Schwartz

and Eugene LUM. While such a description is admittedly far from complete, for heuristic

purposes it will serve to establish a sense of context for McLuhan's Cambridge studies.

Next, 1 will mm to the modernist group that wouid come to idluence McLuhan throughout

his career, the Anglo-American modernists- W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis,

T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. 1 will deal with these figures collectively, briefly characterizing

their stance as one of traditional values nested in modernist forms and discuss their

Symbolist legacy and its significance to McLuhan with regard to the role of the artist,

relying upon McLuhan's early literary articles and a selection of his later letters for insight.

Finally, 1 will nirn to the pre-cursor of the New Criticism that McLuhan encountered at

Cambridge in the "Practical Criticism" of I.A. Richards and ER Leavis for a cursory

examination of the taols and attitudes such~iicism would impart to McLuhan with respect

to his media snidies as well as a d k his association with the American New Critical

movement of the Southem Agrarians.

Artistic and Literary Modernirrn-Modernity, Urbanization and Aesthetics

The Western artistic and literary madeniism of the late nineteenth and eariy twentieth

centuries tends to be a highly elusive phenomenon, lacking a unified vision or singular

aesthetic practice and reaching its peak in different countries at various times in radically

distinct forms. One must concede, then, that there is nota single modemism, but many

modemisms. In spite of the multiplicity of movements, however, an ovemding unity can

be detected. Fundarnentaliy, modemism is a respnse to modemity- the social, political

and economic transformations associated with modemization-which can be said to

possess a "self-conscious awareness of a break with the past."izThat some theorists have

accused the modemists of exaggerating their break with the pst, pointing for example to a

continuity between modemism and earlier movements such as Romanticism, does not alter

the fact that the spirit of its thought and expression was largely defined by an overriding

sense of historic nipture.13

In Diotiysirs and The City: Modernism in Twentieth-Cetitury Poetry Monroe K. Spears

poinis out that modemists tended to view this break with the pst in one of two ways: as

emancipation, "a joyful release from the dead hand of convention, from stale pieties and

resîrictions"-as was the case with the Futurist movement and its optimistic vision of a

triumphant future-or as a disinhetitance, "a loss of tradition, belief, and meaningW-as

was the case with the Lost Generation and its glamorous clich6 of daom.14 Of those who

regardeci the break with the past as a disinheritance, some came to view it as a kind of Fall.

For them the present became a rneaningless waste land that lay in sharp aontrast to an older

idedized world of order and signir~cance. The historic discontinuity of modemism was a

"mystic wound," a dominant myth îhat impaîted a sense of aïsis and an intense concem

with salvation.15 Spem reminds us tben, that wbich ever way modemists reacted, and he

aclaiowledges that M reactions probabiy always oo-existed to some degree, the unifying

aspect of modernism does not lay in a shared reaction of emaacipation or disinheritance,

but in the recognition of the existence of a rupture with the pst, in the acknowledgment of

a historical discontinuity.

While many factors contributed to ibis sense of histonc rupture, one façtor that became

overwhelmingly identified with it as b t h a cause and an effect was that of the urbanized

industrial environrnent, i.e., the city. With pre-industrial economies and ways of life on the

decline and urban environrnenis increasingly h r n i n g the nom in most Western European

countries, the city -a hurnan-made environment steeped in technology -appeared as one of

the major factors separating the modern age from previous ones.16 As a symbol of

rnodemity the city came ta symboliw humanity's emancipation, or more commonly,

humanity's disinheritance. For many of thme possessing the later view, the city became a

focal point for their sense of crisis.

By the nineteenth century the city was b m i n g ubiquitous and inescapable, the

dominant locus of meaning in people's lives and the dominant "blot on the landscape." It

was an exhilarating, confusing, and dangernus place full of crowds of disconnected people

who, at times, seemed involved in a"cd1ective experience but without any sense of

communal relationship."l7The city was to many, like the English art critic John Ruskin, an

impetsonal realm where "every creature [was] only one atom in adnft of hurnan dust, and

current of interchanging particles."l* To others it was a place of dynamic pwer when they

could "sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearles~tless."~~ Scorned or

celebrated, the urban environment was becoming the dominant environment across Europe,

"the background which produced the typical modem man and the stage upon which he

act[ed].'qo It was also becoming the generative force in the forms, tones and subject matter

of modernist art and literature.

The influence of this new wbnn environment can perhaps most clearly be seen in the

work of Charles Baudelaire, a nineteenth œntury French p e t and pioneering modernist

who made a bwtling Paris of the mid 18009 his subject matter and created the image of the

poet as cityflbnew. Baudelaire has been credited by Berman as doing more than anyone in

his century to make men and women aware of themselves as "modem''2~ His strength and

appeal to later modemists lay in his ability to transfonn the urban environment into

something meaningful. As T.S. Eliot observed, "[i]t is not merely in his use of imagery of

common life, not merely in the imagery of the sordid life of a great metropolis, but in the

elevation of such imagery tofirst intemify-presenting it as it is, and yet making it

represent something beyond itself- that Baudelaire has created a mode of release and

expression ror other rnea'Q2 It was Baudelaire who perceived that "[tJhe life of our city is

rich in poetic and mawellous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in sui

atmosphere of the mitrveiious, but we do not notice it.'Q3 McLuhan himself would express

similar sentiments, claiming that Baudelaire had transformed "the sordidness and evil of an

industrial metropolis into a flower" and accepted the city as "his cenual 'myth."'2"

Unlike the majority of their immediate predecessors, the artistic and literary movements

of modernism immersed themselves in the urban expenence.25 As Hugh Kennef, a former

student-colleague of McLuhan's, recently remarked:

The worid tâe poem inhabits im't some Camelot or grassy heath; it is. perhops, today's London. And the hallma&s of today are not shunned; notably, its surmunding technology, subways. cars. telephone, and gramophone. Nothing requires shimniog out of being dubbed 'unpoeiic.' and the poem is in no way an 'escape' h m a dreary world No, poetry is not an anaesthetic to sooihe or luii you into artificial tran~uillity.~~

Whether enthusiastically embraced or passionately condemned, the urban environment

became the environment, scene and subject of most modemist literature.27 AS Kenner

noted in an eariier publication, "[nlew ways of writing, then, for new orders of experience;

urban expenenœ; Modernism is distinctively urban.'Q* The Futurists identified the city as

the preeminent theme of literature and painting in their 1909 manifesto that celebrated the

very inhumanity of the new machine age, while T.S. Eliot maniai the quaiid and dirty

aspects of the urban environment with the phantasmagoric to project inner psychic States,

and Eua Pound captureci the fleeting sense of the d x m crowd in one of his most famous

In A Station of the Mem The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Peîais on a wet, black boughz9 (1913,1916)

Pound's metro poem was revealing in another way. Barely a generation earlier the

French sociologist Gustave Le Bon had declared it "l'âge des foules" or "the era of

crowds.''30 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries European populations

grew in number and density.31 In addition, education became more widespread and levels

of literacy rose?2The size of a potential audience associated with the arts incmed

dramatically, dong with the economic stakes. Such conditions, combined with

technological innovations, have been identifiai as a catalyst for the split between art as

business on the one hand-dominateci by commercial motives and developed to satisfy

popular tastes, thus ensuring the largest possible audience and the largest possible profit-

and art as "pure art" on the other hand-designed for the expert, without regard for an

audience beyond the elite, Le., the familiar categories of so-called low or mass culture and

high or elite culture which dominaie a modemist sensibility. S p m suggests that it is

within this conte* that the high or elite arts lost their utilitarian functions to the commercial

forces of mas media and entertainment and were "driven in upon themselves" to "develop

their proper natures under pressure," to become "specialized, pure, advanced, extreme,

austere . . . more serious, intense, and uncompromising," ail of which made them

increasingly inaccessible, arguably hostile, to a general public33

The experiments of modemism took many fonns, however, certain patterns did

emerge. In his discussion of comparative modeniisms Eugene Lunn offers a synopsis of

sucb patterns that, wtiile not comprehensive, serves to illustrate îhe general thnist of most

Western modemist art and literature during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

LUM contends that modernist pieces tended to possess an "aesthetic self-coasciousness or

self-refiexiveness," with artisîs, writers and composas drawing attention to the media or

materials in which they worked and the very process of creation or construction of their

cd t , thereby demonsûaiing that art was not merely a reflection or represenbtion of an

exterual reality but was s ~ p e d in subjectivity. Moderaist artists aiso demonsmted a

preferenœ for the techniques O€ simultaneity, juxtaposition or montage over inditional

narrative or temporal structure where things happen sequentially, one at a time and in

logical progression, thus pnvileging an aesthetics based on synchronicity, the logic of

metaphor, psychological experience and cyclical or mythic recurrence as well as the

ephemed and texturd quality of the present. Their work was coloured by paiadox,

ambiguity and uncertainty, a phenornenon which Lunn associates with the decline of

religious, philosophical and scientific certainries. Artists, writers and composers, then,

were tiee to expIore a many-sided wodd and a multi-perspectivist reality through

ambiguous images, sounds and auhorial points of view. LUM also p i & that modernist

artists were inclinai to express a sense of dehwnanization or "demise of the integrated

individual subject or personality" in k i r work through such techniques as the

transformation of the ooherent, highiy defined individuai c h t e r s of romantic and realist

literatwe into a "psychic batdefield" or a group of objective experiences, the distortion of

the human form in abstmct art, or ihe favouring of an impersonal poetics.34

The aesthetic pattern outlined by Lunn describe, in the most gened way, the

ovemding chamteristics of much modernist art and literalure. Specific to modernist

Engiish literanire was a concern with language. Modeniist pets îended to move away from

traditional Victonan mceprs of ptic diction iowards a language that was closer to the

idioms of everyday speech and encompasseci a broader range of subject matier. Different

styles of speech caexisted with greater frequency and it was not uncornmon Co fi&

colioquial expressions, specialist tennindogy and fcweign words in the same poem. The

tendeaçy of p û y to becorne more plyglot at this time is usually attnbuted to the growing

sense of cultural fxagmentation and the idea tbat there was no longer a fixed language of

poetry or a single English, while the mixing d styles is usually seen as an expression of

social and cultural displacement, tn the mmt extreme cases, such as in the poetry of Eliot or

Pound, a collapse in syatax and vocabulary is thought to si@ a near total collapse of

Western civilization. In addition to an increased atkntion to language modernist English

literature demonsprates an increased interest in the nature of communication and its related

difficulties, hence the outpouring oflitemture about language by many modemist critics in

the early twentieth century.35

Such lessons were not lost on McLuhan. His first book, n e MeclianicalBride,

focussed on the commercial media landsape- the main expression of the urban

envimnment-while the aesthetics of modemism would appear in his media theory under

the guise of the quaiities of acoustic spl~ce, the effets of the eIectronic media and the

experience of the television generation. Lie oiher modemists, he too would develop an

increased interest in the nature of communication.

Anglo-Awrerican Modernism and McLuhan-The Symbolists and The Artisf

The modemist movement that was to have the sirongest impact on McLuhan at

Cambridge, and throughout bis Iife, was thatof An&-American modemism. The key

figures-T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce and, to a lesser degree,

W.B. Yeats-were aH, notably, self-exileci and boni outside of England, a fact which may

have made them more sensitive to questions of culniral displacement, something a young

schoiar from Manitoba like McLuhan may have appreciakd.36 W e at Cambridge

McLuhan reâd T.S. Eliot, declaring him "easily the greaiest modern pet," was "very

excited" by the work of Wyndham Lewis, whom he starid a lengthy çoffe~pondenœ with

in 1943 when Lewis was living in Windsor, Ontario, and acquired texts of Yeats aud

Pound, whom he was also to have a lengthy correspondence with, with his M a m prize

money. 37 McLuhan would not becorne obsessed with Joyce's works until later in his life,

but his initial introduction to Joyce had occurred at Cambridge.38

More loosel y affiliaid than groups found in Continental Europe, the principal

contributions of the Anglo-Am&can modernists arose as "moments rather than

rnovernents.''3g While the literary fonns they developed were overtiy modemist, the values

they expressed through such foms were explicitiy anti-modern. In a sense Anglo-

Amencan modernism was founded upon a critique of modernity and fueled by its

subsequent atkxks on ita40 The theme d time and iradition was to becorne a prominent one

in such attacks. The modernism associated with Pound, Eliot and Lewis, for example,

largely defined itself in opposition to Futurism, a movement based on the embracement of

histocical discontinuity. Unlike the Futurists who were detennined to destroy historic icons

of cultural tradition such as museums and l i tmies to make way Cor "the new" and "the

now," the AngbAmerican modemisis were indined to find linle value in the present and

suove to counter the obsession with the fashionable by consciously remaining enmeshed in

a consemative cultural tradition. A brief survey of the poetry of Pound and Eliot suffices to

alert readers to the deliberaie use of historic memory and myth &O evoke a latent cultural

tradition while a dance at Lewis' short-lived Vorticist magazine B h r (1914-1915), itself a

Fumrist inspireci entity, reveals bis desire to assume a posture capable of respding to a

dynamic, technologid modeniity w i h t yielding to its sense of "etenial presen~"41

The Anglo-Amencan modemists &en, like other modemists, perceived a rupture

between the present and the pst. Instead o f e m b d g it and endorsing a program in which

the absotutely new supplanted tbe old as on the Continent, they interpreted the rupture as a

cultural crisis and responded with a cultural conservatism that seerns to have appealed to the

traditiomiist in McLuhan. They feared the Paditionai wodd be demolished by an

expanding popular culture incapable darticuiating, let alone creating, a çultivated

sensibility. They believed what was worthy and noble in humans would be lost with the

massification of humanity. The Anglo-Amencan modemisis saw themselves, almg with

other avant-garde movements, as the defenders of "tme" culture in the faceof a growing

degraded mass culture. Hence their adoption of a protectionkt stance that was çonsciousl y

and decidedly elitist.

Wbile traditional in values, Anglo-American rnodedsm was not traditional in form. As

previously noied, the elite or high arts had Iost a large degree of their utilitanan functim to

the realm of popular art and entertainment, leaving them to turn in upon themseives in

search of new fonns. What was lost, however, also came to be shunnd. A disdain for the

utilitarian and a distnist of the imitative qualities associated with the mass politics of

democi.;acy led the Angio-American niodemists to favouran anti-mimetic styleP* Perhaps

an even greater inftuence on iheir stylistic preference, however, was the concurrent

philosophical trend that questioned the very nature of representation. Mmy phiIrnophers of

the pend had corne to befieve that conceptual knowledge did not represent or copy a

preexisting reality, but rather presented a system of relations that projected a form or

imposed an order on the chaos of "sewry flux."43 AS a result, many modernists,

including the Anglo-Amencan modernists, drew adistinction beiween art foms that simply

rendered a preexisting sociai reaiity and art fonns that presented a new set of relations.

Thus modemists became engaged in a quest for new f i s capable of ordering the flux and

chaos of modern phenornena1 Iife which were far rernwed from the dominant "realist"

forms of the nineteenth century that appeared to mirror the extemal world.44 With this shift

perception took œnûe stage and metapbr became "the very essence of poetry itseK"4s

It shouid be noied tbat for modeniists metaphor was more than mere stylistic

embellishment. Undersbod as a way d seeing one thing in tenns of another, metaphor

was ultimately a percepnial technique. In modemist literature metaphoc and its related forms

(simile, analogy, etc.) became synonymow with "the swift perception of relations." As the

scope of metaphor was expanded it came to be understaxi as any process capable of

igniting a percephial comparison and included the very techniques of modemkt poetry-

irony, paradox, ambiguity, jwrtaposition. It is this sense of metaphor wbich Eliot is

thinking of when he proclaims it the "life of style [and] of language" and which Pound has

in mind when he deems it the "hall-markof genius"46 It is also this sense of metaphor

which informs McLuhan's assertion in Understanding Media that "al1 mediaare active

metaphors in their power to translate experience into new fonns"-an assuinpion which

canies through to his final work, Laws of Media. 47

While the quirky traditionalist in McLuhan was likely attracted to Anglo-Arnerican

modemisni's pairing of traditional values and rnodemist fonns, the aspect of the mwement

that he identified as most significant in his literary articles and which he would most ciosely

Iink with his media theory was the tradition it inherited from the Symbolists-a group of

French writers in the late ninekenth century who reacted against the dominant realist and

natutalist tendencies in literature and chose to privilege the priority of suggestion and

evocation over direct description and explicit analogy. Not only did McLuhan believe that

Pound, Lewis, Eliot, Joyce and Yeats were "the tnie hein of the symbolists," but that îhey

had "canied the symbolist discoveries on to the point of rich fulfillrnen~"~~ In commenting

upon Anglo-Ameriçan modemist criticism McLuhan ofkn complains of the ignorance of

this Symbolist legacy in their work. For example, he makes the following observation in a

review of T.S. Eliot criticism:

It wouid be easy to get agreement tbat the -test age of Frwch poetry nms Crom Flaubert and Baudelaire to Vaiécy. But it is not suff~ciently known tbat Joyce, Eliot and Pound built solidly aa chat b h foudation. Nobody has yet written on Eliot who has understood the literary revdution in France-the tevoltition of the word . . What Morgue, Corbière, and Eümbaud didwith tk Iegacy of Baudelaire is of the greatest technicai intexest and is basic faanunderstanrihg of Eliot, Joyce, and POUIKL~~

Wbile m a t aitics wqgized the work Of Eibt and other Anglo-Amencan modernists as a

break with ihe nineteenth century English Wtian, McLuhan argues, they failed to see it as

an attempt to mtore English poetry to the main Ewopean traditionat a time when Euopean

poetry was achieving new heights. McLutian viewed the work of the Anglo-American

modemists as nothing less than a conscious effort to bring the English up to the level of

Baudelaire, Morgue, Rimbaud, Flaubert, Cézanne, Brancusi and Pi~assti.~*

McLuhan credited the Syrnboiists with revdutionizing poetry. He beiieved they had

done so largely througb the developmentof inreriotlandscp, a technique which he

describes as a definitive shift fm the reliance on an extemai or natural landswpe for

emotional experience to the creation of an intemal psychological one capable of producing

and contrdling emotional states. As he explains, while English poets such as Thomson,

Collins, and Wordsworth hixi immersed thernselves in ocaaol landscapes in pursuit of

emotion, French Symbolist p i s such as Laforgue or Rimbaud had invented their own

landscapes to control and release precise and cornplex emotions. With the Symbolists,

then, poetry had evolved from "the vague search for new art emotions amidst n a t u d

conditions" to "the discovery and precise controt of these emotions in art conditions."sl

During his bicycle trip through England in 1Sr32 McLuhan had been prempied with

acnial landscapes, at Cambridge he was introduω to interior landscapes through the cmft

or t e c k of modernist poets.

McLuhan explains this interior tandscape or p~ysageintériew was primarily achieved

by means of juxiaposition, the placing of apparently dissimilar ideas or images side by

side. The result was a "dyaamic, dogical apposiîion of widely diverse thoughts,

feelings, and experience as facrs of existence quite independent of logical coherence or

conceptual unity."52 McLuhan descnibed the Symbotist program as one in which "[ildeas

as ideas must go. They may r e m as part of a lamiscape tbat is ordered by other means.

They may enter into a unified exprience as one kind of faci. They may contribute to an

aesthetic ernotion, not as a system of demonstration but as part of a total order which is to

be contemplated.'*s3 If the poetry of extemai landscape had presented pre-packaged ideas to

the reader, the poetry of internai landscape actively invdved the reader by preseniing items

in juxtaposition. F o d to make co~ections between disparate items for him or herself,

the reader was drawn into the poem in a way that, açcording to McLuhan, simply did not

occur with traditional modes of presenîation.

in addition to actively engaging the reader, McLuhan believed that presenting items

juxtaposed to one another rather than in the fonn of a continuous statement offered another

advantage-the abiiity to reveai experiences which were "United in existence but not in

concepnial thought." Unlike traditional modes of presentation, the technique of

juxtaposition embodied the principles of simultaneity and multi-perspectivism embraced by

cubism, leaving the reader "naked to the diversity of existence."54 If this technique

appeared to exhibit an "illogical order," McLuhan reminded his readers that "the order of

l d n g and insight is not the order of rational comtenation but of analogid

perception9'-an argument he would employ to defend his own non-linear style time and

time again.55

McLuhan was convinced that the Symbolists had methodically followed the process

outlined by Edgar Allan Poe in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition," that in

arranging various items in juxtaposition they were consciously engaged in the process of

working backwards in order to achieve a desired effect.56 As he explains, "Edgar Poe is

nghtly ngarded in France as the father or symbolism because he was the first to formulate

the poetic process as one of discoverhg by retracing. The precise poetic formula for any

emotion, [Poe] pointed out, was to be found by working backwards from effect to the

arrangement of words which would produce that effect"S7 McLuhan notes that such a

process afforded a great deal of control to the p e t who could continually adjust things until

the words and images achieved the exact effect he or she was looking for.58 McLuhan

likened the pet's new found method of working backwards to that of the chemist who

began with the end produçt and proceeded to disçover îhe. formula which would produce it.

Such was the case, he argued, with Eliot's "objective correlative"-a technique which Eliot

himself had deshbed in the foiiowing manner:

The only way of expressing emocion in the form of art is by Fidimg an 'objective cortelative'; ia Mher words, a aet of objecui, a siaiaiioa, a chah of evenis which shall be the formula of that particular emaiim: such that wheo (he extaoal fscts, which mwt termimate in aeamy expexiwce. are given, ibe moiion is immediately evokdS9

McLuhan dso identifieâ this as the proas used by the detective in Poe's work as well as

the process employed by the modern psychologist, historiographer, archaeulogist and

physicist.60 Later in his weer McLuhan would claim that "[n]obody could pretend serious

interest in his work who was not çompletely familiar wiih all of the worlrs of James Joyce

and the French Symbolisis," iuid acknowledge his debt to the Symbolist's habit of working

hckwards fmm effects:

My interest in Symbolist poetry from Poe to Valdry inspQred my interest in the snidy of media. Symbdim sws with effects and k#s sleuthing afier causes. With the media we bave massive effccts aM1 bitte fimây of causcs siace the user ofthe media, wbether a laoguage or the elecbic Light. i s tbe 'content' dibe media As content, we have b o s t no a w m e s s of our surniund. As someimdy said: "We do not know who discovered water. but we are fairly sure tbat it was not a fish." . . . It was my smdy of these men that ma& me aware tbat the eacking backwarù fmn effecta to hidden causes, to the reconsuucticm of menta1 siates and motives, was a basic pattern of culture fmm Poe to Valéry . . .6

Like the Symbolists, then, McLuhan would corne to perceive himself as beginning with the

effects of media and workiag round to the causes.

If McLuhan had leamed about the study of effects from the Symbalists he maintaineci

he was able to do so h u s e ihey had discovered the secret life of objects and w d . They

understood that "the intense objective gaze at tbings, when supportai by great artistic

discipline, discovered a quality of intelIigibility in things-an intelligibility which

ûanscend[ed] any scientific description or fmulan McLuhan beIieved that Mitilarmé had

feamed to apply this techaique to laquage and "ireat words not merely as signs but as

things with a mysterious life of their own which oould be controiîed and released by

establishing exact relaîionships, rhythmic and harmonie, with other w0rds."~2 McLuhan

perceiveci the legacy ofthis tradition in Joyce, quoting the foliowing passage fcom Stephen

Hero to illusirate:

Fmt we rec~goize ihat ihe object is one integrni ihing, ihen we recognize ihat it is an organizedcompositestnicture, a thing in fact; f d y when the relation of the parts is exquisite, when the pxts are adjisted to the speci'al point, we mgnh ihat it is thar ihing which it is. Its soul. iis whamess laps to us from thÊ vestment of its appearance. The sou1 of ihe cornmonest object, the stniciure of wtnch is so adjustcd seems to us radiant Tbe object acbieves its epiphanYY63

The job of the artist, then, was "to reveal . . . , or epiphaniz[e], the signatures of things,"

not to forge them.64 McLuhan believed that existence must be allowed to speak for itself,

after all, it was "already richly and radiantly signed."65 Henœ McLuhan's favourable

observation that in the landscapes of Eliot's Qumtets or Joyce's Wake everything seems to

speak: 'There is no single or personal speaker . . . 1 t is the places and ihings w hich utter

themselves.''66 McLuhan would also come to identify this aspect of the Symbolist program

with his media theory:

. . . my work is entirely devoted to snidying sublimiaal effects d techodogy (thnt is. nearly al1 of ihe effwts) . . . My training in Symboiist art and poeûy h;is long made me familiar with suMiminal lire in art and poetry aad language in genenl. It bas beeu my procedure to apply ihis knowledge to popular culîure. My first book [The Mechanicd lnrile] wwss on the sublimiaal effects of advertisit~g.~~

McLuhan came to ihe mnclusion that the Symbolists and the Angio-Amerkm

modernists that fdlowed in k i r footsteps were ultimateiy engaged in the process of

retracing the stages of human apprehension. That is, their creative process was an attempt

to minor the cognitive ptocess.68 The Symbolists had insisted on the aesthetic experience

as an mrestedmument, a moment "in and out of time," a moment of"intellectua1 emotion."

In retracing the stages ofapprehension in their poems McLuhan believed they were

attempting to discover the formula which had led to such a moment It was Joyce who,

building on the legacy of Rimbaud and Mailanné, McLuhan identified as fuIly arriving at

the formula of î k aeschetic moment It was essentially the experience of ordinary

cognition, but it was, signifiçantly, "th& labyrïnth r eved , retraced, and hence

epiphauized."

By rewnsiructing the stages of ordinary apprehension McLuhan perceived that the

moment of arrested cognition "achieve[d] at once its stasis and epiphany." Furthemore,

every moment of cognition, from the glorious to the banal, from the radiant to the

repulsive, was potentially a moment of epiphany, which, through the figure of the artist,

could be "rendered lucid by a retracing of its labyrinth.*'69 Herein lies the ultimate

significance of the technique of juxtaposition to McLuhan: by drawing readers into a poem

and forcing them to make connections between disparate items for themselves, the

technique enabled readers to relive the cognitive process of the artist, and, in a sense,

become arti~ts.7~ As he would explain in a 1971 letter to The Listener, "[iln Symbolist art,

connections are deliberately pulled out in order to involve the public in a creahive role . . . the medium can reverse the d e s of producer and consumer by making the reader or

audience not only the "content*' but the CO-maker of the work.71 Transforming his readers

into artists would become a conœrn of McLuhan's throughout his career.

Clearly, the artist occupied a privileged position in McLuhan's theoretid framework

and there appears to be no greater achievement in his eyes than adopting the artist's

sensibility. In addition to king attuned to the secret life of objects and wods and capable

ofrevealing epiphanies, McLuhm believed the artist was aware of the subliminal qualities

of the contemporary environment-what McLuhan would later identify as ground. In a

literary essay ftom the late 1950s McLuhan claimed that Baudelaire had developed the

technique of interior tandscape in response to the urbanization of Paris. Sensitive to the

cultutal changes around him, Baudelaire had recognized the ne& for a technique capable of

"reveaiing the intensities generated by the harsh dissonances, overlayerïngs, and

discontinuities of city life.'q2 McLuhan would later expand on this observation and credit

Baudelaire and the Symbolists with perceiving the cultural shift from visual to oral modes

of perception claiming that the "poetry of the Symbolisis, from Baudelaire until now, is

massive and explicit testimmy to sensory diange.'73

In McLuhan's eyes artists wen the ones who perceived culturai changes as they were

occumng because they were the d y ones who tndy lived in the present. While the rest of

us would only come to grips with changes after the fact, ihe artist perœived them as they

were unfolding and was engaged "in writing a detailed history of the For this

reason McLuhan came to perceive artists as Pound did, as "the antennae of the race," and

declare them an early waming system for the effects of new media upon society:

The arîist is always a generatioa ahead of îhe techndogies . . . in anticipating he also provides the ody means of mial navigation. He kUs you exactiy what you're k d h g for îhÙiy years bcfore you get k m . M a t people just want to sleep it out. . . the d s t is a sofl of nut who is dways trying to pep up perccptio~?~

As the first to perceive change, the arüst becomes the one who anticipates change and

attempts to explain it to the rest of us, those of us stuck in rear-view minorbn who

stubbomiy insist on viewing the present through î k immediate pst. For McLuhan the

aesthetics of artistic and literary modemism had been such an anticipation. The historid

rupture the modernists had perceived was, in McLuhan's eyes, the rupture between the

visual tradition of the nineteenth cenniry? a Iegacy of the technology of print, and the

emerging acoustic sensibility created by twentieth œnniry electronic media It was no

coincidence that the techniques dmodemist art-juxtapmition, simultaneity, montage,

mdti-perspectivism-were also the prevailiag qualities of the electronic media As seer

figures attuned to the subliminal effects of the media, McLubaa believed modernist artists

had recognized the cultural shift from visuai to acwstic space and developed appropriate

aesthetics capable of acclimatizing people b the new reality. It is because of tbis ability to

nuie into the latent effects of new commUmcation media that the artist was to become such a

revered figure in McLuhan's media theory. It also explains why McLuhan would choose to

rely on art rather tban traditional forms of documentation as primary evidence in his

historiai analysis.76

McLuIÙan and The Praclical or New Critici~m-

Richards, Leavis and The Southern Agrarians

Just as important an influence as the literature McLuhan encountered at Cambridge

would be the literacy criticisrn he encountered there. With its emphasis on the critical

analysis of literanire rather than philology and its host of outstanding scholars and

professors, Cambridge would provide McLuhan with "intellectual stimuiation beyond his

wildest expectations.'" The approaches to language and literature that McLuhan would

encounter at Cambridge would not only affect him as a student in England, but would

continue to exert an influence when he r e t u d to North Amenca, aiigning him with the

Southem Agrarians in America during the 19409 as well as forming the basis of his

approach to popular culture and the media.

Arriving at Cambridge in the fa11 of 1934 meant entering an emerging criticai milieu. It

had been just a decade since the publication of I.A. Richards' Principhs ofUterary

Critickm (1924) and a few short years since the publication of the cornpanion volume

PructicuiCriticr'sm (1929). William Empson's Seven Types ofhnbiguiry (1930) was still

fresh, and the Leavis' major works had only reçently appeared-F.R. h v i s ' M m

Chilization anà Minority Culture (1930), New Bearings in English Poew ( 19321, Culhm

and Envitonment (1933) and Q.D. h v i s ' Fiction and the Reading Public ( 1932).

Although the literary cciticism McLuhan emuntered at Cambridge during the 1931)s is

generally referred to as New Cnticism today, it is more accuraiely describeci as Practical

Cnticism, not having acquired the New Cnticism label until after the publication of John

Crowe Ransom's book New Criticism (1941)?8

Like the modernist works it anaiyzed, the Ractiml or ~ e ' w Criticism was a paoduct of

largercultural developments such as the increase in litemcy levels, the spread deducation

and the rise of Engiish literature as a univetsity subject. As a pedagogy that stressed close

reading, it helped satisfy the twin desires of improving basic literacy and developing

techniques capable of teaching poetry at al1 levels.79 When this Practical or New Cnticism

emerged English literature had still been a relatively young area of study at the University.

Even at Cambridge, where support for a school of English was significanîly stronger than

at Oxford, it did not acquire its own Chair until 191 1 and was not established on an

independent basis until 1917.80 Initially arising outside of the universities as a sort of " p r

man's classics," the study of English was regarded as suspect by many scholars well into

the twentieth century.81 The analytical sensibility or "senousness" of this criticism both

justified the worth of studying English literature and helped to protect it as an autonomous

field of study.82That it arose at a time when modemism was gaining ground is crucial.

While the Romantics had revered the mystery of the poetic act, the modemisis sought to

speak intelligibl y about the craft of poetry, a task which was made easier by the fact that

many of the critics who would corne to be associated with the New Criticism were p t s

themselves.83 Finally, the unprecedented difficulty of modem poetry seemed to beckon for

a pedagogical tool capable of acclimatizing readers to the complexities of its verse.S4

Altùough many differences existai between the critics associated with the New

Cnticism, the common element distinguishing them from previous literary commentators

was their regard for the text as an autonomous entity. nior to the New Critickm there was

a tendency to deal with literature in the tradition of literary history, with an emphasis on

dates, influences and biography. The New Criticism broke with that iradition and put the

text at the forefront, concenûating on clase reading, an awareness of verbal nuance and

thematic orgachtïon. The authority of the p e t which had dominated previous literary

discussions was greatly diminished, at times rejected. Maintainhg that a poem was not

ceducible to a ûistorical or philosophical viewpoint, the New Critics swght to protect the

integriîy of the text by encouraging the study of literary texts in isolation from their

sumunding contexts. Snidents of the New Criticism were encouraged to pay attention to

literary effets and leam how to cope with the ambiguity or paradox a text might present

but, as Schwartz points out, were not emrageeâ to research the intellectual milieu which

gave rise to such features.85This was a main source of tension between the New Critics

and the historical schdars of the previous generation. Interestingl y enough, the objections

voiced to treating poems as self-referential objects would be echosd nearly a generation

later in the cornplaints of McLuhan's "the medium is the message" appmach to the media

At Cambridge McLuhan's main influences with regard ta the New Criticism would be

I.A. Richards-aitic, p e t and founder of Basic English-and F R Leavis-critic,

ledurer and chef ediioc of the criticai periodical Scrutirsy. Even though McLuhan

disapproved of Richards' atheism, his attendance at Richards' classes on Tlie Philosophy

ofRhbricduring his first yearat Cambridge was apparentiy a source of "intellectual

stimuiation.''86 Richards stressed close textuai study as well as attention to verbal nuance

and the subliminal quality of words. Believing that meanings arise out of contexts rather

than reside in individud words, Richards proped a context theorem of meanings. He

attacked the "Roper Meaning Superstition" for its belief that a word bas a meaning of ifs

own that is independent of its use or purpm and criticized the "doctrine of Usage" for its

asmmpiion that there is a right or good use for every word. Richards believed that the

presumption that words possess a particuiar sense and carry this meaning with them into

sentences regardless of the neighbouring words obscured the "interanimation" or mutuai

dependenœ of words in formiag meaning as well as tbe sublimioal aspects of language,

especially poetic language.

A fonner student of Richards', Wiam Empson, pursueci such a rbeme in his book

Seven Types of Ambiguity. Empson systemaiidy searched out and demonstrated the

frequency of ambiguity in English poetry and addressed the ability of words and phrases to

mean several different things at once as a strength, not a weakness. McLuhan read

Empson's text in his second year at Cambridge and credits it with finally teaching him how

to read poetry.87 McLuhan's first biographer, Marchand, has linked Richards and

Empson's approach to language with McLuhan's laterapproach to the media:

in rempect, it is not difficult to see how McLuhan used the approaches of Richardg and Empm as an entrée into the study of media . . . If w d were ambigucius and b a t studied not in temis of iheir 'content' (i.e.. dictionary meaaing) bvt in temis of their effects in a given context. and if those effecis were ofîen subliminal, the same might well be mie of oiber human artifsis-the wheel. the pinting pess. and so on.88

While McLuhan may very well have developed a sensitivify to context from Richards

and E m p n which he later applied to his media theory, Richards' Practicai Criticism was

of far greater significance. Richards approached poetry in a quasi-psychologid way, as an

experience that occurred in the reader's mind. In PrinciplesofLlerary Cririch he

exp la id that he objected to the praçtice of describing a work of art, for exampie, as

beautiful because it implied that thequalitiesof beauty were atîactied to the externd object

He believed that what critics were actually describing was the state of mind or experience of

the individual, not the object.89 For this reason Richards maintained critics should

ultimately be concerneci with the effects a poem produœd in the minds of its readers. Such

a sentiment would be echoed in McLuhan's later theory that the mat signifiant

consequence of any new medium is the effect it has on the sensorium or sense-ratio.90

Richards expanded on this approach to poetry by having students analyze anonymous

poems in his classes, recognizing that when people read Milton or Shelley a greatdeal of

their approval and admiration was generated by the exalted status of the poet rather tbm the

poem itself. By not knowing they were reading, Richards surmised, his students

would be forced to focus oa m t h e y were reading and pay attention to the literary effects

of the texts befoce them. Richards hoped that such experiments w d d provide a new

technique for people to discover what they thought and felt about p û y and why they

shouid like or dislike it.91 Richards' goal was to have students pay close attention to the

words in a poem and understand how they achieved their effects instead of simply arriving

at overly simplistic interpretations or relying on biography. Such exercises, he hopai,

might aiso create an awareness of just how relaxed and inattentive an activity the ordinary

reading of established poetry was.92 A selection of the original experiments was published

in Richards' book PrucricalCriîicism (1929) and he continued to employ this method for

some time. While attending Richards' class at Cambridge McLuhan had the opportunity to

participate in such an experiment. He would r e p t similar experiments with his own

students in the 1940s on this side of the Atlantic. Both of McLuhan's biographers link

Richards' preference for a literary criticism based on effects with McLuhan's media

theory.93

Richards seems to have infiuenced McLuhan, at least the early McLuhan, in tone as

well as technique. English criticism at this time was engaged in a sort of social mission

reminiscent of the Amoldian view deducation as a civilizing agent. Richards* critical

methodology was driven to a significant degree by a desire to presetve the fabnc of society

and its traditional cultural standards.94 As a result Richards' works are littered with cnt id

refe~nces to mass culture. Convinced that the critic was "as closely occupied with the

health of the mind as the doctor with the health of the body," Richards, who had taken a

keen interest in wartime propaganda, warned his readers of the harmful effects of "bad art,"

advertising and popularculture. Like many critics and scholars of his time, Richards was

mcerned that "popular taste" might replace "u;u*ned discrimination" and identified m a s

culture and its products as a key source of the problem.9s

Complaining that "[elven the decision as to what constitutes a pretty giri ora handsorne

young man . . . is largely determineci by magazine covers and movie stars," Richards held

that expressions of popular culture such as bad literature, advertising, radio and the cinema

were in large part responsible for developing stereotypicai ideas and fixing "immature" and

"stock? attitudes in people.96 The ideas e x p d in popular culture, he argued, were the

ideas of producers, chosen because they could quickiy be put across by media that lent

themselves "to crude d e r than to sensitive bandling." He believed that the attitudes

promoted by popular culture were "peculiarly clumsy and inapplicable to life." In addition,

such attitudes interfered with the critical process by conditioning readers to mite superficial

pre-existing or stock responses instead of engaging in a critical examination of the te~t.~'

For Richards, "bad art" was a threat to both society and the critical process. In arming

people with a technique for the discriminating reading of poetry Richards' Practical

Criticism was intended to ease such a threat.

In Principles of Literary Critkism Richards had suggested that the critical skills of

reading poetry could be applied to o h r arts.98 F. R. Leavis, a former student of Richards'

who would becorne a key figure in the dissemination of New Criticism, extended the scope

of such critical skills to popularculture in the book Cultureand Environment. Like

Richards, Leavis believed that literary criticism necessarily meant a preoçcupation with

cultural health and injected atone of m d seriousness into his criticism. Like the Anglo-

Amencan modenùsts, Leavis was homfied by commercial industrial society and believed

that the twentieth century was a pend ddisintegration and decline. As a result, h v i s

idealized the folk traditions and cottage industries of an agrarian lifestyle, what he referred

to as the "organic community," and lamented their rapid replacement by mass civilization.99

He blamed the 105s of the "organic community" on the machine and identified advertising

as one of its more signifiant culairal effects. Consequentiy, a large portion of Culture and

Environment is devoted to an examination of the impact of advertising.100

Leavis begins Culture undEizvüonrnenz by acknowleàging his debt to Richards and

explainhg that a "great deal can be brought in under English. Ractical Criticism-the

analysis of prose and verse-may be extenâed to the d y s i s of advertisements (the kind

of appeal they make and their stylistic charactenstics) foiîowed up by comparison with

representative passages d journaiese and popular fictionnl01 Leavis had developed Culiure

and Environment as a text to be used in schools as acouter-inlluence to "films,

newspapers, advertising -inde& the whole worid outside the class-mm," believing that

"[wle cannot, as we mi@ in a healthy state of culture, leave the citizen to be formed

unconsciously by his environment; if anythmg like a worthy idea of sacisfactory living is to

be saved, he must be trained to discriminate and to resist."L02 Foreshadowing a tone that

wouid manifest itseif in many of McLuhan's works, most notaMy The MechunicalBn'de,

h v i s claimed that "a modem education worthy of the name must be largely an education

agaimî the environment . . . ."'O3 McLuhan admireci Leavis for his keen intellect and once describeci him in a letter to his

motheras "his man, and superb at his job."lo4 During his time at Cambridge McLuhan was

acquainted with the Leavises, dropping by their open-house on occasion and even

delivering a pumpkin pie during Christmas in 1939.105 Apparently years later ER. Leavis

would fondiy recall McLuhan as the student "from the wilds of Manitoba," while Q.D.

Leavis would remember him as "a rather loud, aggressive person, always ninning around

arguing with everyone."*w According to Marchand, McLuhan positioned himself in the

Leavis camp while at Cambridge and "echod and arnpiified the mitid judgments of Leavis

with the fervor of a üue believer" well into the mid 1440s- McLuhan conespondeci with

Leavis after he left Cambridge and taught his own version of Leavis' cultural criticism at

St. Louis University.1" MWhand credits Leavis with directing McLuhan's interest away

fmm pure literary cnticism and giving him ''the f i t hints that the New Criticism might be a

fniitful appniach to the studies of the entire human environment'*-a connection that will be

explored furiher in chapter rour.lo8

On a final note, it is important to recall that the Practical Criticism of Richards and

Leavis was not just a techical exercise designeci to provide a aew way of approricbing

poetry and a convenient method for kacbing andexamining the relatively recent subject of

English. Ct was, as Chns Baldick suggests, a truiy "practical" criticism in that it sought to

have "real pmticai effects upon society, directly or indirectly." For Richards the study of

literature was linked to social cohesion. For h v i s literary education became a sort of

substinite for the rapidly disappearing organic cornmunity.109 Both scholars viewed the

study of literature as a means of sensibility and extended it to real social concems.

Such a sense of literary training permeates McLuhan's work, from the early articles w hich

demonstrate an increasing desire to see literature in a wider context, to Tlie Mechancal

Bride which employs the techniques of literary criticism to reveal the hidden effwts of

advertising, to the later media theory which attempts to awaken the public to the subliminal

effects of the media themselves. Like Richards and Leavis, McLuhan can be seen as a

member of the literary community who attempted to train the sensibility and sought io have

real practid effects upon society. As he observed in a 1946 letter to Waiter h g ,

"@]iimture is nota subject but a function."llo

When McLuhan returned from Cambridge in the mid-1930s to teach in Arnerica he

brought the ideas of the Cambridge English School with him. As a graduate teaching

assistant at the University of Wisconsin he transformed his section of freshman English

into a Leavisite survey of contemporary culture k d on advertisements, newspaper

clippings and popularfiction.111 At St. Louis University he taught Leavis styled Culture

and Environment studies and Richards styled Ractical Criticism. 1 12 Walter Ong, a former

suent, described McLuhan's presence at St. Louis as "an outpost in mid-America for the

Leavis school . . . Cambridge New Criticism."ll3 In a 1944 letter to Father J. Staniey

Murphy, Associate Professor of English and Registrar of Assumption College in Windsor,

McLuhan promoted himself as "the only man in the U.S.A who had a thorough grounding

in the techniques of Richards, Empson and Leavis at Cambridge."ll4 While some critics

may question the accuracy of McLuhan's self-imposed label as a New Critic, it is clear that

McLuhan believed he was continuhg the Iegacy of the Cambridge criticai project in

America.1 ls

As for McLuhan's relationsbip with the Amencan branch of New Criticism, Marchand

teils us that McLuhan viewed the criticism of Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren and

other Amencans as a *hi@ school version" of the criticism of Richards, Empson and

Leavis, but shared their basic attitudes to pdi tics and literature.l16 Not unlike their

predecessors acras the Atlantic, the Amencan New Cntics can be characterized by a crisis

of belief provoked by the social, political and economic transfomations associated with

modemization. In Amerim the New Criticism is largely considered a movement of the

South, of the "Fugitives" of Vanderbilt who identifiai themselves with a vanishing

agricultural society which they associated with the moral and spiritual conditions favourable

to poeuy. The impact of modemity that the British critics had experienced in a generai

manner, was experienced by the largely nirai Swthern critics in an intensely regional

The Southem Agrarians, like the British Practical Cntics, were interested in the

ontology of the text rather than historical or biographical context. Consequently, they paid a

great deal of attention to rhythm, metaphor and the properties of language. In contrast, Left

leaning critics tended to focus on social and politicai concerns while Marxist critics tended

to evaiuate literature based on pditical issues such as class struggle. The gap between the

Southem Agrarians and Left leaning critics, such as those associateci with the Panirmi

Review, was widened by the fallout that occuned when Ezm Pound was awarded the first

Boiiingen Priz in 1949.118 McLuhan, who had visited Pound in 1948 while he was

incarcerateci at St. Elizabeths hospitable in Washington, D.C. and developed a lengthy

correspondence with him, stood firmiy with the Southem Agraians on this matter.

McLuhan would come to sympatbize with the vauishing agicultural culture of the

South, just as he had come to sympathize with L a v i s ' organic commwity. Some have

pointed to McLuhan's upbringing on the Canadian prairies and his posting in St. Louis

frm 1937 to 1944 as contributory to his sympathy with the Southern Agrarians. A ment

study of Cleanth Brooks, who was personally acquainted with McLuhan, notes that being

born and reared in Western Cauada meant McLuhan could "claim a background every bit as

nrral as îhat of the Agmians" and that St. Louis, Missouri 'kas close enough to the South

that McLuhan could travel in the Old Confederacy and become a kind of honorary Fugitive-

Agmian."*19 Indeed during the mid-1940s McLuhan did seem to identify with the

Southem Agrarians, publishing several "Southem sympathy" articles, including "Edgar

Poe's Tradition," "The %uthem Quality" and "Footprints in the Sands of Time" in the

Sewunee Review as well as pieces in the related journal the Kenyon Review. When Allen

Tate resigned as editor of the Sewanee Review John Crowe Ransom forwarded McLuhan's

name as a possible succesor, having regarded him as "one of us." Hence McLuhan's

repuiation as a junior or honorary member of the Southern Agmians. 120

Cambridge had indeed been a signifiant experience for the young McLuhan,

responsible for introducing him to the philosophies and aesthetics of modernist litenture

and aiticism atamcial time in his intellectual development. From modemist poetry

McLuhan would become familiar with the techniques of juxtaposition, simultaneity,

montage and multi-perspectivism-techniques that would eventuaily find expression in his

media theory. From the Anglo-American Modemists, via their Symbolist legacy, McLuhan

would leam to see the artist as someone capable of reading the signatures of things, of

being sensitive to the secret life of objects and words, i.e., of being aware of the

subliminal-a quality McLuhan would srrive to achieve throughout his career. From

Richards and Leavis McLuhan would acquire a new approach to poetry-an approach

which wwld prove even more fruitful when applied to popular culture and Iater the media

itself.

It was McLuhan's association with Richards' and teavis' Ractical Citicism in

England that Id McLuhan to the Southern Agracian camp upon his retum to Amerka. Here

he wwld join the fugitives in their lamentation for the disappearing South. Born in

Edmontan, Alberta and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, many have speculated as to the

ongins of such sympathies in McLuhan. Some have identifiai his childhood on the prairies

and his admiration for G.K. Chesîerton and the Distri butists, still others link it to his

p t i n g in St. huis. His fmt biograpber, Matchand, even suggests it may be related CO

McLuhan's wife Corinne who, he tells us, never lost her Texas a~cent.12~ Where ever ttiey

lay one thing is McLuhan's view of the Amencan South cannot be fuHy appreciated

without an understanding of his conception of the ancient crivium and what he perceived as

the importation of i ts mcient quarrel to Amerka-the subject of our next chapter.

Notes for Chapter Two

Modernism and McLuhan - Cambridge and Critical Influences

L~arsball ~ c ~ u h a n . The Interior LMdrcqpe: Tlie iiterary Critic& of Mmshalf McLuhan l!M-l%i. ed. Eugene McNamara (New Y& McGraw-Hill, 1969). Fmword pp. XE-xiv.

2 ~ c ~ i i w l i c a t e d ina 1430 diq enîry that Y& and k a r d nqiiired an ability to read ali in, ~rench and Geman at sight He notes feeling "mkrdepessad about the cramming îhat it entailes' andconcludes his choice must be between Oxford andCambndge. See Matie Moiiuaro, Corinne McLuhan, and William Toye, eds, Leaers ofMmslial1 McUlan (ïomto: Oxfmd University Ress, 1981). p. 4.

See Philip Marchand, Marshall Mciuhïan: The Medium und the Messenger (Toronto: Vinage, 1989) p. 28 aod Temnce W. Gardai M a r s h a i l l M ~ : E r q x in@ Un&rstondng-A Bwgraphy (ïoronto: Stoddart, 1997). pp. 30-3 1. Marchand Uidicatea that McLuhan faiied to win the Rhodes scholmhip because he engaged in a '%gomus debate" with ibe professors ua the schdarship d t t e e . the^ is no mention of this inci&nt i n û m k d s acewnt of McLPhaPi's dechia to attcnâ Cambridge over Oxford.

4~pparen4y McLuhan's f a k intervened to ensure lhat his son wouldbave a fair chauœ of w-g. See Wan. Ercapinlo Understwding. p. 37.

sisnif~cance of Cambridge is d by boih âihe McLuhan biographem. Marcband daims k t "Mcllien was infiuenced by Cambridge 10 such an extent h t it is hard to imagine any of his class mates abwrbing more thonwighiy wbat was iaught ihere. McLuhan's years at Cambridge permanently set the foundations for almost aU dhis subsequent inteiiectuai work." Similady Gordon claims chst "the influence of Richards. Forbes. Quiller-Couch. ami ottiers wiih whom McLuban would corne in contact over two years in Cambridie was po~erful, and powcrfdiy augmented by the m i d he met only ihrough their writien work. These infîuences met, canplemented each oiher, aid pmduced a synergetic effect" See Marchand, The Medium and the Messenger, p. 4i and G h , Escape into~nderstandhg, p. 49.

6Marcband, The ~ e d i u m and rhe ~ossen~er , p. 18.

'HU& Kennet, The E h h e r e Communiiy (Coocord: Anansi, 1998). p. 24.

g ~ h a n d . The Medium and the Messenger, pp 17- 19.

l ~ t lhat îime McLuhan bad mvded ihe couauyside by bicycle with a copy of Palgrave's Golden Tmmuy, a poetry anthology based on Viciorian taste m îiteram, and taken pleasute in visiting the homelaad of be "great merl" he had read abait as a student at the UniveRity of Manitoba and in hearhg the larks and nightiogala of S i u k p m and Keats for himseif. He ùad no idea hat the ap~roach he w d d emunter at Cambridge would frown qm such Romantic ideals. Ibid ., p. 23.

* ~ e e Matshall Bennao. All TA4t 1s Soiid Melts inro Air: The Erperience of Moderniiy (New York Penguin, 1982). p. 16 and Monroe K. Spears, Dionyswand The City: Modetnism in Twentiefh-Centq Poeny (New YorL: 0- University E k s . 1970). p. 7.

13sanfad ~chwartz, The Monixo/Modemh: Posuid, Eliot, anà Emly Twentieth-Cennny Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Ress, lw, p. 72.

14Motlloe K. Spears, Dionyms and The City ModenirSm in Twentieth-Century Poetry (New Yodc Oxford University Ress. 1970), pp. 7.32-34.

l s ~ . , pp. 32-33-54.

I6~or example, neady n) pet cent cf EPgland's 45 milliai inbabitanîs lived in d a n areas by 191 1. Rodd Carter and Jobn McRae. The Routledge H b r y of Li ter~ae in English: Bricah and ireland (Londoa: Rwtledge, 1497). p. 347.

17~eter ~ichoiis, M&rnLnrrP:A Litenity Gui& (Ladm Macmillan, 1995). p. 16.

l%?. T. Ma~ia~tetti, "The Fouodhg Manifab of hhirism" (1909) ated in Stepheo Kem, The Culnve of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge M k x &arvard University Ress. 1983), p. 90.

2 0 ~ ~ . Dionysus Md The City, p. 71.

L ~ e m u m , ~ l î'hat 1s Solid Melts info Air. p. 132.

2q.~. Eliot, "Bauâelaire" (1930) dted in Berman, Al! Thar 1s Solid Meifs into Air. p. 13 1.

23Charlea Baudelaire, '"ïhe Painictof Modtm Life"(l86l), cited in Speats, Dionym and The City, p. 7.

2 4 ~ ~ h a l l McLuhaa, 'Tennyson and Pictufesque Poeuy" (1%1) in McNamara, Thelnten'orLandrc~, p. 154.

25Peter ~ichii ls notes that poeu üke Baudelaire avnad away frwi the nanue Pssociated with the art of the bourgeois culture and med to rbedark undeftide of everyday üfe in commercial society and thai theù rejection of m m was wt only a ~ejwtion of the subieci maüer of ûees and rivers. but was also a mjectiaa of the political and social oprimian assuciatcd with d y Raaanticism. See Nicholls. Modemimir, pp. 9- 10. For a discussion on the diverse treatment of ihe aty in English literahue see Spears, Dionyw and The City, pp. 74-75

26~ee Kenner, The Ekewhere Commmity, p. 24. Techaically Kemer was never a formal student of McLuhan's. alihough he did receive adviœ and guidance Tiom McLuhan and was close to him during ihe late 1%. Both biographies relate a iease reIatidp benveen the two. See Marchand, The Medium and the W e n g e r , pp. 97-90 aod Gordoa, fietpin& Uhstanding. p. 142, 146,252. As well, the Letters cootains several instances w k McLuhan has less rhaa kind words for Kemer and ûis w o k see Molinaro et. ai., LPners, pp. 240,341,413,

27~pears, Dionysus and The City, p. 71.

28~ugh Kenaer. The Mechanie Mure (New York Oxford University Press, 1987). p. 14.

29See NichoUs, ModernrmtF, p. 85 and Spears, Dionym and The City. pp. 30.77, EPa Pound. "in A Station of the Metro" (1913,1916) in Seiecred Poemr of Ezra Pourid (New York New Directions, 1956, 1926). p. 35.

3%ustave IA Bon, The Crowd, (1885) citai in Kem. Tlie CuIlure of Time and Space. p. 22 1 .

For example. alth- 30 million peopie bad cmigratcd from Europe her population increased from 370 million to 480 million between the pars LW and 1914. Gennany was home to the most rapid urbaaizatiiaa where the number of cities wiih populaii01~ d over 100,ûûû grew from fourteen to forty-eight between the years 1880 and 1913. While ibe populacioa d Fraaa sboweû only r slight incmme, the city of Paris and its suburbs sweUed to over 4 million by 1914. That same year London's population reached 7.5 million. Kem, The Culture of Tinte ami S ' e t p. 220.

2~ miributory factor in ~ n ~ l a o d w a ~ tbe Edudon ~ c t which made elementiuy education compulsory for evecyone between ibe ages of 5 and 13. SeeGum & McRae, The Rourledge History of fiterme in Englhh, p. 348.

33~pears, ~ionyrnr and The City, p. 60.

34~ugene LUM. Mmxisnr anà Modernism: An Hirurical Sh<dy ofLukdcs. Brecht. Benjmin, and Adorno (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 34-37.

35~ee carter & ~ c R a e , The Rourledge History of Literrrla~e in EngILsh, pp. 352,356,390.

36~icholls. MouèrnI'snrs, p. 166. Lewis, wim many people assumed was English by bitth, was actuaiiy born near a dock at Amhemt, Nova Scoiia, aa bis Americm f-s yack

37~dinam et. al., LPttprs. pp. 6.41; 5960,95,129 and Marcband, The Me& unà the Messenger, p. 70.

38~or infimuation reganling McLuhaa's inletest idoyce's wmlrs See ûaxdon, Escqxinio Undérstundhg, pp. 47,100,113 and Matchaud, The Medium arrd the Messenger, p. 94-95

39~0r exampie. bot& imagism and Vorticism werc short-lived moment^" rather than movemenis. NiCholis. ModenrrmrS, p. 166.

41W., p. 173. The tenn Votticism is closely relatai to the concept of a vortex or the point of maximum energy. Iîs origins can be traccd to Pound's figurp in tk ninih "Osiris" article frin, 1912 wheae words are depicicà as "electiified cones. cbarged with ' iéc power of tradition, of centuries of race coasciousness. d agreement, d assaciation~i' Le. everyihing d which auanist is expecteà to be aware. Hugh Kenner describes Vorticism as "a circulaticta with a di cenier. asystem of energies drawing in whalever ames nex" A simpLified version of ihe conical imaw €rom Pound's article became the emblem of Lewis' ma* Blart. Sec Hugh Kenner, The Poieidfia, (Berkeley: University of California Ress. 1971). pp. 19 1,238-239.

43~chwaitz, The Mafrit of Modernisni, p. 1û3.

4 4 ~ e e Ibid.., p. 102-1 13 and Nichlis, Modem- p. f %.

4 5 ~ & w m , The Matrix of Modernism. p. 74.

4 q . S . Eliot, "Studies in Contemporary Critich." Egoist 5 (Octobei 1918) p. 114 & EYa Pound, The Spirit of Romance (New York: New Directions, 1975) p. 1 3 cited in lbid., pp. 73-74.

4 7 ~ h a l l McLuhan, Understanàing Media: Tlre Extenswnso/Man (Cambridge. Mass.: MiT Press, 1994, 1964), p. 57.

48~arshall McLuhan, " "Review of The Poetry of &ru Pound by Hugh Kennet," Rwcence. 4.2 (1952), p. 216.

J%arshall McLuhaa, 'T.S. Eliot. Review of Books on Eliot," Renqscence 3.1 (1950), pp. 434.46-

S O ~ c c m l i n ~ to McLuhan this was IO be accomplished, in part, by "Masting the high-piled mattresses of genteel British amateurisrn in the arts" aad injecting tk French artïsts' sense of "métier." See Marsball McLuhan, "Ezra Pound. Review of b k s mi Pound:' Rennscence 3.2 (1951)' p. 200 and "A Swey of Joyce Criticism," Remcenu? 4,1 (1951). p. 13.

5 f ~ c l u h a n . 'T.S. Eiiot. Review of B& on Eliot," p. 44.

53 McLuhan, 'Tennyson a d Picniresqne Poeüy" in McNamara, Tlrei~erior Lonciscape. p. 136.

5 4 ~ ~ . , p. 144 and Marshall M c b , "Pound's Criiical Rose" (l9B) in McNamara, TheInterior l!ndmp* p. 81.

55Marshall McLuhan, "Coleridge as Artist" (1951) in McNamam, ThelnteriorLun&cape, p. 132. Not oaly did McLuhan align his own style with ihat of the Spboliais, but he also described Innisp style in a similar mannef. "For imyone acquainted with poetry since Baudelaire and wiih p i n h g s h œ CeLame, the later world of Harold A. inois is quite readily inteUigiMe. Be brought k i r kinds dcoatemporary awareness of the elechic age to aganize the daia of the hisiorianaod the scieotist. Without having sndied modern art and poehy, b yet discoverai how ta anange bis insights in pattems tbt n d y resemble the iut fams d our iimc." See Harold A. Innis, The Bi= of Comnnuiication (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1963, 1951). Introduction by Marshall McLuhan. p. Uü.

5 6 ~ his easay 'Tite Pbilosophy aC Couqaaitim'' Poe desMiles the creation of bis famous poem "The Ravcnp* as a deliberate pocws of r a t i d conûol. of kghahg with the des id efféct and w o h g backwards in ordm to attain tbaceffect W e m a t aitics have disçounied Poe's aocount of the artistic pmwss as ioo d v d to be tnie. Kenruth Bu& poviâes an inîeresting tak on Poe's essay in hîs

"Poeacs in Particular; Language in Gamal," frugnage ar Symbolic Action: Essays on Li&, Literorure and Meihod, Betkeley: University of Califomia n#is. 1966, pp. 25-43.

57Marshall McLuhan. "Joyce. Aquinas aod ibe Poetic Rocess," Remcenw 4.1 (1951). p. 8.

5 8 ~ ~ , '~erm~son and ~ c t m q ~ Pœtry" in ~ c ~ a m a r a , TheIntafor Lmdrcope. pp. 154-155.

59 T.S. Eliot cited in M., p. 138.

6%c~uhan, "Joyce. Aquinas and îhe Poetic si' p. 8.

61 Moliaaro, et. al.. Letm, pp. 421 & 505.

62~c~uhan . "T.S. Eliot, Review of Books on Eüot," p. 45.

63~ames Joyce, Stephen H m , p. 213 cited in McLuhao. "Joyce, Aquioas and the Poetic Rocess," p. 4.

64w.. p. 4.

6%iarshall McLuhan, ''Joyce, Malland, and the k s * ' ((195 1) in McNamara, The Interior Landscap, p. 11.

6 6 ~ ~ ~ u h a n , 'Te~yscm aod ficninsque Poeiry" in McNamara, ThelnienorLmdrcope, p. 144.

67~oliaaro, et. al., Letters. p. 507.

68~c~uban , "Joyce. Aquinas and the Poetic Ehcas." p. 3 and 'T.S. Eliot. Review of Books on Eliot," p. 48.

7 0 ~ c T , "Joyce, M a l l a d , and the Pressn (IgSl) and4Tenoyson and Pichaesque Pmq" (1% 1) in McNarnara, TheInteriorLm&ccipe, pp. 16, 139-140.

l~olinaro, et. al., Lotters. p. 443.

72~arsball McLuhan. "Coleridge as Artist" (l9SI) in McNamnra. The Interior LandFcope, pp. 121,129.

73Molinaro, et. al., Letters, p. 426.

75Marshall McLuhan, Picnic in S w e , (1973) in Ferguson "Marsbal1 McLuban Revisited: 1% Zeitgeist Victim or Pioneer Posmodemist?." p. 79.

76~amea M. Curtis, "McLuhaw The Aesthete as Histonaa. " Jownal of Communication 31.3 (Summer 1981). p ~ . 149-150.

77~an:band, ~ h e ~edium ond the Messenger. p. 33.

78~oha Cmwe R;uisom's Ine New Cntieism was adiscussim that included I.A. Richards, T.S. Eliot. Wiam Empn a d Yvor Wmn. While 3-e ammentators bave since identifted ihe t e m "New Cnticism" as an dommate one because it faiseiy impiied ihe overchrow and suppiantationof an existing unified "Old Criticism," which w u not the case, scholars such as Waiter Ong have pointed out that this criticai endeavor was "new" in the seoae ihat it was ihe iïmt Litenuy criticism to emerge during a period in which the focus was on contemporary venmrcular w o b rathec thaa Latin a Greek oriented classics. See Spars, Dionysu and Iihe City, p. 197 a d Walter 1. Ong, In rhe hum^ Grain: Further Exploroaiow of Contempormy Culture (New Y& MacMülan, 1967), p. 33.

79~pears, Dionymr and The City, p. 1%.

80~bris Bakfick, The Sociai Mission of English Cn'ticimi: 1848-1932 (Oxford: Clarendon Ress, 1983). p. 80.

83 Mark Royden Winchen, C l e d Brooks and the R&e of Modern Criîicism (Cbarlotîesvüie: University Press of V i a . 1996). p LW and Spears. Dionym and The Ci& p. 215.

8%hwartz, The ManUr of Moclenisni, p. 210.

851bid., p.. 215.

86~l inaro , et. ai., Letters, p. 50 iuui Marchand The Medium and the Messenger, p. 32.

B7~an:hand. The ~ed ium a d the ~essen~er, p. 33.

88 W... p. 34.

891.A. Richards, Principllesof Literary Criticûnr (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Warld 1925). pp. 20-22.

g o ~ e e McLuhan, Undersranding- p. 45 and Tlie Mëdiwn 1s the Massage: An Inventory of Eflecu, With Quentin Fiore and Jerome Angel (New Y&. Banm. 1967). p. 41.

91I.A. Richards. Praticai Critkhm: A Si@ in Litercuy Iudgmnt (New York: Harcoiat. Btace & World. 1966, 1929), p. 3.

9%ichards, Prac~icd~riricism. p. 297,

9 % ~ Gordon, Escapeinio Understandi~~g. p. 313 and Mardiand. nie Medium and the Messenger, pp. 33- 34.

94~ee Baldick, The Social Mission of English Cn'ticîsm, pp. 32, 134-161.

gS~i~hatds , Prina@s, pp. 34.36.

96lb~ii.. p. 203.

97Richards. Princifis, p. 23 1 d fiacticd Crincim. p. 14.

9 9 ~ . R. Leavis and Denys Tbompsoa, Culme ond Enviromnent: The Training of Criticd Aworeness (London: Chatto & Wmdu, 1964, 1933). p. 1.

'0-e substance of ihis m e n t is usually aucibuteci 10 Q.D. Leavis' book Ficrionandthe Reading Public. See R. P. Bilan, The Literaty Crihcism ojF. R. Leavis (îarnbtidge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). p. 20.

'OL~eavis and Thompson, Culture and Environmnt, p. 6.

102~bid., pp. 1, S.

L 0 3 ~ . 1 p. 106. Not only does ihis foreshadaw McLuhan's tone in The Mechnicd W. but also in McLuhan's later work City As Classroom.

lw~olinaro. et. al., htters, p. 120.

l o 8 ~ . , pp. 34-36. At &is time iitcnry scbdarship. which had previousiy relied upon the fields of philosopày. theology and cullurai hisa~ry, w a tumhg, aikit wirh same degree of criticism, îo the more ment fields of psychoiogy, socidogy and anthropology to infiun kir works. See ûng, In the Hmm Grtain, p. 33. Modem critics of Leavis have akmiod hm fimaLing sociological statemenis based upca purely literiuy evibœ. See Baldidt, Tme Social Mijswn of Engfish Criticism, p. 183.

ro9Baldi~~ The Social Mission of Englhh CrinCiSm. pp- 4, 159,193.

' l 1~ The Medium and tk Messenger, p. 43.

14~diaam. et. al., km, p. 157.

%lem Willmoit is but one of many critics wbo bas questioncd McLuhan's associaiion with Ifie 1930s New Cntic orihtxbxy. d u d i n g rbat it was nothing m m than a supetf~cial tag. It is worrh h g . bowevu, ihat WiUmott uses Qeanth Br&' &fdiion, ratber tban one from Richards or Leavis, to ûssess McLuhan's staais, and tbat w k n Bmaks' &finition is applied to many of rhe "eshblished" new critica. they tao appear disingenuoua. See Glenn Wilmoti. MeLuha, or Modernhm in Reverse, (Tomnto: University of Toronto Ress. 1996) pp. 27-30.

L 6 ~ W The ~ e d i w n and the ~essenger, p. 92.

L17J-N. Patnaik, The Aesthetics of New Criticim. Atlantic Highland (NJ.: Humanities Ress. 19û3) , pp. 23.

l 18h.larcbaad, The Medium and the Messenger, p. 92. Whüe living in Italy Pound had beçome preoccupied with e c o d c s and embraced Social Credit -es which led him to have symparhy fœ aniiSemitic i&olagiagies ad Mussolini's social programme. Wng th Sccad Worid Warhe made poüacai bmaâcasts over the Iialian radio. In 1945 he was amsted and sait ou to a US Amy Disciplinary Training Cenm near Pisa. He was later moved to Washington and di io St. Eüzabetb, a menial instinihion. It was hem ihat McLuhan and Hugh Kenaer visiial Pound.

I g ~ a r i c Roydcn Wincheii. Cleanfh Brooks und the Rise of M d r n Cnh'cism (Chi~lottesville: University Ress of Virginia. 1996), p. 114.

1 2 @ k Sewme ReMew had been edited by Allen Tate mtii 1946, while the Kenyon Review bad been founded andediteci by IohnCrowe Ransom. Marcbanci, The Medi' and the Messenger, pp. 67-68.

CHAPTER THREE

McLuhan md The Trivium-

Educational Rivalries and Their Legacy in America

Thomas Nashe was a Cambridge pet in my terms thm. 1 did m y doctoral shdy on hun, appoachùig bim via th pocess ofverbal training fmm the Sopbts ihrough Cicm and Augustine and Danie to h e Renaissance. Wbea Joyce qiaqiappcd to a critic, "Some of my puns are trina1 and same an quadriviai." he was being, as always, precise. When my critics imagine 1 am being vaguely melaphorid. 1, too. am aying to be iiterai and ppcise.'

The trouMe w i l a cheap, specializededucation is that you never stop paying for i t2

As demonstrated in the previous chapter, the modemist literature and criticism that

McLuhan encountered at Cambridge was a significant factor in his intellectual development,

influencing his attitude toward literature and the poetic process, gmunding his teaching in

America as well as infoming his later media studies. As a Cambridge doctorai stuclent

McLuhan would pursue another area of study that would pmve equally momentous. What

began as a dissertation on sixteenth century Engiish literature evolved into a detailed study

of the trivium (grarnrnar, dialectics and rhetoric), the fundamentai group of the seven liberal

arts, fmm ancient times until the sixteenth century. The dynamics McLuhan perceived at

work in the trivium would have a profound impact upon him, shaping the way he was to

view p t and present literature and education as well as giving rise to a historical dualisrn

Chat would corne to pemate his work. McLuhan could not help but see a relationship

hehveen the arts of grammar and rûetoric and the modernists' approach b language and the

Praictical or New Criticai apptoach to texts. Eventuaüy, McLuhan would come to associate

the arts of grammar and rhetoric withorality and the acoustic sensibility of electric

techndogim and the art of dialectic with literacy and the visual sensibility of Gutenberg

technology. Such associations, however, would not be made apparent for years to corne.

The majority of this chapter is W C . . to an examination of McLuhan's dissertation,

Tiie Place of Thosnas Nash in the Lcarning of Hi3 Tinte (1943). I will begin with a

discussion af how McLuhan came to focus on the tnvium as his final topic, review his

traitment of the three arts (grammar, dialectics and rhet0ric)- with special attention given

to the art of grammar-and summarize tbe histoq of their nvalries as outlined by

McLuban. Additionally, 1 will address the d e of Thomas Nash in the dissertation with

respect to the dyiaamics of the ûivium and buch upon McLuhan's criticism of the

conventionai view of ihe Middle Ages. 1 will cmclude my discussion of the dissertation by

noting the importanceof the work to McLuhan hughout his career.

The remaining portion of the chapier wiU be dedicated to a coltective examination of

three of McLuhan's key articles h m the mid LW-"Edgar Poe's Tradition" (1944), "An

Amient Quarrel in Modem Amenca" (1946) and 'The Southem Quality" (1947). Not only

do these articles demonstrate the evolution al the themes af the disserration in McLuhan's

mind as ihey are reinterpreâed in the oontext of aculiural cleavage between the Amencan

South and the American North, but hey also illustrate îhe transfmation of the dynamics

of the trivium from a bistoncal accouat of European education and scriptural exegesis into a

social critiqueof American commercial indusrrial culture-a key element of McLuhan's

MechanicalBride,

McLuhun's Cambridge Disserïatiorr - The Phce of T h o m Nashe in the Leuruhg of His Time

McLuhan begins bis thesis by explairing that the sîudy had originated as an extension

of Professor RW. Chambers' Continuity ojEngIish Prose beyond the period of Thomas

More (1471-1535) to the end of the sixteenth century. McLuhan intended to remain faiiliful

îo Chambers' argument that English humanism had suffeced at the bands of Henry VIII's

headsman and spent a great deal of time swveying the pnise writers of the p e n d After

two years of research, however, McLuhan found himself disinteresteci in Chambers' thesis

because it implied that the wealth of prose in this pend was a "mere aberration from the

main tradition of Engiish prose.q AAbandwing his original thesis McLuhan turned to the

figure of Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), a sixteenth century writer and former Cambridge

graduate who had experienced a raurgence when McLuhan had been an undergraduate

student. Nashe was an accomplished satinst who wmte wntroversial pamphlets, plays,

l ync verse as well as a aovel. A contemporary of Christopher Marlowe and WiI liam

Shakespeare, Nash was coasidered one of the most versatile of Elizabethan authors and

has become known for his distinctl y modem style.4 While he had been used primaril y as a

historicai resourçe by nineteenth œntury scholars, his collaquial and vivid prose had eamed

him the reptation as "the journalist par excellence of his tirne" by the time McLuhan came

to study him. McLuhan's thesis supervisor, MurieI Bradbrook, once commentai that

"McLuhan had an instinctive sympathy with the vivid, inconsequent, but very powerful

styk of Nashe-and with Nash's impulse to be new, to be rhetorically arresting, ta be, in

fact, a sort of soçiological joumaiist, or journalist sociologist. 1 couidn't help feeling that

thent was a Thomas Nashe inside McLuhan, dying to get out."s

McLuhan had originally intended to relate Nashe's prose techniques to those of les

known and Iess successful wniers. After becorning well acquainted with "the variety and

Mrtuosity" of Nashe's styles, however, McLuhan decided it was unli keI y they bad been

derived from the journalistic pmtice of his or any other time. Nashe had a distinct1 y

irrepressible style wbich McLuhan would eventuaily link to Euphuism-a highly artikial,

affected literary and wnversational style based upon John Lyly's Euphues that had become

popular in the laie sixteenth and eariy seventeenth centuries. The Iink to Euphuism led

McLuhan to an indepth snidy of medieval and ancient rhetoric. &Luban had observed

that whiIe previous scbiars such as RB. McKerrow had noted Nashe's use of rhetoric,

they seemed impatient with this sideof him, inclined to dismiss the rhetorical aspects of his

works as mere stylistic emkllishmenîs or fashionable indulgences. In his study of Nashe

McLuhan sought to accomplish what he believed no one had yet done, consider the writer

"on his own ternis," Le., withia the context of the rhetorical theory and praciice of the

sixteenth œntury.6

After a survey of rhetoncai theory McLuhan conduded that the sixteenth century "was

nothing if not an age of rhetaric" and that the majority of sixteenth century rhetorical

handbooks were derived from medeval favourites. The ever expanding sçope of

McLuhan's project widened once more. McLuhan found himself pursuing a survey of

rhetorical literature from ancient times tiuough medieval times to the sixteenth century. His

study of the chetorid canon frorn Cicero to Nashe becarne a study of the modes of

education in those centurie^.^ McLuhan realized that the rhetorical treatises made little sense

on their own. They needed to be studied in the context of the entire tradition of ancient and

medieval education. Henœ McLuhan's final and much expandeci topic, the study of the

history of the trivium (grammar, dialectics and rhetoric) from its ancient origins until the

time of Nashe.8

Açcording to McLuhan such avantage point was necessary to truly appreciate the figure

of Thomas Nashe-it was impossible to camprehend Nashe's style without the çontext of

rhetotical iheory and practice in the sixteenth century; to fully apprehend rhetoncal theory

and practice in the sixteenth century, one needed to be aware of rhetorîc's ancient origins

and practice in the middle aga; to grasp the meaning of the ancient, medievd and

renaissance rhetoricai treatises, one must understand rhetonc's place in the histonc trivium

alongside the arts of grammar and dialectic. McLuhan believed that nothing less than the

history of the mviurn from ancient times to the sixteenth century could serve as adequate

ground for the figure of Thomas Nashe-an early mani fdon of McLuhan's preference

fa approacbhg mattefs via ground rather thanfigwe and for favouring grand histocical

narratives over narrowly foçussed studies.9 Thus, the first three hundred and fifty pages of

McLuhan's dissertation concem the hisbry and interna1 dynamics of the trivium. It is only

in the final chapter that the figure of Nashe appears, and then he largely serves as an

exemplum or proof of McLuhan's prior observations about the trivium.

In the introduction to the dissertation McLuhan explains that one of the reasons he fel t

compelled to pmvide a history of the üivium in bis study was modem education's distance

from it. He surmised that contemporary scholars were at a disadvantage when it came to

approaching the figure of Nasbe because they, uniilce their predecessors, lacked a

familiarity with the trivium:

Neither Nashe nor bis age is compehewibie withwt mi &derable understsnding of the disciplines of lhe trivium which were then so eagedy cultivated. In tbe eighteenlh cennny then? stüi pershiai a sigaüïcaat rcmnant of thaae discipIines, suKuient to make Nashe mon: compnbensibie to Warton lhan to Mc- but the rapid displacement of the linguistic discipüncs by the mathemaiicd. iud those related to mathematics, has ken h e d on so much in an abnwphpre of amtraveny lhat even scholars bave mme to the point of patronizing sixteenth cenaay hien and sixteenth mhay education. This attinide bas not advawxd mkmding, Drydea'semicaiioa was wt comparable in s a p e to tbat of Donne, but it was littic diZTemt in M. üistoriaos of üterature am s l i l l a long way from understaading the wi& impüdms d the okewatiou of A.E Leach in 19 1 1 that "It is hardiy an exaggerah to Say that t h subjects and methods of eciucation remained the same fmm ihe days of Quintifian to the &ys of Arnold, from the fint century to the mid-nineteenth century or the Chnsiien emWr

As will become apparent, McLuhan lamenteci this lack of continuity in modern education.

In reûacing the modes of education from ancient times to the sixteenth century,

McLuhan felt that he was not only illuminating the figure of Nashe, but those of his

What the present sndy tnes to do directiy for Nashe, it does incidentaiiy for his coatemporiuies; so that if Nasbe appears to be a Lind of appendix to a chapter in the histocy of educaiioa, he is Feally intcnâed io be afocal point hum or Dome would have served thïs funçtion beticr in some ways iban Nask. It would bave been possibie to relate them more compiexiy to tbeir age, in sa far as they were more compiex and comprehensive wàten. This snidy will achicve iis endifit canindicate the Iioes dong which further enlighkmmentcaaccniing Eamn and ~onae and thtirage is poesible.

McLuhan's dissertation, then, was not so much about Tbmas Nashe as it was about

developing an appropriate vantage point from which to approach Thomas Nashe. 1 ts

conœrn was with the ground, rather than theJgwe.

The work is divided into four chapters, the first tbree of which are devoted to the study

of the trivium in various time pen'ods: chapter one covers the tnvium from its ancient

inception until S t Augustine, chapter two covers the triviutn f' St. Augustine to

Abdard, chapter three covers ihe trivium from Abelard to Erasmus. It is d y in the fina1

chapter that Thomas Nash is diredy addressed. Each cbapter, including tbe final chapter

on Nashe, is subdivided into three sections: grammar, dialectics and thetoric. In spite or the

apparentiy strict structure, McLuhan's discussion of any one of the individual arts is

frequentiy intersplid with detaifs abut the other arts, an indication of both the

interdependence of the three arts as well as McLuhan's inclination to avoid linear "one-

thing-ata-time" discussions even at this point in his career. Having said this, it séould be

noied that McLuhan's dissertation. much Like his a l y literary articles, is distinct from his

later w o k It is a scholarly piece in the traditional sense, well-re~ea~checi, attentive to

details and sensitive to idiosyncrasies. Of dl of McLuhan's books perhaps Tlie Giitenberg

Gaiary cornes closest in style-certainly both works sbare the iendency towards copious

citations. McLuhan once defended his later non-linearstyle in a 1971 letter to William

Kuhns by insisting that "you will find in my literary essays, 1 cm write the ordinary kind

o l rationalistic prose any time 1 ch- to do SO."~* It rnay very well be that the dissertation

was the most "rationalistic prose" McLuhan ever produced '3

Significantly McLuhan opens the first chapter with adiscussion of grammar. While

Nashe may have led McLuhan to the art of rhetoric, it is the art of grammar which

McLuhan privileges throughout the work, even maceding that bis presentation of the

history of the trivium is "hm a grammatical point of view."i4 For McLuhan the art of

gmmmar is farmore than the "non-entity" of d e s of sentence structure or inflection it hm

been reduced to in modern times.15 McLuhan's view is akin to that of grammar's ancient

practitioners. Grammar is the art of interpreting phenornena, the intimate study of the word,

the precursor to both modem Literary studies and critiçism. Its main m1s are etymology,

exegesis and analogy. Given McLuhan's dolescent ptactice of Qing to leam thtee new

words a day, his adult obsessions with words and ttieir respective roots- both r d and

imagined, and the delight he took in unpacking Joyce's Finneguns W h , it is M y

surprising that he would fiad himself drawn to the art of grammar.16 Throughout the thesis

McLuhan cornplains that the ancient art of grammar has n d ken sufficiently understmd

and its role in medievai science and theology has not been fully appreciated.17

With obvious regard for the art, McLuhan explains the close Iink the ancient

practitioners of grammar perceived between the order of human language and the order of

reality. Citing an exchange Plato recounts between Socrates and Cratylus, McLuhan

indicates early views regarding the significance of names:

S m t e s : But if these things are only to k k n m througb names, how can we suppose that Ihe given of names had knowledge, or w m legislaiors bcfw ibere were names at d. and î ke fae befae ihey could bave b w n them? Cratylus: 1 believe, Socrates, the mie account d the matter Co be. tbrit a power more than human gave rhings k i s fmt names. and tbat ihe names which were thus given are aeçess;uily their tnie names.18

McLuhan explains that Cratylus* view of "first names" as "tnie names" infonns the ancient

attitude towards etymology as a main source of scientific and moral enlightenrnent. He aiso

notes that the doctrine oC Cratylus gained new significance with the opening of the

Christian era, quoting the following passage from Genesis 2: 19:

And out of the pund he Lard G d formed every beast dhe field, and evecy fowl of the air, and brought hem unb tbe man to see what he would cal1 them: and whatsoever the mancalledevery living creature. ibat was the name thereof. lg

Hem, McLuhan clarifies, the doctrine of names is nota naive idea of terminology, but a

doctrine of essences. Scriptural exegetists believed that Adam pmwed a metaphysical

knowledge which allowed him to read ail of nature with ease as though it were a book It

was this ability to read nature which he lost with the faIl and it was this abiiity which the

arts were stnving to recover.20 McLuhan insists that viewing the world as a book was

neither a novel approach nora strïctly theological practice. He points out that from "the t h e

OC the neo-Piatonists and Augustine to Bonavenaire and to Fmcis Bacon, the worid was

viewed as a book, the lost language of which was analogous to that of human speech" The

art of gramma, then, p v i d e d the sixteenth çentiiiy apptoach to the B d of Life, in

scriptural axegesis, as well as to the Book of Nature.21

McLuhan believes bis study of the trivium is unique in iîs consideration of the art of

grammar as an important basis of scientific mechod during antiquity and throughout the

Middle Ages. He notes that the peat alchernisis, the Fâracelsians and even Francis Bacon

were part of a scientific Iegacy which had its roots in grammar and h t it is only from the

time of Descartes that the main mode of science becmes mathematical and moves from the

art of grarnmar to the art of dialecîics-22 Looicing at Stoic phi tosophy, McLuhan

demonstrates how the early amceph of science were bound up with the doctrine cf

logos-variously understd as universal reason, the divine Word, the constitutive

utterance, the Trinity. The datrine of logos informecl the Greek concept of life and order in

al1 things, including the mind of humanhnd. Within the context of the doctrine of logos,

McLuhan argues, the Stoics' interest in etymology as a source of scientific and philosophic

knowledge was "perfecel y natural.wz3 Science and grammar, then, were "naturall y uniteci

by the concept of language as ihe expression and anaiogy of the Logosm-a concept that,

we shall see, reasserts itself in McLuhan's Lmvs of Media.24

McLuhan adamantly defends the use of allegorical and etymological methods as a

le@ timate interpretation of phenornena rather than "a Cafly-over from a primitive world-

view" or a "primitive magic" that is f d l y discardeci during the Renaissance or the

Enlightenment, arguing that while such an account of grammatical methodology may

"satisfy the emotional needs of the modem world" it is, nonetbeles, incorrect. McLuhan

maintains that the Stoic interpreters of p t r y and mythology were intensely aware of what

they were doing and that the doctrine of the logos, Yar fom being a piece of naive

animism," was metaphysical in character.2sTo illustrate the close reIation of the Book of

Scnpture and the Book of Nature McLuhan tlurts to Etienne Gilson's The Philosophy of

St. Bonaveniure:

Since the universe wa9 offered to bis eyes as a boak to d and he saw in nanue a sensiMe revelation analogous to h t of tfie Suiptum, tôe irtaditid melhods of interpeiation which had always btenapplied to ihe Jacted books could equally be applied to the book of creation . . . If ihings can be amsidemi as signs in the order of na-, it is because cbey already play îhis part in tbe ader of reveiaiim The tenus empioyed by any science designate ihings; thse which Saim empioys ais0 designate things. but these ihings in iheir iurn designate ttub d a dieological. moral, or mystical order. We have doœ nothing but apply to the semie wodd the ordinarily accepted met& of Scriptural exegesis in ûeating bodies and wuls as d e p i e s d the mative Trinity. aod it is d y in this way ihat the universe bas revealed ils tnie meanings . . . 26

Analogy, rather than logic or dialeclics guiguides such fonns of interpretation. McLuhan

champions the use of analogy over logic throughout the thesis, just as he would throughout

his career.

As for the history of grammatical exegesis proper, McLuhan has somewhat less to say.

He outlines its development and its subsequent mle in education, noting the patristics'

quest to combine the intellectual conceptions of Plato with the religious ideas of the

Gospels, the four levels of interpretaîion (literal, ailegorical or theological, tropological or

moral, anagogical or mysticai) and Philo of Alexandria's habit of viewing "the very events

of history [as] a gigantic and complex sbtement to which the methoâs of grammatical

exegesis are applicable."27 Of particular inîerest is the parallel McLuhan suggests between

the ancient art of grammar and modem Ii- research and cri ticism.

He observes that both share a keen interest in etymotogy, semantics, the study of

figures of speech, thought and emotion, prosody, textual criticism, historical explication,

and hctical Cnticism via "a word by word and a Iine by line reading of the poets.'Q*

Cleady, the literary research and çrihcisrn McLuhan has in mind is the Practical Criticism

he encountered at Cambridge. Richards' approach ta a text, with its emphasis on close

textuai study and the subliminal quality ol words, is reminiscent of the grammarians'

approach to Scnpture, Empsons' Seven Types of Ambiguity çoufd be viewed as a

grammatical hanclbook, while Leavis' Cdme and Eirvironment demonstrates the value of a

grammaticai approach to the "texis" of modern commercial society-an approach McLuhan

would come to adopt in his fust book Tlie Mechnicul Bn'&.

It appears that one of McLuhan's goals in writing the dissertation is the redemptim of

the ancient art of grammar. Not only does he defend its methodology, but he calls for an

accurate understanding of the art. He cornplains of Classical scholars who only understand

grammar in tems of "mere matters of accidence and syntax" (i.e., what the ancient art has

been reduced to in modem times) and then look back in history to unfairly project the same

empty quality ont0 the entire ûadition.29 Throughout the dissertation McLuhan strives to

provide a sense of the richness and depth the art of grammar once possessed and trace a

continuous humanistic tradition of grammatical education and practice from its ancient

practitioners through the patristics to Francis Bacon and beyond. At the time he wrote the

dissertation McLuhan believed the methods of anthropology and psychology were re-

esiablishing grammiu as a valid mode of science.30 Later, McLuhan would add the

linguistic studies of Sapir and Whorf to such a list. He would also come to link the

pauistics and their approach to language with the poetic practices of the French Symbolists

and suggest that if "four-level exegesis is back in favor again as the staple of the 'new

cnticism,' it is because the poetic objects which have been made since 1880 frequentty

require such techniques for their elucidation.'q l Similady, McLuhan would come to view

T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, dong with other modemist pets, as grammarians engaged in

the process of returning modern culture to a sense of "linguistic awareness.'g2 Given the

ability of modernist pets to "reveal the signatures of things" and "allow places and things

to utter themselves," such an assessrnent does not seem unreasonable. Eventually,

McLuhan wwld come to view the r e m to acoustic spaçe in the twentieth century as a

ceaini to the art of grammu, in the fullest sease of the ter1n.3~

Sharply contrasted with the art of grammar is the art of dialectics. McLuhan defines this

art as one of logic and mathematics and characterim it as a philosophicai activity tbat

variously acts as a way of testing evidence, a methad of dialogue and a study of kinds of

proof for argument. McLuhan traces the art of diaiectics fmrn its classical origins through

the medieval schoohnen to'the time of Peter Ramus. While McLuhan notes that a history of'

dialectics from a dialectician's viewpoint has never been written, and that we know less

about scholastic culnue than scholastics knew about classical culture, it quickly becornes

evident that McLuhan's account of the history of dialectics is in no way a sympathetic

one?4ï'hroughout the dissertation he demonstrates a distaste for dialectical methodology,

an abhorrence for its ascendancy with the medieval schoolmen and a resentment of its

legacy in modern thought.

While McLuhan does pmvide a relative1 y detailed account of the history of dialectics,

reçounting its limited use by the ancient Sophists, its expanded scope under Socrates, its

close relaîionship with grammarduring its earlier phases and the transformation of its key

component logicduring the medievai period, his main concem is with its increased role in

education and its eventual dissociation from the remaining arts of the trivium.35 From the

sixth to the w l y tenth centuries dialectics had played a central part in education. During the

late tenth century, however, it flourished to an unprecedented degree. Finaily, during the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it drove the classics (grammar and rhetoric) from Paris zuid

Oxford. McLuhan identifies this decadence of the art of dialectics as the most pivotal event

in the history of the trivium, perhaps in Western thwght36 In his media theory McLuhan

would come to associate the characteristics of diaiectics with the qualities of visuai space

and the legacy of Gutenberg technology.

McLuhan is markedly more sympathetic to the third art of the trivium, rhetoric, which,

like gtammar, exhibits a ceverence for human language. Traditionally, rhetoricians were

concerneci with practical matters, emphasized knowledge done's fellow human beings and

linked wisdom with elquence. McLuhan makes a point of emphasizhg that rhetoricîans

were not cynical about the ends for wbich they exercised their art, but "claimecl in al1

seriousaess to kach the means ta wisdom." Hence the Roman's ratioezordo or muan

and speech. Unlike the dialecticians, rkmïcians believed that wisdom as weil as eloquence

was a by-product of emditionY In his lkûratore, Cicero, probably the biggest inliuence

in rhetorical education during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, insisted that it wiis

impsible to teach eloquence through mere practice to the untrained mind, thai, contrary to

what many speculated, eloquence was insepuaMe from wisdom.3~ As for dialecticians

such as Plato and Aristde who equated w i h m with logic and attacked the Sophists for

claiming to teach wisdom via words, McLuhan insists that, in this respect, they were

abnonnal for their time: "the vast majon'ty of educated men in antiquity . . . felt no doubts

in pmuing the u r b e and scholariy ideal or the Sophists and the rhetoricians of Greece

and Rome . . ."39 As somme who had been raiseci by an elocutionist, spent mwh of his

youth memorizing Iong passages, valued his own verbal abiIity, was homfied by its

absence in others, and relished outmaneuvering his cri tics and colleagues with shocking

linguistic ploys, McLuhan âernwtrated an instinctuai affinity for classical rhetoric.30

In his discussion drhetonc McLuhan notes that the doctrine of logos that informed the

grammatical approach to science also playeâ a key role in the art of rheroric. Translated by

the Romans, the Greek sense of logos came to be understd as "ratio et omtio" or reason

and speech, emphas ig the human apacity for rational thought and speech. In this

tradition speech is that wbich distinguishes humans from beasts. Additionally, humans are

thought to becorne l a s h t i s h as they grow more eloquent.41 Such concepts of language

and eloquence tendeci to compliment the art of grammar and w d d influence Western

thwght for centuries. Such conœpts may have also informed McLuhan's later account of

language as "the first iechndogy by w hich man was able to let go of his environment in

order to grasp it in a new way."42

As with the art of dialectics, McLuhan provides an accountof the history of rhetoric

fcom its early ptitioners Ui classicai Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages to the

Renaissance.43 He also outlines the five departments oiclassical rhetoric-inventio

(invention or discovery), diywsitio (anangement), eloc& (style), memonà (memory) and

prolWItCiQtiO (delivery)-noting their hist&c presence in education largely through the

figure of Cicero and his concept of the docnrrorator.44 In contrat to the dialecticians,

Cicero believed that dialectics was incapable of discovering ûuth and that philosophy was a

mediocre art-no doubt McLuhan agreed.45 It was Cicero who identified Socrates as the

first to separaie phiiosophy and rhetoric or "head and kart," a concept that resonates with

T.S. Eliot's dissociation of sensibility and resurfaces in McLuhan's description of

"Gutenberg man.**46 McLuhan insists that the Ciceninian ideal which emphasized the

achievernent of eloquence in education was not simply rediscovered by the sixteenth

century, but cherished chroughout the Middle Ages. Howwer, the new commercial

developments oT the Renaissance did greatly enlarge the soope of its application.47

McLuhan believa that Cicero's choices and emphases fixai the influence and oriented the

interpretation of ancient thought during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and even

today.48

Early in his dissertation McLuhan describes the history of the trivium as largely a

history of the rivairy among the arts of grammar, rhetoric and dialectics for dominance.J9

For example, under Erasrnus the three arts were organized accmding to the needs of

grammar, under Abelard they were organized according to the needs of dialectics and under

Ciœro they were organized according to the needs of rhetoric.50 Witheach realignment a

different "worid view" was promoted: granunar privileged a wisdom based upon language,

dialectics privileged a wisdom based upon logic, and rhetoric privileged a wisdom based

upon eloquence. The stniggle for asçendancy had hi@ stakes associated with it. The art

tbat controiitxi the trivium çontroiied the mode of scriptural exegesis as well as the mode of

education. Throughout the names, &tes and treatises that McLuhan bombards the reader

with, it is the stniggle among the arts to be the controlling art which remains his focal

point. Significantly, McLuhan does not approaich the ûivium as a static entity or a coliation

of antiquated research, but as a dyiiamic environment in which the various arts continually

baüie for mastery, redefining themselves and each other in the process. McLuhan's

dissertation is largely an account of the cycle of this rivaky and its corresponding pattera in

education and thought. For McLuhan the history of the ûivium is nothing l as than a guide

to the intellectual and culnual history of the West-pattern recognition at its best.

Out of a density of scholarly details that imparts a distinctly "unMcLuhanesque" flavour

to the dissertation the basic pattern of the history of the trivium emerges. Ancient grammar

was at odds with the dialectics of Plato and Aristotle over the interpretation of phenornena,

Dialectics, in t m , became an enemy of rhetonc, the ancient art of persuasion, when the

Sophists attempted to make dialectics subordinate to the art of rhetoric.si McLuhan is quick

to point out that Plato and Aristotle were not so much enemies of rhetonc in and of itself,

but believed that it had no right to çontrol dialectics in this manner.52 In spite of the

competition from dialectics, we are told that grammar dominated the interpretation of

phenornena in science and theology until the revival of dialectics in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries. It seems that St. Augustine, who was, ironically enough, a rhetorician, had laid

the foundations of medieval culture dong grammatical lines. By the thirteenth century,

however, McLuhan informs us that grammar was seriously challenged by dialectics.

Dialectics reigned at medieval universities and gained prominence thughout Europe, with

the notabIe exception of Iiaiy, while the classical studies of grammar and rhetonc S U M V ~ ~

at othercentres of leaming.53

McLuhan identifies the prominence of dialectics at medievai universities, especidly at

the University of Paris, as pivotal in the history of the tnvium. Prior to this time the arts

had been engaged in a sîniggle to bend each other according b their own interests, but had

remained connected to one another. McLuhan believes that institutions Like the University

of Paris, however, amse out of an independent dialectics, a dialectics attempting to fmtion

outside of the traditional consrnt of tb trivium, without îhe classiml arts of grammar and

rhetwic at its side. McLuhan considers the separation of dialectics from the rest of the

trivium a grave mt and nirns n John of Salisbury for explication. John had initially been

impressed by the e x t d n a r y intellectual activity at Paris but came to cnticize the

decadence of an independent dialectics:

1 round than as befm and wbere tbey were WMC. Tbey did not alipear ta bave advanceci an inch in settling the whde questim cd dd; nor bad chey addsd a single proposition. . , They hadpgilessedinooe p o i n l d y : thcy had unleemedmoderaiioa Theyhicw mt modesty and to such an exteni tbat anc might dcspair d iheir cccovery. So expeneace taught me a d e s t conclusion. ibat whiiiile logic founds d e r shidies it is by iiself lifeless and biirrea, mr can it cause the soui to yield the f d t of pbilosophy except the same amceive fmm sane other SOUFC~?

Like John, McLuhan saw the separation of the art of dialectics from the trivium and the

subsequent substitution of an independent dialectics for the complete tnvium as a6mistake"

and believed that "the only question which logic can solve by itself is a question in

l ~ g i c . " ~ ~ McLuhan concluàes that dialectics "separahg itseif from the main body of

classical culture, setting iiself up as an end, wûs to involve western thought in confusions

from which it has not yet recovered."56 Such a view permeates the disserîation and appears

in McLuhan's later works as part of his commentary on visuai culture.

Dialectics or scholastic thedogy achieved adecadence dwing the fourteenth and

fifieenth centuries and the art of rhetoric suffered at the hauds of Peter Ramus, a Rotestant

French philosopher and practitioner of utilitm*an Iogic.s7 Ramus haaded the first two

departmenîs of rhetoric, iweirtio (discovery) atui dispusitio (arrangement), over to

dialectics, [ronically, these were the very departments of rhetonc which the Sophists bad

made dialectics bandmaid to so many years ago. This left rhetdc with the three remaining

branches of elocutio (style), memrh (memory) andpronU)ICiatiO (delivery). As a result,

rhetoric was reduœd to an ernpty shell, style without substance, and made subservient to

the art of diaiecticsS8 McLuhan links the modern distrust of the art of rhetoric to the

McLuhan observes that the decadence of diaiectics during the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries led to a wide-spreaci resurgence of the arts of grammar and rhetoric in the

sixteenth œntury.60 McLuhan links the resurgence of grammar and rhetonc dunng this

pend to the literary achievements of the age and suggests that the Renaissance would be

better viewed as a by-product of the triumph of the ancient arts of gmmar and rhetoric

over diaiectics.6 1

While many fivalries are accounted for in McLuhan's history of the trivium, the gened

one that emerges is that of grammar andior rhetonc vs. diaiectics. In classical times Cicero,

on the side of rhetoric, stood in opposition to the philosophers. Centuries later the medieval

grammarians stood against the medieval schoolmen. This is not to say that the arts of

g m a r and rhetoric never t d on each others tom. McLuhan recounts how, for

example, the Calvinists deliberately used rtietoric in their exegeticai dispute with the

grammarians to submit scripture to diaiectical examination. While the grammarians

tradiiionaily considered various levels of interpretation and believed the sense of a scriptunl

passage to be inexhaustible, the Calvinists used rhetoric as their mode of exegesis in order

to transform the scriptumi figures into elements of omamenbtion superimposed upon plain

sbtement. McLuhan explains that this gave the Calvinists an excuse to strip scripture of its

figures, reduce it to its Iiteral sense and submit it to dialectical examination via logic and

method.62In spite of such disputes, McLuhan insists that the general pattern wiihin the

trivium was one of grammarandor rhetoric vs. diaiectics. The grammarians struggled with

the diaiecticians over matters of interpretation-the books of Scripture and Nature, while

the rbetoricians believed the scholastic contempt for eloquence would reduce humanity to

the tevel of ôeasts.63 Such is the dualistic pattern which dominates the dissertation.

McLuhan saw this pattern extending beyond the time of Nashe to the quarrel of the

Ancîents and the Modems during the eariy eighteenth century as weii as the educationd

controversies stirred up by President Hutchins and Professor Adler in America in the

twentieth centuryp4 Eventually McLuhan would extend this pattern to his media theory anâ

unne to express the rivalry of grammar andior rhetoric vs. diaiectic as a culturai dichoîomy

or oral vs. literate.

What of Thomas Nashe? After three hundred and fifty pages on the history of the

trivium we finally encounter the subject suggested in the dissertation's title. For McLuhan,

Nashe becornes amtkr champion on the side of grammar and rhetoric in the theotogicai

batde against dialectics as well as a "test-case" for the theory laid out in the previous ihree

chapters. McLuhan postulates that "[i]f a writer so admittedl y eccentric and original can be

shown to be capable of being best understood in light of the foregoing study, then its

usefulness for understanding other writers of the same p e n d may very reasonably be

granted."65

McLuhan explains that Nashe was associateci with the patnstic party in the Anglican

Church, a party of ancients who defended "the old theology," the grammatid exegesis

prsicticed by such people as Erasmus, Colet, Agrippa and Rabelais. As a defender of the

ancient arts of grammarand rhetoric and a memberof the patristic party Nashe resented the

Ramisis for separating the arts from eloquence and destroying the ancient art of rhetonc by

transfemng the first two departments to dialectics. In addition, he was opposed to the

dialectically inclined Calvinist party who practiced a scholastic approach to theology and

adhered to a rigorous Ramistic scheme of dialectics and rhetoric.66 McLuhan contends that

such issues are implicit in al1 of Nashe's writings and that Nashe's style was not merely a

personal or Iiterary concem, but an intensely theological rnatter.6' Everything Nashe did-

his use of rhetorical figures, his defense of eloquence, his view of poetry, his criticism of

plain style-was bound up in these issues.

McLuhan believes that Nashe's quaml with Gabriel Hatvey, "the mat obscure and

also the most important probiem connected with Nashe," can be clarified by a familiarity

with the rivalries of the triviumP8 He is convinced that their quarrel "is fuliy

understaadable in t e m of much the same issues that pitted Reuchlin, Erasmus, Agrippa,

Mo=, Rabelais, Aretino, and Von Hutton against the bdkof their scholastic

coatempomries."m Wbile Nashe was a member of the paîristic party, Harvey was iinked to

Nashe's enemies, the Eaglish Ramists, a group whose aaempted revolution in gramma,

dialectics and rhetoric was viewed as having dire consequences for the study of the

classics, the Scriptures and philosophy.70 F6r McLuhan, Nashe was "a fulIy enlightened

protagouist in an ancient quarrel," but it "was not a quarrel between Catholic and

Rotestant." Rather, it was "a dispute &ut methods of exegesis in theology and preaching,

conceming which some Catholics and Protestants held m s t i c views and some held to

scholastic positions.'"~ That is, the key to understanding the Nashe-Harvey dispute lies in

recognizing the differences b e m n their respective exegetical meihodologies, not their

religious &nominations.

McLuhan goes on to point out that during Nashe's day the clashes between Calvinist

schdars and supporters of the patristic program were "intense." How one feh towards

parts of the triviwn labelled one as a Puritan, Lutheran, Papisi or Anabaptist. Every

pamphlet Nashe wrote had a bearing on such matters at Cambridge as well as throughout

the natioa72 Nashe's wntings, then, were an intensely theologid matter grounded in the

ancient nvahy of grammar and rhetoric vs. diaiectic that McLuhan had identifid in his

history of the trivium.

Nashe scholarship was not the only area of study to knefit from McLuhan's

recounting of the history of the trivium. In investigating its internai dynamics McLuhan

found an explanation for what he perceived as the shabby treatment of the Middle Ages-a

pet peeve of his. In his dissertation McLuhan accuses modem chy scholars of habitually

skipping over the Middle Ages and downplaying their mtniutioa to Western thought. He

insists ihat it is high iime for schdars to stop jumping from antiquity to the Renaissance

when discussing the ongins of the modem world and start conside~g modem phiiasophy

in light of Medieval though~73 He believes that the Middle Ages aiid its rich Iiterary

tradition were deliberately obscureci by scholars in order to emphasize the Renaissance as a

p e n d of classicai cec0very.~4 Acoording to Mchhan, this "recovery" was not neariy as

prmounced as it was made out to be. He iasists that the teaching of cIassiçs actudly

w h e d its peak during the Middle Aga and that what have been interpretd as "startling

anticipations" of the Renaissançeduring the Middle Ages are actually part of a continuum

daiing back to antiquity that have been given the faise appe;uruice of noveIty?s McLuhan

explains that Renaissance rhetoricians deliberately downplayed the Middle Ages, "not

b u s e they regarâed the preceding ages as insignifiant, but because they were

rhetoricians engaged in a very real war with the dialecticians of Paris.'76 While he is

sympathetic towards the actions of the Renaissance rhetoricians, he is critical or the

continuation of such a tradition by modern scholars.

As for the reptation of the Middle Ages king "Darlc Ages," McLuhan explaias ihat

Petrarch, a fourteenth cenrury Italian poet and scholar whose sympathies lay with grammar,

had designated them as "totally barbarie, a dark night of the Goths and Huns of leaming"

because the role of grammarand rhetoric as well as Italy had declined during this period.

The tone of McLuhan's commentary on the matter prefïgures the flippancy one encounters

in his later works:

Tbat a Dutcb batbanan simch as Erasmw or a pfcssor in Omaha should one day designate the Middle Ages as k b a i c because a f~~~tidlyjealoirr Italian n a t i d s t did so in ihe foumenth cenhmy, is typical of thejudgement of histay on rhe hi~iwians?~

McLuhan insists that an understanding of the struggle between the arts of grammar and

diaiecîics for exegeticai control during the Middle Ages is necessary for an understanding

of sixteenth century humanism?8 Such an understanding infonns McLuhan's account of

Marlowe's Dr. Fausrus-one of the most original anci succinct I have corne across:

McLuhan ends his dissertation by explainhg that he is intempting what he h o p to

conclude another day. Accordhg to both of his biographers his dissertation would never be

far from his thoughts for the rest of his career. He felt compelled to retuni to it tirne and

tirne again in an attempt to revise it for publication-a signifiant act considering

McLuhan's usual resistance to the revising process.80 Marchand tells us that McLuhan

"lived in mortal fear that its insighis would be purloined before [its publication] could take

place" and that the thesis "look on the aura d a treasure map he had to keep from the

clutches of pirates.1981 Gordon idonns us that the Cambridge University Library's copy

had been "rad to pieces" by the late 1%ûs and that McLuhan believed it was being widely

used without acknowledgment. In a 1%5 letter to Tom Wolfe McLuhan claimed "1 have

leamed so much about the entire problem since writing the thesis that 1 have hesitaied to go

ahead with publication without compleie re-wnting."*2Gordon insists that McLuhan gave

the revision of his dissertation the highest priority, "in his thoughts, if not in his work

sc hedule."fJs

In 1968, in the wake of the success of Urulerstmiding Media, McLuhan approached the

editor in chief at McGraw-Hill about the possibility of publishing the dissertation,

suggesting that "it has far more relevance now than ever."g4 While nothing came of the

meeting with the company, the overl y optimistic McLuhan announceci in a 1970 letter to

Hugo McPherson that he was getting his old doctorai dissertation r d y for its impending

publication by McGraw-Hill. He seemed to look fmard to having "achance to fie

everything together from Cicem to Joyce.'%sOver twenty-five years after its completion

McLuhan remained convinaxi that iiie dissertation containecl "something big." B y 1974

McLuhan was still unable to cornplete the revisions or f id a publisher. The dissertation

lingered at the University of Toronto Press, where an apparently "unenthusiastic" editor

commented of the f i t three chapters that "an outsider wouid be labyrinthed, without sense

of progress or enough design.'%6 McLuhan was notable to get his dissertation published

during his lifetime and although rumm do circulate from tune to tirne, the work remaias

in limb today.

The Ancient Quarrel Cornes to America-The Southern Sympathy Articles

WhiIe the ideas McLuhan discovered in researching the trivium would stay with him

long after he had completed the dissertation, they would manifest themselves most

apparently and mat immediately in three articles from the mid 1940s-"Edgar Poe's

Tradition" (1944), "An Ancient Quanel in Modem America" (1946) and 'The Southern

Quality" (1947). Al1 three articles are united by the same theme: the ancient quarrel of

grammarand rhetonc vs. dialectics was importeci to Amenca, with the American South

inheriting the humanistic tradition dominated by grammarand rhetoric and the American

North inheriting the philosophical or scholastic tradition dominated by the art of dialectics.

In his dissertation McLuhan had mentioned that New England, dong with Scotland, had

committed to an intensive program of the scholastic method in divinity when the Church of

Engiand had elected to adhere to a patristic program, but he had not exploted the idea or its

implications.87 In these three articles McLuhan expands on the subject of the importation of

the ancient trivium rivalry to Amenca and comments upon the subsequent implications for

American culture.

In "Edgar Poe's Tradition" McLuhan situates Poe in the Southern tradition of the

Ciceronian or Renaissance ideal informed by the art of rhetoric and uses this tradition to

explain W s cosmopolitan perspective, his eloquent and leamed style as well as his desire

to maintain hi& literary standards and expand the scope of Amencan letters. In "An

Ancient Quarrel in Modem Amenca" McLuhan uses the "ancient quarrel" of rhetoric and

grammar vs. dialectics to inform a contempocary debate in education, the University of

Chicago's great books program as it was envisioned by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer

Adler. Finally, in 'The Southern Quaiity" McLuhan embarks on a lengthy discussioa of the

humanist and scholastic traditions and their legacy in American culture, aligning humanism

with the American Swth, agriculture and community, and scholasticism with the American

North, industry and individualism. In al1 three articles the perspective of the arts of

grammar and rhetoric is championed while that of diaiectics is chastised.

McLuhan traces the European trivium debate from its classical ongins in Greece and

Rome to England and then to Amenca. He suggests that just when the quarrel of grammar

and rhetonc vs. dialectics was reaching its term in England representatives of both factions

migrated to Amenca. The Amencan South (Virginia) received a clam of quasi-humanist

gentry who had been educated in the Ciceronian tradition, thus ailowing the South to

develop a rich humanistic education grwnded in grammarand rhetoric. Meanwhile, the

Amencan North (New England) had been populated by schoolmen, specifically Cdvinists

w ho were fully trained in the speculative theology of the twelfth century and opped b the

old grammatical theology of the Fathers. Consequently, the North became more concerned

with abstract method and technology-the concems of dialectics. McLuhan identifies this

geographical split as a first for the age-old struggle and as "the mat important intellectual

fact about Anierica'98

For McLuhan, the American South was steeped in the Ciceronian ideal of "the scholar-

skitesman of encyclopedic knowledge, profound practical experience, and voluble social

and political eloquence." McLuhan believed that such an ideal was perfectiy suited to the

agarian estate-life of the South, with its legal problems and need for direct political

representation. Based largely on the li terature d Southern writers, McLuhan characterizes

the a@an South as an environment which produces "passionate" and "heroic" chamters,

and possesses "a strong bistoncal sense concerning the material and intellectual factors

which govern ihe development of societies." In contrast, McLuhan uses the work of Henry

James to support bis assesment of the industrial North as a "'busina civilization' (a

contradiction in terms)" riddled with ''daborate subterfuges and legal fictions." McLuhan

suggests that such a society "requires ensiles, action and hence moiiv&n of its members"

and that as aUmerely commercial society," the indusirial North has "no historical sense and

leaves few traces of' itself.'"g

McLuhan proceeds to ground his South vs. North observations in the trivium by

tracing Ramist thought to Harvard and illustmting how the culture of scholasticism

permeates the outlook of the industrial North:

The tao1 of Ramistic suipturai exegpis p v e d very desmtive d Sctipiurc, nanirally: for it was rationalistic a d m>minalistic. That is. it nrrrl? al1 poblems logicai problems and at the same t h e desboyd oniology and any possrbility of metaphysics, a fact which accounts for the n~on'ous d, the paralm slrepticism d New England speculatim. Already in the sevenieenih cenairy EIarvard had designatecl techmbgia as the mw successot of metaphysics-an abmdity, wiih all ik pcticai coosequenœs, which is piously perpetrated at this hoin by Dewey aud bis disciples. For ihis mind ihere is nothing which canna be senled by method. It is tbe mind which weaves tbe intricacies of etTiCient production, "sciedc" schalarship, and business achninisoation. It doesn't permit itself an inLling of what constitutes a 90~1*al a political problem . . . simply because îhere is no merhaci for tackiing such pobtcms. Tbat is ais0 why the very coosiderable creative pditicai ibwight of America has cme d y from the South- from Jefferson to Wiison.90

This is the picture of the American indusirial North that McLuhan paints for r de r s in al1

t h e articles. In McLuhan's mind it is an empty reductionist environment, hostile to the

values of humanism, because it was "built on the most destructive aberration of the western

mind-autonomous dialectics and ontologid nominaIism.''9i

By contmt, McLuhan elevates the aprian South to a cultural icon of mythic

proportion, a legacy of the best of European and Western culture.92 As an agrarian

environment, the American South also takes on the connotations of Leavis' "organic

community," except in this sœnario it is not simply the machine which poses a threat, but

the entire scholastic methodofogy of the American North. McLuhan illustrates the

difference between the twocultures with the following analogy: "[tlhe chivalric South, it

has been said, wanted the whole h m , whereas the North wanted only to abstract the

horsepower from the horse.-3 There are never any doubts as to where McLuhan's

sympathies lay, he too wanted the whole horseOcSe

In addition to using the "ancient quanei" of gtammar and rhetoric vs. dialectics as a

means of explaining the cultural cleavage between the American North and the American

South, McLuhan uses it to coniextualize a current debate in education, the University of

Chicago's "great books program," and express his own distaste for modem education-a

murring theme throughout his work. McLubancbaracterizes the general education in the

arts and sciences promoted by Hutchins, a key proponent of the "great books program," as

encyclopedic in nature and part of the Ciceronian or humanist tradition allied with the arts

of grammar and rhetoric. ConverseIy , the program endorsed by Hutchins* opponents is

presented as narrow, specialized ''training" designed to promote the interests of applied

science and technology in a scholastic or dialectical legacy.

McLuhan believed that the type of education Hutchins promoted was concemed with

creating citizens, equipping people for social and politicai iife via encyclopedic knowledge

and eloquence. Such an approach is grounded in classical conceptions of citizenship where

the citizen "must be fluent, even cloquent, ou al1 subjects" and "know al1 things which

concem the welfare of the gmup.*4 In McLuhan's eyes, the goal of such an education is

to "mak[e] the individual potentiail y a d e r of himsef f and of the state." By contrast,

McLuhan believed the type of education supporteci by Hutchins' opponents was only

concerned with "making the individual useful to the stak''9sThe difference between the

two approaches is akin to the difference between wanting the "whole horse" or just the

"horsepower." Once again, Mchban wanted îhe whole horse.

For McLuhan the "ancient quarrei" of grammar and rhetoric vs. dialectics, the battle

between the American North and the American South ami "the great books program" were

ail part of the same struggie:

The fact of the matter is tbat one phase of ibe Civil Waris bang fougbt over again in ihe Norih talay. Resident Hwhins is merely the mmt vaifemus member d a large party whichis embattled agauist the dialectica doducational techmlogy ofJohn Dewey and Sidney Hmk. AU the dd feamm ofthe qParïel bave mmergecl Huichins wanrs encyclopedic rraining; Dewey wmb training in methah and locbniques-know what vs. kww how. That the 'cause of the Souih' is k&pe&nt ofgeography needs no utging.96

The hismic rivairy McLuhan idenNied in his dissertation of grammar and rhetoric vs.

dialectic would manifest itself throughout bis works-though many of tis d e n remain

oblivious to its presence. The battie of "know what vs. know how" identifiai in his

"Southem Quality" article was yet another battie in this ancient war, with "know wbt"

king an endorsement of the humanist and Ciceronian tradition or the classicd arts of

grammarand rhetoric and "know how" being a dialectically inclined program designed to

serve the needs of business and industry. Eventuaily the quaiities of grnmmar and rhetoric

wouid resurface in McLuhan's account of oral cultures, the elecuic media and acoustic

space, while the qualities associateci with diaiectics would appear under the guise of Iitemte

cultures, Gutenberg technology and visual space. Before these opposing camps would find

expression in his popular media theory, however, they would colour McLuhan's view of

the contemporary environment in America. As we shall see in our next chapter, the study of

American commercial industrial society that McLuhan offers in his fmt book is in large part

the study of the pervasiveness of a "know how" or dialectically inclined outlook in 1940s

America

Notes for Cbapter Tbree

McLuhan and The Trivium- Educational Rivalries and Their Legacy in America

lMa#hall McLuhaa, The Interior landscp: The Literary Criticism of Mmshall McLuhan M43-1962, ed. Eu- McNamara (New York: McGraw-Hill. 1%9), Mace p. xiv.

2 ~ ~ c ~ c i t e d i n ~ e ~ a n d e r s w a a d ~ k ~ d , e d s . ~ u r s h d l ~ c w l a n : TheMun and HiS Message (hiden. Cdorado: Fulcnmi Iac.. 1989). p. 33.

3 ~ m h a i i McLuhan. The Place of Thom Narhe in the Leming of His Tinre. *.D. Dissertation (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1943). p. iii.

4~ friend of Marlowe's, Nash is included in ihe grwp of university wiis who wmte for the stage and press in London and lived short and precarious lives. Nashe was hiown for his lively prose style. Set M.H. Abrams, cd. î k Norton Anthology of English LiterMue, frfth editioa. vdume 1 (New York: Norton & Company, 19%) p. 958. Willem Scluickx describes Nashe as one of the most conspiçuous witen of bis t h e and highlights Nashe's ability to muive sahical disguises as being bebiad bis repuiation for ingenuity. See Willem Sciuickx, Shakespeare's Early Contenrpororics: The Bakgrounàof the Harvey- N o s k Polemic d Love's L4boiv b s t (Antwerpe~~: NederlandPche Bœkhandel. 19S6), p. 170.

S ~ p k h d , Mmshdl McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger (hmnto: Vhiage, lm), p. 54.

6 ~ c ~ . The Place of Thomas Nmk, pp. üi.-v.

s ~ b e verbal arts of the trivium dmg with the mathematical arts of the quadrivium (arihetic, music, geœnetry and astroowny) comprised the seven liberal arts. They emerged out of the society of classical Greece and were evenîuaüy d e d by the Latin encyciopedists of the Mth and sixth centuries. For more information see David L. Wagner. 'The Seven Liberal Arîs and Classical Scholarship," in The Seven Liberul Arts in the Middle Ages, ed, David L. Wagner, 1-3 1, (indiana University Ress: Bloomington. 1983). pp. 1-9.

a letter to Maton and Caroline Bloomfield McLuhan stated, "1 have begun to realize b t my peculiara(iptoach to aii matters has been to enter via the piad ratber than thefigure. In any gestalt the gr& is taken for granted and thefigure receives ail the attention. The g r o d is subliminal, an area of effects rather than of causes." Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, and Wiam Toye, eds, Leners oJ MmshalMcUuur (ïmnto: Oxford University Ress. l m , p. 473.

'*A.F. Leach, Educationai Charters and Documents, p. ix. cited in McLuhan, The P k e of Thontar Nusite. pp. vi-vii.

~'m., p. vü.

2Mdinan, et. al., Lem, p. 448.

13McL.uhan's second biographer, Godon, notes that McLuhanmanages to assemble a sigdicant vdume of evidence in ordecm suppon bis thesis, yet compess it into an accessible form without maüng bis cudusions appear as "Md a s d a u . " in tbis respect Gordon believes ''the didisPertation is exempt from the charges cri& would against the piblished works of bis latercareer." See Terrence W. Gordaa, MiusluilllMcluhan:Escope into Undérstrrnding-A Bwgraphy (ïomto: Sioddart, l m , p. 1û3.

4 M c ~ . The Place of Thom Nmhe, p. 49.

L6w tdls us that McLuhan's passion for tbt roois of words was so gieat that he often imtaied hW deagnes by citing bogw etymdogies to support whateverpuht he was making, for example, claiming lhat ihe ward violence was decived frwi the Lah w a d foraossroads and a c d y had to do wïth people geüing ineachother's way. inanotbet instancc he was appdyumMnçed that tbeconncied Nazi war craniaal Albert Speer was wiihhddiog kmwledge about tht Hdocawt because a book abont ihe Nazi

invoh.anent with the ocailt was entiiled ï k S p r of h t i n y . A l t b g h tbere was wthing ooaaccting Speer to the booL. ibe f a t that i@ titie cantallied a bomaiym for Speer's oame was emugb for McLubaa. Sec Marchand, Tha Medium Md the Messenger. pp. S5-56.

21w.. p. ix,

22mod.. pp. 2.5. Paracclsians were fdlowm d the Swiss physician, chcmist, and naturd p h i i q h e r Paracelsus (14934541) who uoderstmd medicine and physiology in ierms dchemistry. McLuhan clasdies boih Raymond W y aad Canelius Agtippa unda tbis tem. Far a gnmimaticaüy Ulciined depiclion of aichemy sce Mircea Eüade, ForgeMd Th CmibIe, bans. by Stephen Corin (Loodon: Rider & Company, 1%2). 23~cLuhan. The Place of i%mas N m k , pp. 1415.

26Eitienne Gilson, The Phiiosophy of Si. Bonavenwc cited in W.., pp. 0-41.

27~bidIbid. pp. 2629.

32~olinrao et. al.. Letm. p. 327. In Laws of Media tht McLuhans would label Pound and Eliot "th Cicero and Quinalianofour tirne" and sugpt t k y were boih "iireiessiy working to bring the lauguage up to daie and to retrieve for modem artistic enterpise the d e n t modes drhetoric andgrarnmar." Marsid McLuban and Eric M c b , iuws of Media: The New Scieme (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. lsss), p. 49.

3 4 ~ ~ ~ . The Place ofThomrip Narie, pp. 49,300.

35Mciihanrelays how in the Sapbistic pmgam dialectics w a d y used IO order ar amange ihat which was a M y Iniowaand was aiways subsc~ent to the goals dthetoric-a concem Tor eloquenceand achieving @tical power thraugh the art of spakiog weil. In coatrast io the Sopbisis, Socntes would pmmote a pgram in wbich dialectics Fei@ and urpand the scope of didectics ta include iesting evidence, acquiring kwwledgeaDdâi~covaing inith.TbeditTemces b e e n the Saphists' use ofdialeciics aod Soaates' use d i t was i n f d by iIreirnspeciive views of wisdom. Whüe the Sophists viewed eloqueoce a d w k b as iniimaiely Linkat, Saceates viewed wisdorn as distinct fram elopence and deIioed it as "the possession of an iniciiecaial virtw acquirrd by iht constant -se d aitical examination of the statu and naaue d things." See McLuhao, Tiie P k of TIiomat N d . pp. 4445.51-54. McLuhan goes on to suggest tbat this ancient SepararimârPisdoan imai eloqucnce by the dialecticians coatinues to intonn oar modern suspicion ofhemic. Set McLuhan, The Place of Thomas Nask. pp. 60-61. As an exampIe of the powedulinHuencedthetwditiondgraanmaroadiaectical t h a u g h t M c ~ ~ t o A b e i a r d . ~ g c e a t enemy of grammarad initialof of tbe âhiectical revdt, who. McLuhaa claims. was "invol~miarily~ a grdm in m a t of his works." See McLnban, TIQ Place of InOmar Noshe, p. 156. McLuhan cites Proîessorhici(eon's aocount of the four periods oflogic durhg the Middle Ages to s h the transformation C i o n ihe Old Iogic, wbich included simple aeahes Wre the pseudo-Augustine's Plrnci,iaDiolecnixse and

361brii.t pp. 163. 193-194.

4'%cLuhan's morbcr, Elsie McLuhan, was not d y an elocutionist, but a cUenging verhi opponent [or MarsW. Marcùaud suggests diat Marshall's encitedachanges wilh Elsie prompteci bim to develop his v d agility. notuig that "[alnyone w b had $~iowii up debathg Elaie McLuhan had nothing to feat ftom a d d of mgry university #esam or IBM executives." See Mdmd, The Medium and the Messenger, p. 180. Bu:Imiiiister Fuller once couuntnieà of McLuhan's verbal abiliiy, "1 have been present when hostile audiences thwghc they bad bim on ibe IUU d y to discova h~nselves chasing themselves up dead- end alleys. as he bimself ieappearcdfardowa amkhighway." From lettu from Buckminster Fuller to Job Rasdale, November 7,1966 cited in Marchaml, Tlie Medium and the Mmenger, p. LW.

%iarshall McLubao, Undersfanding M& ï%efi&~~OnsofMm (Cambridge, Mass.: MlT R a s , 19%. 1%4), p.57.

4 3 ~ c ~ , The Place of Wma~ N a r k , p. 51.

4 4 ~ c ~ teils us ihat Cicerots pbilosophy of the i&al oratm was one wbo unites philosophy and eloquence to be the practical man; political power, mt howledge. wns the aim of the rhrta. M., pp. 51. 187,343-345.

45Ibiii.. pp. 73-77.

46~ee lbid., p. 322. Eliot beiieved that an ever increasing g q bttwew intellect and sensation, a ihought iuui feeling (head and heasi) badbeen ocamhg in Engüsh verse since ibe seventeenth cennuy, claimed that pers since the seventeenth ce- e i k relicâ too heaviiy on inteîiecnial abstractioa or on emotion. Thc Metaphysical pets, specilïcaüy ihe figure of Dom, are identiGed as ibe last poee possessing thougbt and feeling in hannony. See M o r d Schwartz, The iCkrtrix of Mbdernismr Pound, Eiioc, und Eariy Twenrirrli- Cenhuy Thought (Princeton: hhceton University Press. 1985). pp. 175-177. In The Girlenber8 Galury McLuhanobserves ihat the &y phasea of print and ibe isdatioa of the visual sense created "a comic hypanypansy orsplit between head a a d W and ihatsuch a"qiit betweenheadand heart is ibe irautna which affect4 Europe from Machiavelli t i i i ihe present." Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galmy: The Making of Typogr~rphic Man flmmto: University d Toronto Press. 1%2), p. 170.

4 7 ~ c ~ . The Place of Thom N a k . pp. 3%334.

lThe ~opbisrs made dialectics a haadm;iid to imentio (discovery) and disgosilio (arrangement), the Grst twodthe five deparimenu of ciassical rhemic. In this capacity àialectica was used for the discovery or inventiw of d m i e arguments for or agaiiwt any position and fw seleciing the best arguments and arranging tkm in the most effective otder, raiber ih;m for the discovery of tmih i.e., uader the Sophisis dialeciics served CO achieve the persuasive goals d rhttaric, d e r than ihe goals of diaiectics.

S7~ciuhan deals with the figure cd Rsmus exteaPively in Tke G~effberg Guiuq. largeiy via Walter Ong's lm& RmnuP, M e w and the Decq of Diafugue. McLPhan, wbo b d âireded Ong's MA. ths is on Gerard Manley Hopkhw, rtdvisedûng io work m the fi* of Ramus for bis P U after reading Ttie New England MM: ïïte Seventeenth Cennuy (1939). hg 's PhD was pablished in iwo vdumes: Rmm, Method, md the Decary of Dia(ogue: From ths Art of Diseourse Io the Arc ofRemon (1958) and Rmm~p Md Talmi Invenrory. ûng dedidedicatcd tho secood bodr CO McLuhan. "who started ail t h . " ûng's fmt bmk cmtains the imdedying argument of Mchhds Gufenkg Gaby, tûat rbt invention of the priating pfess f o d Western culture ta ahüt fmm au auditory semsibility to a visual sensibiiiiy. See Marcband, Tb Medium and the Mmenger, p. 59 and Molirimuo et. al., Lenets, p. 188.

581n this program style is ngardai m m as an cm-ait than a generative force. In contrast, modern rhetoPical hemy, viewing fom and content as inüinwicaüy hkeâ, emphizes thc mle of style in tbe mation of meaning. Foc an ovewiew of tbe Iiistorid development of rhetoaic and tbe place of style see Paûicia Bizzeil and B ~ c e Hetzbug, eds, Tire Rhetoricd Trodtion: Redingsfiotn Clmical ïîmes tu rhe nesefft (Bosm Bedford Books of St. Mamn's k. IWO), pp. 1-15.

%c~iihan, The Plrace of ï71omas Nashe, p. 6 1.

6 0 ~ . , pp. 48, %. At ihe beginniiig dtbe thesis McLuhan hücaies tbat grammir had already recovered some dits prestige in the apd Peaarch (l3û4-1374) and regaiwd a large degree of its a s c e h c y ce. Scriptural exegesis in the work of Erasmuu (1469-1536). Sec W.. pp. 1-2.

6 4 ~ . , pp. 85.99. Robert Ma@ Hutchins (18994977) was an Amcric;rn reform educator who opposed overspecialized, pragmaiic eduaticm. Mortimer Jemue Adler (lm-?) was an American philosopher. editor and advocate dadult andgenad eduwiion by saody of the great books of the Wesiem wodd McLuhan would champion ihe educatioaal pogram of ihese men in hifi adcies from ibe mid 19409, bit would be markediy less enibusiastic towards heu work in Tlie&licmicdBR&.

651bid... pp. 351.

661bid.., pp. 357,363365.

681bid., p. 351, Gabriel Harvey, Nashe's persoaal enemy, was older ihan Nahe d a fnend dSpser's. The two slaodered each o h via pamphlet3 und rh Archbishop Whitgift ordered the work of both men suppreswd in 1599. Nask aud Ilravey were ais0 invdvcd in the Martin M i q d a t e d. Martin Maplate was the neme assmned by authors of a numberdanmymol~s pamphIeis i d f m a secret press am- raiiing attacks on tbe bishops and Mendiog the Resbyîerian system of discipline. The Marprelate ktcts are COSLSidered to be amoq ihe k t p s e satires d the E3hbethao êgc. Nashe's "big udiscretion" came in unAImondf.to P m wbexe be poiakd io the identity of oae d the Maicrin Marpelaie wliiers, John Penry, ihrough a sea'es â puns mpen a d y- The suspected authors were evenWy;iiresiBdand Pienry was executed. Sec Scbzich, Shokespeore'sEmlyCon~rmMes. pp. 168- 169.

721bid., pp. 366-367.

731bid., p. 81.

741bri., pp. 109, 179.

751bui.. pp. 206,228.

761bid., p. 84.

771bÙi.. p. 241.

781bid., p. 205.2iû-279.

791bid., p. 284.

80~ee ordo^. EFcopeinro Unaèrsforpdihg. p. 267 and Marchand, The Medium and the Messenger, p. 167.

8 1 ~ a n : h d , The Medium anà the Messenger, p. 94.

82~olinaro et. ol.. L e m . p. 327. 83~adon, EScqe into Understding, p. 267.

841bid.., p. 267.

8%oliiiiin, et. al.. Letfers, p. 409.

8 6 ~ a t i d Archives of Canada, R.I.K. Davidsoa, cditor, University of Toronto Press, to bImûail McLuhan, May 8.1974 ciied in Gorùa~, EFcqzinmo Urrderstoroding. p. 267.

8 7 ~ c ~ , The PIace of Thorna0 N i d e . pp. 280-281.

g8see Marshall McLuhan, "Edgar Poe's Tradition " (1944) and ".4n Amient Quauel in Modern Amefica" (1946) in McNamara. ThelntenOrLandîqe. pp. 213-215.225-226.

%famhall McLuhan, "The Souihan wty" (1947) in McNamara, TheInterior Lundscope, pp. 188, 193.

901bul.., pp. 194-195.

'My emphasis. M.., p. 199.

92~c~uhan, for exampie, ignares ihe issue oîdavny chtoughout bis dscussion of the Amencan South and implies there was a homopeity of educaiioa a d popdation tbnt promoied a seose of democracy . M., p. 1%. Such glarhg omissions giumed Miller's aitacks on McLuhan's mythic conception of the South. See Jonathan MiUer. McLuItm (Jmdon: W i a m Cdlios, 1971). pp. 45-47.

g % c ~ u h a ~ " ~ n ~ncient Qwuxel:' in hicNamara, ~ i i i ~ e n ' o r ~ c u p e , p. 224.

951bid., p. 224.

g 6 ~ c ~ u h m . 'The SouthemQuality," in McNamafa The IderiorLMdFc~, p. 199.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Mechanical Br&-

Llterary Studies Marry the Media Environment

In 1951, jwt eight years after McLulman's dissertation, Tite Mechnical M e : Folklore

oSIndusrnfBd Man appeared. Not oniy was i t McLuhan's first book, it was his fini full-

d e analysis of advertising and ppular culture, marking his official foray into the media

landscape with which his name wwld becorne victdly symymous in the following

decade. While many books wodd appear after The Mechanical Brids, most notably the

award winning Gutenberg G d q (1%2) ad the ever popular Umkrstlulcjing Media

(lSW), many still consider McLuhan's MechunicalBridé b be his &est. The Bn:rle, as it

has becorne commonly known, is considerd a signifiant work for severai reasons. h u l

Heyer, for example, notes that Leiss, Mine and M l y see the Bride as a precursor to the

semiological study of advertising, crediting it with "anticipat[ing] much of the later interest

in advertising from the perspective of its relaîionship to the media system and popular

cuiture.'g Marjorie Ferguson similarly hails McLuhan as "a founding Father, poiniing the

way for later practitioners of the te* rhetorics or discourses of popular cultural

artifacts."4 Donald Theall iders thaî the Bride establishes McLuhan as one of the first

thinkers to take the media of radio and newspapers serious1y.s Jarna Carey, critical of

McLnrhan's apparent ceiebratory appraach to the electronic mediaduring the 1960s,

suggests that the Bri& is the best antidote to McLuhan's later works.'%

in spite of the scholariy praise it has earned over rhe years, for the most part the M.&

has f i l 4 to command the aüention it desmes. Plagued by poor d e s in its early years, i t

was denounceci as passé by McLuhan at the height of his popularity7 In 1988 Heyer

suggested ihat a "full evaiuation" of the Bride was "long overdue.'% While this has yet to

happen, it is refreshing to see that the recent wave of McLuhan scholarship devotes

considerably more attention to this innovative first book? Not oniy does the &iak mark a

significant pend in McLuhan's m e r , it also provides valuable insight into his later, more

popular work.10

That McLuhan's first book should concern itself with the subject of advertising and

popular culture rather than something more "traditionally literary" is significant, but

somewhat misleading. Contrary to popular belief, McLuhan did not abandon literary

studies for media studies with the Bride. Rather, he expnded the realm of literary studies

to encompass the media. It has been said that in the Bride McLuhan lmks at an ad, comic

stip, newspaper page or story the way a critic might lwk at a movie, painting, play or

book.' 1 That is, McLuhan applies the tools traditionally used to critique art and literature to

popular culture. Certainly in discussions such as "Woman in a Mim," where McLuhan

observes that an ad for Berkshire stockings uses the same technique of juxtaposition that

Picasso used in The Mirror in wder to contrasta "conventional day-self" (a woman) with a

"tragic night-self' (a stallion) and say "a great deal about sex, stallions, and 'ritzy dames'

who are provided with custom-built allure," he is doing just that.12 As this chapter will

demonstrate, however, McLuhan's ihhk owes a great deal more to his grounding in

literary studies than merely an applied literary criticism.

In this chapter 1 will consider the Bride vis a vis modenü'sm and McLuhan's mvium

framework, suggesting that McLuhan's first book is not as far removed from his

Cambridge experience as it may initiaily appear. 1 will begin my discussion by providing a

5nef oveniew of the Bride and highlighting anticipations of the book in McLuhan's

previous work. Next, 1 wiii discuss the Bri& with respect to modemïst aesthetics, noting

the connection McLuhan drew between the aesthetics of eiite and popular art as well as the

comection he saw between modemist aesthetics and the newspaper. 1 will also

contextuaiize the BrUle within a literary modernist tradition, largely through selected works

of Wyndham Lewis and F.R Leavis. Having deait with the Bride as a modemist text, 1

will then tuni to three of the &ide 's dominant themes-education, democracy and

technology- to reveai McLuhan's assessrnent of 1940s American indusûiai culture as an

extension of his earlier views of the Amencan North as a society steeped in dialectical

thought. In conclusion, 1 will suggest that McLuhan's approach in the &Ute emerges out of

his conception of literary studies and that the Bride, dong with the rest of his works, is an

attempt to develop an awareness of subliminal effwts and educate us against our

environment.

The Bride-The Baaics and Itr Beginnings

The Bride consists of fifty-nine u~umbered sections or chapters, each of which is

made up of a single image drawn from the realm of advertising or popular culture, one to

four pages of insightful commentary and t h e to five introductory one-liners or chapter

gloses which prefigure the later McLuhanisms in their conciseness and clevemess. 13 By

devoting an entire self-contained section or chapter to each image McLuhan gants himself

the freedom to play with psible meanings and jump ofr in different directions. The resd t

is a rich, multi-textureci set of cornmenmies which are not bound by the constraints of

traditional narrative structure. The reader is ptesented with what feels like McLuhan's

immediate impressions of exh image.

The book is decidedly non-linear, coniaining neither an index nor a bibliography. tt

does, however, contain an elucidating pteke which assures the reader that "[b]ecause of

the circulating point of view in this book, the# is no need for it to be read in any special

order. Any part . . . pmvides one or more views of the same social landscape."l4The

"social landscape" McLuhan is refimhg to is the lamkape of advertising and popular

culhue that makes up "the folklore of indusirial man," the significance of which is made

clear later in the book

Tradïiionai fdklae amisis diùe aits d sang and dance of agriculhd and nomadic peaples. But an indusüial wodd canna podnce the same folk famis as can a society in a sfate of hamionious equüibnum with ihe soi1 and ihe seasans. Yet much of the industrial world's entertainment and pubiic e x m m is just as UIICOIISCidy expressive of iis h r life. ûur hit-parade nuies and w jazz are quite as mpresentative d o u t innet lives as any dd ballad is of a p t way of We. As such, these popular expressions, even ihough pmduced by skiiifui technicians, are a vaiuable meam of îaking stock d o m success or failure in develophg a bal& existence.

Herein lies the value of popular culture for McLuhan. It is an unconscious expression of

Our inner lives, "a valuable index of the guiding impulses and the dominant drives in a

society."16 While McLuhan acknowledges that it is the laboratory, the studio and the

advertising agencies, not "the folk," who control the production of folklore in an industrial

society, he insists that "no culture will give popular nounshment and support to images or

patterns which are alien to its dominant impulses and aspiration^."^^ Hence his practice of

viewing the images of advertising and popular culture drawn from 1940s Amencm

industrial Society as a means of gauging the state of that society.

In the Br& McLuhan subjects images of advertising and popular culture to a caret3

reflective examination, i.e. he takea them seriously. This practice has led some theorists to

characterize McLuhan as a popular culture aficionado. While McLuhan does exhibit a

degree of admiration for the ski11 of those involved in the production of popular culture as

well as an appreciation of the aesthetic and intellectuai implications of the new media foms,

it would be inaccurate to depict McLuhan as an enthusiast of the commercial media based

on the Bride. His commentary is cdoured by a general distaste of the popular. McLuhan's

depiction of advertising and popular culture as tools of exploitation and manipulation in the

book's prefice is teliing:

Ouss is the h t age in which many thousands of the best-trained individual min& have made it a fuü-time busiaws to get insi& the coiiective pubiic mind To get in order to maoipdate, exploit, c d is ihe object now. And to generate heat mt Iight is the intentim To keep everybody in the belpies state eogendeied by proionged menial rntting is the efkt of many ads and much entemiment a k . l8

McLuhan may have found the new media intriguing, but he was also inclined to find the

values expressed by the majotity of advertising and popular culture somewhat repugnant.

Such is îhe tension one detects throughout the &ide-isolated moments of marvel amidst a

prevailing shudder.

McLuhan had recognized the growing impact of advertising and popular culture upon

society and felt it needed to be addressed. Too powerful to be dismissed and too seductive

to be ignoreci, McLuhan opied for a program of close conscious scrutiny. Believing that the

commercial media achieved theis prime effects subliminally, McLuhan explored the

symbolic dimensions of ads, cmic strips and newspapers in an attempt to "assist the

pubiic toobserve consciously the drama which is intended to operate upon it

unconsciously."~9 Advising his readers that "moral indignation" was "a very poor guide"

when it came to approaching advertising and popular culture, he recommended adopting a

p tu re of "rational detachment" akin t~ the one Edgar Allan Pae's sailor adopted in order

to escape the whirlpool in "A Desçent Into The Maelstrom."2o In the Bride's preface

McLuhan insists that a "whirling phantasmagoria can be grasped only when arrested for

contemplation. And this very arrest is also a r e l e from the usual participation."*l This is

essentially the goal of the Bride -to arrest the media landsape for contemplation by pulling

the selected images of advertising and popular culture out af their usual context and subject

them to reflective examination, thereby developing an awareness of the subliminal effects

of the new media Such an intent would be ceiterated throughout McLuhan's career.

McLuhan's choice of subject matter in the Brhk was not as radical a departure from his

early interests as may at first appear. Long before the publication of the Bririe McLuhan had

demonstrated an interest in advertising and popuiar culture. A 193 1 lecture in eamomics at

the University of Manitoba inspirai the young McLuhan to make the following

observation:

Ovaprodiactica d t s in a fierce aîîackon UIC &et of ibe individual. The appeal is always to sane powerful feeling in man: fear. pdde, sex. wealtb, ambition. etc. Fflîy years kace, if ihey have net paceded to m a e abami ex-. a volme of 1930 slogans and advdsing üicks would make more intemling nadiiig tban anything that bas appeated in lhis gmrecian?

During his teaching p t at the University of Wisconsin (1936-37) McLuhan turneci his

section of the freshman English course into an analysis of popular culture in an "effort to

reach his students."23 At St. Louis University, in addition to introducing his classes to the

writings of Pudovkin and Eisenstein, McLuhan used current films to reach his student.s.24

For years prior to tbe publication of the Bride McLuhan had been in the habit of clipping

advertisemnts, oomic strips and articles from newspapers and magazines. In addition, he

delivered a series of slide-lectures that included images drawn from advertising to students

and the general public. Apparently it was in one of these lectures that McLuhan advanced

the idea that he was living in the eraof "the Mechanical Bride." His plans to publish these

slide-lectures in printed form would eventually culminate in the book of the same name.2"

Given that the BrUle was under development throughout the 1944% it is not surprising

to detect elements of it in McLuhan's articles from the same period. In the article

"Footprints in the San& of Crime" (1946). for example, McLuhan offers critical

commentary on modem life while îackling the subjects of detective fiction and the modem

sleuth, both of which appear as topics in the Bride. He complains that "[wle seem to have

lost the power or the desire to contemplate our lives. Instead we limply immerse ourselves

in whatever is immediately available. And of al1 the mass-produced anodynes, detective

ficiion is as notoriously available as even the tepid Hollywood product."26

In "American Advertising" (1947) McLuhan approaches advertising in much the same

mamer as he does in the Bricie, claiming that it has bbdeveloped into a jungle of folklore,"

that "[tlhe hyperaesthesia of the ad-men's rhetoric has knocked the pubIic into a kind of

groggy, slap-happy condition" and that " the multi-billion ddlar, nation-wide educational

programmes of the ad-men (dwarfing the outlay on formal education) provide a world of

symbols, wiüicism, and behavior patterns which ... comprise a common experience and a

common language ...." Here, as he would in the i?&, McLuhan expresses concem over

the impact of contemporary advertising on democracy, wting thai it may prove "a fatal

dvent for the basic political traditions of America" and that the growing science of market

research, an increasingly important ally of the advertising industry, possesses "a strong

In this same article McLuhan aiso provides readers with a cursory comparison of

American and British approaches to advertising. Harkening back to his Cambridge

dissertation and its dichotomy of the diaiectics of Descartes and the grammatical tradition of

Bacon, McLuhan characterizes American advertising as "Cartesian," interested in

"showmanship, clarity of layout, and distinctness of formulation," and British advertising

as "Baconian," concemed with "self-defensive puns, archness, and snob appeal." In

conclusion McLuhan suggests that the Americans "put on adecisively superior show and

provide the analyst with a much greater variety of Iively game."28 As in the Bride, i t is the

quality of his commentary on the ads which strikes a chord. Consider the following

account of an ad addressing the effects of anaemia on young women:

A beautifid giri seaied by the telephooe wliile Mom. troubled, hovets in the doonvay: "Borderlioe Anaemia &prives a gid of glamour . . . and dates1 Mcdical science says: Thousands who have pale faces-whose aûengih is ût low ebb-may have a b l d deticiency. So many girls are 'm t a ' to keep up with ihe crowd-watch romance pass them by because ihey haven't the energy to make hem attractive!"

These a& c o d e and encourage ihe fodorn by pictuhg ihe solitude aod negiect suffered by the maet mvishing chicks. They analyse ihe causes of every type of human failure and indicaie the scientifidy cemfied fornula for "insliui~;uieom or matiey-back results." The fault is not in our stars but out jars ihat we are ~ n d e r l i n ~ s . ~ ~

Such commentary prefigures the high-spirited and scintillating commentary his readers

would encounter in the Bride. In the "Amencan Advertking" article, as in the Bride,

McLuhan does not let his general disdain for the values expresseci in the ads prevent him

f r m approachng advertising as a valuable source of insight into modem culture, noting

that "there is nothing in these richly efflorescent ads which has not been deepiy wished by

the populatim for a long time.'qO

In "Inside Blake and Hdlywood" (1947). a review that appeared thai same year,

McLuhan recognizes a kindred spirit in Parker Tyler, author of Magic and Myfh of the

Movies. He credits Tyler with king "the first American to give serious attention to popular

cu1hire as it ia expressed by Hollywood" and @ses him for "substitut[ing) perception for

abuse or passivity-the only current attitudes to Hollywood as to al1 popular culture.'"

McLuhan's endorsement of Tyler's approach in Magic and Myrh of the Movies is, in

effect, an endorsement of his own approach in the Bride:

. . . Mr. Tyler takes us inaide Hdywood with its rnushrooming symbolism. Exuberance d semi-cdous and ullcontrolled symbois on one hand, and stmwd techaicd and commercial conml on ihe d e r . For aii ihe cooscious inteiiecnial activity d a n inchtriai society is directed to non-human ends. Its human dimensicms are systematicaiiy distorted by every caisnous resource while ihe undous and commerçially unutükd powers stniggle dimly to restore balancc aad order by homeopaihic meaas.

It is for this mson that Hoiiywood dominates the pychic iife of America. it provides ihe oight-dream which exorcises tk Lenon of cbe day-time acniality ?

In the Bride McLuhan views advertising and popular culture as a aries of symbols

consciously and unconsciously manipulateci by advertising executives and market

researchers. He also detects "vampire dreams" ofsex, technology and death in detective

Fiçtion, Modern Screen and the book of the month club, suggesting that "the anonymous

oppression by OUT impersonal and mechanized ways has piled up a bittemess that seeks

fantasy outlets in the flood of fictional violence which is now king gulped in such a variety

of fonns.'33 In analyzing the images of advertising and popularculture in the Bride

McLuhan attempts to make us aware of "the night-dream" fantasies as weli as the terrors of

"the day-time actuaiity" an industriai soçiety begets.

The Bride and Modernism-McLuhan and t h Litemy TradiHon

In many ways McLuhan's Br& is a modernist work. Its non-linear structure embodies

the discontinuity of modernist art and literature wMle its subject matter, contempocary

images of advertking and popular culture, colpcems one of the dominant features of the

human-made, urbanized indusirial environment-the focus of modernisrn. The fears of

pditicai and cultural massificatioa associated with modernism echo throughout the Bride in

discussions of the social impact of' mass production and consumption, the demise of

democracy, and the growing trend of sensationalism, "low-brow" tastes and anti-

intellectualism. Even the aesthetics of madeniism are directiy addressed.

As in his articles from ihis same period, McLuhan draws a paralle1 between the

aestheîics of elite art and the aesthetics of popular art. In the piece 'The Cape as Still

Life," a discussion of detective fiction, McLuhan poses the foUowing queries to his

How hi@-brow is a ooapse? 1s ihis a frameup? Would ihe ibriller fan be ahshed b learn that the w h h m i t ilflticipaied the techniques d rnbdemscienœandari? Cinema, cubism, symbolism, and thrilier use the same method of simuliaoeous vision by riecaistnrtiotl? In the beginning was 1nontage9~

In bis commentary McLuhan identifies a relationship berneen "the technique of 'seeing' in

modem painting and the technique by which the popularmodern sleuth 'reconstructs the

crime. '" He also contends that Edgar Allan Poe, having "hit upon tfüs principle of

'reconstniction,* or ceasoning backwards," made it the cardinal technique of both crime

fiction and symbolist poeûy. Echoing sentiments expressed in his literary articles,

McLuhan explains how he believes the process for both begins with effect:

Ha* inmind tbe pmhe effectfirst, tbe aanihor has then to Ciimd the situations, the persans, aod images, and the Oder wiich wi i i poduce lbat ecfcct and no ather. That, for exampie, is the way T.S. Eliot composts his poaiwpoaiw Eachis slanted to a dilfenmi effeci. So that it is wt someihing his pouns s q but somethmg they cf> that is csseatial about ihem. And ihe same is mie of most si@~iomt poiinting and poetry since Poe and Baudelaire . . . As fa the htective siory, which embodiea the popularfom of ibis new technique, what is necewq befae writing oneis mntjnst ihe awarewss of the effert but

of ihe sdutioa to tbe aime. Tbe detcctive-stay wnter bas to invent a mimler and a solution Fmit, just as the jigsaw-pwzie maka has to have a camplete picture before he cames it up into bits, ûnce ihe time sequenœ for the murder has beeD laid out in d e r d the occurrence of evenis leaduig to it. the a h thea begina bmhvanls. That is, he introduces theteadertotheco~w~~

In the piece "Fmnt Page" McLuhan makes similarcomections, suggesting k t

modernist aesthetics owes a great deal to the design of a newspaper. He opens the piece

with such playful questions as 'To achieve coverage from China to Peru, and also

simultaneity of focus, can you imagine anything more effective than ihis front page

cubism?" and "You never thought of a page of news as a symbolist landscape?"36In the

W y of his commentary McLuhan explains how modernkt artists from the French

Symbolists to James Joyce "saw that there was a new art form of universal scope present in

the technical layout of the modem newspaper" and thus developed a new aesthetics of

discontinuity based on the format of the popular press. McLuhan believed this was "a

major instance of how a by-product of indushial imagination, a genuine agency of

contemporary folklore, led to radical artistic &velopments.''3f

Taking a cue from modemists who were able to see value in the foms of the new

media-in the medium rather than the message, if you will-McLuhan notes that

"industriai man. . . lives amid a great flowering of technical and mechanical imagery of

whose rich human symbolism he is mainly unçonscious.'~8 Just as Baudelaire declared

that "[t]he Iife of OUT city is rich in poetic and marvellous subjects. We are enveloped and

steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvellous, but we do wt notice if" McLuhan

proclaims that "[iJndustrial man is not unlike the turtle that is quite blind to the beauty of the

shell which it has grown on its back!g9 Like many modernisis, then, McLuhan f m d

hirnself simultaneously compelled and repelled by the urban indusirial environment.

PerIiaps what most aligns the Bride with modernism, however, is not the form or the

choice of subject matter, but McLuhan's "posture as an intellectual gestunng from within a

liierary tradition"40 As Paul Tiessen notes, the atmosphere of p t World War One

England, with its developments in cinema, the public instihitionaiization of radio, and early

experiments in television, gave rise to a "aitical idiom9* with respect to the media The

poiential of the new media for public good or public il1 as well as its impact on the sense of

the individual coloured the contemporary discussions of intellectual, artistic and Iiterary

circles and became a focal point for the cultual debates which penneated British society in

the post World War One years. Among the more outspoken with regard to the effects of the

new media were those of the li terary modemkt community. From Dorothy Richardson to

Hilda Doolittle to Wyndharn Lewis, Tiessen suggests, aumass-media consciousness" can

be discerned-a consciousness which anticipates McLuhan's "posture as an intellectual

gesturing from within a Iiterary tndition."

While Tiessen links such a posture to McLuhan's 1960s work, it is arguably more

applicable to McLuhan's pre-1960s work. Perhaps in no other work is McLuhan more

discemib1y"an intellechmi gesturing from within a Iiterary tradition" than in the Bride.

Indeed, in a 1%7 interview with G.E. Stem McLuhan firmly located his approach in the

&ide within such a Iiterary tradition:

In England, at Cambridge, when 1 h v e d h r e , it had becorne popular to look at films and the popular culture around us as something to be studied and uodentoad as a "language." Wyndham h w i s did various shidies on pop culhire. Leavis has a bookcailed Culwe andEnvironment. The= was a similafinterest in popular speech idioms, language, the W h . The Wosre Land is full of k s e pop-cult fomis. Pound's Canros have similar forms. Pound ôas a v a y useful guide to the Conroscalled Kdchw. in doiog the &i& I was merely rrailiog behind saat intereshg pedecessot~.~l

In an attempt to better contextualize McLuhan's hi& within a literary modernist tradition 1

will now turn to the selected works of NO such preâecessors- Wyndham Lewis and F.R. Leavis.

As previously noted, Wyndham Lewis was a key figure of the Anglo-Amencan

modernists who spoke out against the Funuists in favour of a consemative cultural

tradition32 As an artist, novelist and critic Lewis was preoccupied with the relationship of

the self to society throughout most of his cafeer. In his work following the First World

War Lewis fûcussed on industrial society's fqmentation and destruction of the self.43 In

addition to developing a lengthy cocrespondenœ with Lewis, McLuhan became personally

acquainted with Lewis and even helped him to secure portrait commissions in St. buis

from the city's well to do dunng the mid-1940s-the tïme the Bride was taking s t~ape .~~ Jn

what is probably an overly flattering letter to Lewis, McLuhan claimed that "[ylou had

ken, for years before 1 met you, a major resource in my life."45 Several scholars have

identified Lewis as a signifiant influence on the Bride: Paul Heyer suggests that Lewis'

attention to popular culture may have encouraged McLuhan's academic pursuit of it in the

Bride, Philip Marchand daims that McLuhan's plan for the Bride was reinforced by Lewis'

use of newspaper "exhibits" in his Doom of Youth (1932). while Donald Theall identifies

Lewis' Zïme and Western Man (1927) as a "near parallei" to the BrUie.46

Like McLuhan's Bride, Lewis' Time and Western Man opens with a cal1 for clearer

thinking and reflection. Lewis is critical of what he sees as modem society's tendency to

" ths t most people into prescribed tracks, in what can be called a sort of m c e of

ucTion.''47 One of the forces which Lewis identifies as encouraging this "trance of action" is

advertising. As he says, the "spirit of advertisement . . . has its fevensh king in a world of

hyperbolic suggestion; it is also the trance or dreamworld of the hypnotist."4* McLuhan

e c h s such a sentiment in the Br& when he describes a"somnambulist public" that

accepts the "vampire dreams" of advertising uncritically.49

Like McLuhan, Lewis is also critical ofadvertising's relation to time. Just as Lewis

cornplains that advertising "dwells in a one-day worlâ" where the "average man is invited

to slice his life into a series of one-day lives, regulated by the clock of fashion," McLuhan

would corne to object to "the social conditions of rapid turnover, planneci obsolescence,

md systematic change for its own sakeeWso Furthemore, Lewis, like McLuhan, sees the

American advertising industry as encouraging simplistic thinking and sensationalism. He

suggests that to respond to adveriising you must be "ttcepetfectsemtio~~alist-what

people picture to themselves, for instance, as the perfect American. Your personality must

have been chopped down to an extremely low level of purely reactionary Life. Otherwise

you are of no use to the advertiser." Lewis believed that "[a]ll idea of a true value. . . [was] banished for ever fmm the life of the great majority of people living in the heart of an

advertising zone, such as any great modem city." These people, Lewis maintained, were

"almost entirely incapable of anything except sensation."51 In the Bride McLuhan

specifically addresses the phenomenon of sensationalismin in "Nose for News" and "Book

of the Hour," noting that crude motional ploys are used to move merchandise-be it

newspapers or paperbacks-and that a public assaulted by a steady Stream of sensation

soon grows tired.52

While Lewis does not directly d d wiih advertising in Dooni of Youtli he does ded

with the tyranny of age-groups, a concept the adwrtising industry would increasingl y corne

to exploit in its market segmentation and researçh. Lewis felt the individual was being

destroyed by king herded into age-groups.53 He disapproved of what he saw as the

disappearance of ail other values except age, insisting that age "is for the average man about

the only value (in workshop, office, or factory) that survives . . . As a humble cog in the

machinery of Big Business your only value is that you are fresh-and of course, as a

consequence, cheap. So as cannon-fodder for the great Peace Offensive of competitive Big

Business al1 exceptional qualities of brain or chamter are ta& the major asset is a fresh

bodily machine-for machine-minding and mechaaical tasks involving no responsibility

there can, logically, be no other vdue."s4 W l e such atone is echoed in the Bride with

McLuhan's premise that the individual human king was king reduced to replaceable parts

to serve the machine, Lewis' Doom of Youth is usually associated with the Bride because

of its "Gallery of Exhibits" section-a compilacion of newspaper headlines and extracts

followed by Lewis* often incisive comments. Such an appniach to the press cleariy

prefigures McLuhan's approach to advertising and popuiarculture in the Br&.

If the connection between Lewis' T h e and Western Man and Doom of Youth and

McLuhan's Bride is notable, the connection between Leavis' Culfwe and Environment

(1933) and McLuhan's Wride is remarkable. As noted in the earlier discussion of Practical

Cnticism, ER. Leavis was a student of I.A. Ricbards who extended the scope of Practicd

Cnticism to advertising and popular culture in his text Culhcre and Environment. Like

McLuhan's &ide, Leavis' Culntre and Environment, which he CO-authoreci with Denys

Thompson, a social scientist with an interest in the political economy of advertising, is both

a cal1 to resist mass culture and a recommendation that modem education should be an

education against the environment. The style of writing, however is markedly more earnest

than the playful prose readew encwnter in the Bride-a differençe between a iradi tiond

"academic" tone in the case of Leavis and an insidious one in the case of McLuhan, who

deliberately adopts the idiom of the advertisers in order to beat them at their own game.

McLuhan believed that he could use the very techniques advertisers used to manipulate the

public in order to offer insightful critiques and raise awareness. Even at this point in his

career it would seem that McLuhan was adopting a stance of "arrogant superiority" when it

came to dealing with the media environment 5s

A more formally structured book than the Bri&, Culare and Environment contains just

over a dozen chapters that are designeci to be read sequentiaily. In the chapter "Advertising:

Types of Appeal" Leavis explains h m the advertisiag expert "devises his appeal in the

confidence that the average mernkr of the public will respond like an automaton,"s6 He

goes on to identify six major appeals used in advertising: Fear, Feu of Social Non-

conformity, "Good Form" Pressure or social obligation, Snob Appeai, Getting it Both

Ways (e.g. a book that is supposedly "for the few," yet has sold over 100,000 copies), and

the Good-Fellow Ticket for First-Class Pasmgers M y . In addition to bnef descriptions

of each of the appeals, Lavis provides ample questions and assignments for students. For

example, he recommends that when students look at an ad with "Good-Fellow Ticket"

appeal they describe the type of person represented, expiain how h y are expected to feel

towards this person, suggest what this person's attituâe would be towards them and predict

how this person would behave where mob passion runs bigh. For "field-work" he

suggests that studenîs not only collect t y p of advertisements, but note the effects of

advertising- buying habits, speech, gesture and ideas-on themselves and their fnends.s7

Laer in the book Leavis comments on the relationship between advertising and magazines

and describes the newspaperas a distraction requiring little effon58

Much of Leavis' Culture and Envkolynent resonates in McLuhan's Bride. His

"automaton*' is McLuhan's "somnambulist." The appeals Leavis identifies, while not so

formally arranged, run throughout McLuhan's analysis in the &ide. For example, in

McLuhan's discussion of an ad claiming that Lord Calvert whiskey is preferred by "men of

distinction," he opens with the line "Snob appeal might seem to be the mat obvious fesiture

of this type of ad, with its submerged syllogism ihat since al1 sorts of eminent men drink

this whiskey they are eminent because they drink it"59 Likewise, in his discussion of

Lysol-then a ferninine douche product-McLuhan notes how hygiene product ads play on

fear and portray "ravishing chicks left in sordid isolation b u s e they 'offend."'6O

While not designed as an official textbook like Culrure and Envimmetrt, McLuhan's

Bride does engage the reader as a sort of student, This is wcularly true of McLuhan's

chapter "Freedom- American Style" which feaatres an ad for Quaker State motor oil

depicting a well-off family having a picnic in the country. McLuhan structures bis

comrnentary as an "adult discussion group," throwing out the following questions to his

audience:

Study the items in the scene. What is iniended as ihe general e î h t ? Gaiety amid a fmitful and posperous countryside? What would you Say was ibe Uwnne level of ihis family group? Estimate this from the

car, the Scotie, ihe portaMe radio, and the appeatance dthe family. If ihis is "freedom . . . Amencan Style." then is it iidt fieedom and mt American to have less money and fewer possessions? Was Henry Tbrneaum-Amen'can?

What poportion of Americana cnjoy ibis sryle d ncsdom? Is there anything about the family gmap wbich is diffetent fiom the Bumstead famiiy?

Like Leavis, McLuhan givm his readers exercises in an attempt to draw attention to the

subliminal aspects of advertisements.

The final chapter d Cuifirre and fivironment contains assignments on a variety of

subjecis, including advertising, îhe cinema, broadcasting and the nature of education. Like

the discussions in the Br&, these assignmenb are designed to heighien people's

awareness and enhance their criticai capacity with respect to the environment of advertising

and popular culture. Here are three sarnple assignments calling for the careful examination

of aâvertising and popular culture in a manner which would not seem out of place in the

Bride:

18. Certain things we buy in order thw we may Live aud be comfortable; other ihings we buy to keep up wiih the loneses, a happüy. to surpass the Joaeses.' (Yow Money's Worth, p. 7,)

Classify a number of ihe mast promiwnt aâvertisemenis acconhg to this distinction62

34. 'Qeancutexecutive type,' 'good mixer,' 'repeseniative man,' 'stiort-hakd executive,' 'regulacguy' (Americanism).

Why do we wince at tâe mentality thac usea ihis i d i ~ r n ? ~ ~

48. 'In fiteen yeam î k Americim people have changed fnwi esseritiaiiy a home people to an automobile acsd movie people.'

What other changea haveacumnpied that descn'bed

It has been said that McLuhan's plan for the Br& was ultimately "inspiredn by Leavis'

CuInne and EnVv.onment.6J Obviousiy there is a great deal of simiiarity between the two

works in bdh tone and technique. In applying Richards' methdology of Practical

Criticism to the subject of popular culture, Leavis may very weU have given McLuhan "the

first hints that the New Criticism mi@ be a fruitful approach to snidies of the entire human

environment" as Marchand suggests.66 OTall the litemry figures who were to influenœ

McLuhan, perhaps none stretched the field of literacy shdies so far into the realm of social

commentary as Lavis, hence Marchand's comment Qat Leavis' Culture and Enviromnt

"helped nudge McLuhan away from being a purely literary critic in the manner of Richards

and Empson to becoming a student of society and evenWly of the media"67

In the Br& McLuhan draws upon the work of numerous sccial theorists inciuding

Sigfried Giedion, Margaret Mead and Lewis Mumfod.68 His sacid commentary,

however, Iike that of' Lewis and Leavis, daes not emerge out of the social sciences but

literary studies. Donald Theail is but one critic who has noted McLuhan's "lack of basic

sociologicai theory*' in the Br&, citing his failure to demonstrate a serious awareness of

Marx or to even mention Weber, Durkheim, Simmel or G. H, Mead-social theorists

whose concepts should "fotm the fabric of any contemporary forties' view of man and

society.'%g In the &ide, as in the rest of his works, McLuhan t d y is an intellectuai

gestunng from within a literary tradition.

The Folklore of DialccticuL Man-The Trivium as Industriori Critique

Drawn from a wide variety of sources, the exhibits in the Bride appear to be united by a

few ovemding themes, thus supporting McLuhan's observation that the diverse images of

industnal man "&se from a sort of collective dream" and constitute "a single landscape.*70

What follows is a cumry discussion of three such themes-educaiion, democracy and

technology. In examining these themes, not only do we get a sense of McLuhan's view of

cornmerciai industnal culture as a whole, but we can detect an affinity behveen his view of

this culture and his trivium frameworlt The industriustrial society that McLuhan critiques in the

Bride is the indusûial society of the American North from his mid 1940s Southern

sympathy articles-"Edgar Poe's Tradition" (1944), "An Ancient Quarrel in Modern

America" (1946) suid "The Southem Quality" (1947). The folklore of "indushial man" is

the folklore of "dialectical man." Much as McLuhan brings a flavour of literary modernism

to the Bride, his assesment of 1940s advertising and popular culture is informed by the

theoreticai framework of the triviurn he established in his Cambridge dissertation.

In the Bride, as in the Southem sympathy articles, McLuhan celebrates the Ciceronian

ideal of a humanist education and critiques the speciaiized, diaiectically informeci training of

industrialism. In addition, he identifies advertising and popular culture as the "unofficial

program of public instruction" that has usurped the position fomally held by the official

In his aptly named piece 'The Drowned Man" McLuhan quotes a passage from the

November, 1947 issue of Forrune to portray the plight of the average citizen in industrial

The Amencan citizen lives in a state of siege from dawn tiU bedtime. Neariy everything hc sees, hem. tastes. touches, and srneus is an atternpt to seU him something. Luckiiy for bis aanity be becomes callowd s h d y afterdiaperhood; MW. to h a k through bis protedive sùeU, the advcriisers mua umhuously shock, tease, tickle. or iniiaie him, or wear him domi by the dripdripdrip or Chinese water-torture method of endlesa repetition. Advertising is lhe handwriting on the wall, the s i p in the sky. the bush that bunis reguldy every night. No place on eartb is geographically beyond the reach of the hawkers and huclsters; the only oases of peace . . . are the diukened sicbooms of the dying wbre the customer is not worih borhehg. . . ?2

This siege constitutes the "unofficial education" of "industrial man." McLuhan believed chat

such an onslaught by commercial industry was neudizing the official program of

education via assault techniques and big budgets. In 'The Bold Look" he noted that the

official program of education, unable to compete with the unofficial program of education,

wouid eventually succumb to its forces:

The ci- canaoc compete with the glitter and the billim-doUac success and ptestige of this commacial education. h t of aii with a conunercial education program which is disguised as entertainment and which by-passes the intelligence ahile operating duectly on che wiil and the desires. The tesuit, inevitably. is that the curriculum now wistfdiy tags a h g behind the ad industry, and is even becoming geared to that iodu~try?~

Even the University of Chicago's great books program which McLuhan had defended

in bis "Ancient Quarrel" article was now viewed as a lost cause, incapable of deterring "the

constant stonn of triviality and propaganda that now beats upon the citizen." Furthemore,

McLuhan held little promise for an education system that was becoming more and more Iike

the technological world he believed it should be opping. He complains of Harvard's

graduate "assembly lines" and the University of Chicago's "unconscious and uncritical

assimilation to the rigid modes of a techndogical world.'~4McLuhan perceived the offîcid

program of education as succumbing to the forces of industriaiism, degenerating into a

program of speciaiized training and loosing its critical edge. One cannot help but recall the

sentiments expressed by Harold Innis in his piece on adult education and universities hem

"education 'fits one for nothing and trains him for everything"' and "it is 'the purpose of

education n a to prepare children for their oçcupations but to prepare them against their

occupations.**~5 0, this matter Innis and McLuhan were in accord.

What begins as a general critique of technid training in McLuhan's piece "Education"

evolves into a graphic acmunt of the effects of such training on the human character:

That man counts ùimself happy today whose school uaining wins him the privilege of getting at once into the technoIogicai meat grinder. Tbat is what he went to school for. And what if be does have the consistency of hamburger dter a few years? Isn't everybody else in the same shape? . . . Our educarional pmcess is necessarily geared to eliminate ali bone. The supple, well-adjusted man is the one who has learned to hop into the meat ginch while hummiag a hit-parade tute. lndindual resistaace to that process is labeled desimciiw and tutcwperative . . . Far fmm teaching detachment or developing the power of gauging human goals, our bigber education is servile and unrealistic. For to deveiop ~ v i d u a l s with poweriùi min& and independent characters is to create a supply for which thete is no demand Why train men if iherP is d y a madiet foc mbots? . . . Why aain individuah. if ihe only available life is the dec t ive dream of u n i f i iasks and m a s eniertainat? Why make life diff~cuit? Why be difîerent? Why use yout brains to ensure poveny?76

The obliteration of individual character by an educational program of specialized training

redls McLuhan's distinction in "An Ancient Quarrel in Modem America'* between a

h-st education concernai with "making the individual potentially a d e r of k i f and

of the state*' and amore specializeù, and therefore diaiectically informed, education

concernecl with "making tbe individual useful to the state.q7 Cleariy, the goals of a

humanist education, informeci by grammarand rhetoric, are not the goals of the specialized

training McLuhan sees prmoted in the selected images of advertising and popular culture

nor are they the goals of an industriai society such training serves. In the Bride, as in

McLuhan's mid-1840s articles, specialized training and indusirial society appear to be

"built on the mat destructiveabenation of the western mind-autonomous diaiectics.'78

While the official program of eduçation was being reducd to a formula of specialized

training, McLuhan perceiveci the unofficial program of education as appropnating the

techniques of classical education for not so classical purpmes. In "Plain Talk," a chapter

based upon a solicitation for an executive self-improvement book designed to increase

one's abili ty to express ideas and secure numerous promotions dong the way, McLuhan

touches upon the contemporary view of eloquence and iis use in a commercial industrial

society. His comments are clearly informeci by his dissertation research on the trivium:

V&d-guidance investigation bas nPmed up h e cialous fact tôat executives of whatevaeducatid background do show am aptinide for worda hi is more tban usd. Here is imexpcckd con f~~ î i on d ibe ancieui Ciamnian chim f a eloquence as haining forpractkal lifc. Befixe Ciccro, the Greek Sophists had îaugbt how to m&e men wise and pwedul by malriag iôem cloquent. But tbcy sow no spüt between wads and wisdom, as ihis ad does. Man. îhey said. was disiinguisbed from the brutes by his aptinde for speech. Speech and reason were one, and the development of either involved ihe othcr. TIPerefore an encyclopedic program of studiw was necessary to produœ eloqueflce. And eloquence was power, wisdmi, and pditical pndenceat che same h e . This curiously imified and extensive program rwiaiaedihe besis of cldcal education

until 1850. And it was only as tk professors abpteà the specialized k t of ouf times that ihey lost kir bearings and influence. Today it is not the classroom MK the classics wbich are the cepositones of models of eloquaice, but the ad ag-es. Whereas îhe dder coacep deloqueiice linked it to public rcspmsibility and œremoay and a unified program fw Pnlisting the passions on the si& of reasao and ihe new schml of eloquenœ is vlltnally dernagogic inits beaâiong exploitath of wo& and emotions for ibe flaîtery dUte caaa~mer?~

While eloquence and wisdom had been viewed as inseparable in a Ciceronian program of

eduçation, they were regardexi as separate matters in adialectically inciined commercial

indwtxiai society. Presumably this gives rise to an envimument in which eloquence is used

to exploit rather thanedighten, "to generate heat not light,-O Much to McLuhan's dismay

the Cicedan ideal of eloqueace from his "Swthern Quality" article had been comipted by

the demands of a society fraught witb diaiectics and allied to the forces of industrialism

where it served the needs of big business rather than society. The classical concept of

elquence bad been reducsd to a shadow of its fornier self by the forces of industrialism

just as classical rtietoric bad been reduced to an empty stiell by Mer Ramus.

Having virtually given up on the officiai program of education, the only hop

McLuhan held was for a c lm examination of the unofficial program of eduation:

By bringing the unofficial education under carefui scrutiny, that is by turning the tables on

the cultural industries and using images drawn from advertising and popular culture "as a

means to enlightening its inknded prey," McLuhan hoped to develop a keen sense of

awareness in his readers that would allow hem to approach the new media environment

criti~ally.~2 Such is ihe intent of the Bride as well as McLuhan's later works.

In his article 'The Sauthem Qudity" McLuhan had I d e d favourably upon the

Jeffemnian concept of democracy and linked it to his vision of the American South as a

unifonnly agrarian society steeped in a Ciceronian program of education. In the Bride

McLuhan continueci to endorse the princi pies or J e f f e f ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a n demomcy, but was not so

keen to endorse the way he saw it being used in the images of advertising and popular

culîure. Just as the Ciceronian ideal of eloquence was king appropriatecl by the advertising

industry, McLuhan believed the Jeffemnian concept of demccracy and the Amencan ideal

of freedom were being m p t e d , used by the powers of industn'alism for their own

benefit-not the benefit of the American people.

In the piece 'What It Takes to Stay In," which features a promotion from the National

ASSOCiation of Manufacnirers explainhg the philosophy and practice of Amcrican business

113

tapped by the advertising agencies and the movie industry in order to sel1 producis . - . [or]

lu11 suspicion.'s5 That is, the Jeffemnian dream of democracy that served as a creaiive

political force in the Amencan South is merely abused for Hamdtonian gain in an industrial

society dominated by diaiectics.

That the commercial forces of indusûiaiism had ceopted the Jeffemnian concept of

democracy for undemocratic purposes was bad enough, but McLuhan believeà they haà

also invented their own tool of democratic deception in the Gallup Poll. McLuhan

complaineù that many within the pollster community as well as among the general public

regardexi the Gallup POU and related market research îechniques as synonymous with

democracy. For example, Albert Sindlinger, a Gallup Poll vice-president, claimed that

"[pleople who scoff at poll-taking . . . are scoffing at democracy" and Sterling North,

presumably another member of the pollster community, insisted that polls were "a means of

consulting 'the collective wisdom of the Amencan people'." McLuhan, on the other hand,

viewed such market research techniques as covert tods of manipulation and social control.

If technical education was a mat-grinder that tumed individuals into hamburger, then polls

were "wondrous totalitarian techniques for mashing the public into process cheeseq6

According to McLuhan polls manipulate people in two ways: by creating a desire to be

distinct or superior, as in the ads which compeI people to act like that one person out of

seven and buy the product he or she does, and by preying upon people's fears of king

social misfits, as in the polls or surveys that reveai how well people fit in with îheir pers

or illustrate the acceptable boundaries of normality or conformity.87 Indeed, it is difiïcult to

see how either situation could be deemed an exercise in democracy.

Working in conjunction with the pollsters was the social sîatistician-clearly a product

of diaIectical training. McLuhan describes the process of capturing parîicular market

segments for political parties and big businesses in graphic terms that reveal his d e t y

over the growing application of the social sciences:

The statistician empioys tbe method of labaatay aaalysis of smaü sampies d humaa M d and tissue- m e it is ûiEcult to oblilar a sampie of90~*ai M a x i or tissue. it is oo exaggeraticm to say that tôe pdlsters w i l thcir qwtEiainaires an out for M d W b îhey gct iheir sample, ihcy d y z e it d mm iIte d i s over to iheir masias, who then decidewbatmtdshotinrbeamithepubüc~. . .-y aremgagedinseelriagthe mema dadjusting producis to ca~umers andcoaoumcrs to poduds. whether the article is corn flakes or legislati~88

Clearly McLuhan sees little conneçtion between market research techniques like the Gallup

Pol1 and dernocracy. As he warns his readers in the preface. "[tJoday the tyrant rules not by

club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways o l

utility andoornfo~'~~ It would appear thai the Gallup Pol1 and related market r-h

techniques were yet another aspect of commercial industrial society that, disguised as an

agent of Jeffersonian democracy, was out for Hamiltonian gain. Such practices were a far

cry fmm the Ciamnian ideal of the scholar-statesman McLuhan had praised in his

Southem sympathy articles.

In his Southem sympathy articles McLuhan had characterized the dialecrically inclined

Ameriçan North as a society obsessed with technology and absuact method and captivated

by efficient production, scientific scholarship and business administration, The assessrnent

of commercial industrial society in 1940s Amerka that McLuhan offers in the &ide is

largely an extension of this depiction of the Amencan North, while his examination of the

images of advertising and popular culnire that he presents is primarily an expioration OC the

psychic reiaiionship betwen hurnans and techndogy in a dialectically inclined society, 1

have isolaied three aspects of this relationship for discussion-the body as a machine or

replaceable part, the blming of sex differellces and the emerging cluster of sex, technology

and violence.

In "Know-How" McLuhan describes how, in an industriai world, people have learned

io identify with and emulate machines. With ceference to Jüseph Campbell's Hero With a

Thornad Faces, McLuban explains that just as "teflied men once got rihrally and

psychologicaiiy into animal skins, so we dready have gone far to assume and to propagate

the behaviour mechanisms of the machines that frighten and overpower us." McLuhan

ôelieved people in an industriai society had leamed to put on "mechanicai ssait jackets" and

that "D]ocked in one of these mechanical strait jackets, a man may feel safe and strong, but

he can exercise very liiîle of his human character or dignity."goThroughout the Bnhk

McLuhan points out the various ''suait jackets" offered in the selected images of advertising

and popular cuIture.91

In "Love-Goddess Assembly Line" and 'The Mechanical Bride" McLuhan comments

upon the degree to which women are presented as mechanicai objects. In "hve-Goddess

Assembly Line" the use of an image of a chorus-line in an ad for Nature's Rival girdles

prompts McLuhan to comment on the need for "glamour gals" and starlets io conform io a

standardized physical appearance, to look as though, as the chapter titie suggests, they had

just rolled off of the assembly-line. With reference to an Ivory Fiakeç ad, McLuhan

suggests that the answer to the ad's query "What makes a gal a good nurnber?" is "loola'ng

like a nurnber of other gais" and "being a replaceable part." Hence Cecil B. DeMille's

comment that "[m]ayk the average Hollywood glamour girl should àe numbered instead of

named.'q2In "The Mechanical Bride" McLuhan extends the argument-"replaçeabIe"

women are made up of replaceable parts. Inspired by the image of a pair of disembodied

legs on a pedestal, McLuhan notes that "the legs 'on a Pedestal' presented by the Gotham

Hosiery company are one facet of our 'replaceable parts' cultural dynamics" and that "[iln a

specidist world it is natural that we should select some single part of the body for

attention.'q3 In an industriai society where we have learned to identify wiih machines,

suggests McLuhan, there are no longer people, simply collections of replaceable parts.

in "Executive Ability" McLuhan observes that men are instnicted to Ioose their

individuatity in order to succeed. Begiming with an ad for a book entitled How To

Develop your Executive Abiliîy McLuhan goes on to describe the basic premise of ai1 such

success manuals: "The successfid executive has to stn'p hirnseîf oievery human quaiity

until he is nearly mad with boredom. Then he can work, work, work without distraction.

The work is the narcotic for the boredom as the boredom is the spur to work."

Appropriately, one of the one-liners introducing this chapter asks "Do you have a

pelsoaality? Our executive clinic will get nd of it for you." Thus, the "su~cess manuai is

for men what the 'love-goddess assembly line' is for women, namely, a technique for

leveling al1 pemnal differences and distinctions . . . Both cults make for the production of

masses of replaceable human parts.*94

As masses of replaœable human parts, not only do people suffer a loss of individuaiity,

but distinctions between the sexes become las pronounced. In "CeEducation*' McLuhan

explains how "[e]ducation in a techndogid world of replaceable and expendable parts is

neuter. Technology needs not people or minds but 'hands'." Thus, much to McLuhan's

dismay, "the same curriculum and the same room serve to prepare boys and girls alike for

the neuter and impersonal routines of production and distribution."95 ln McLuhan's eyes

the end of sex differentiation marks yet another attempt of "the machine economy to abolish

. . . human tradition and experience." McLuhan references Margaret Mead's c~~~~i:ultural

study MaleandFemale to support his assertions, insisting that the timing of her work was

of great significance: "writing in 1949, Mead] announces, in effect, the end of the sex war

which was fought on so many fashion fronts and in so many schools, forums, homes, and

offices. In the name of comparative social anthropology she reports that it was a desperaie

and misconceiveci affair fought in the face of fats and against the interests of It

appears that McLuhan is using Mead's work to defend his position on the blurring of sex

differentiation in an industriai society as well as his personai biases regarding the role of

women in society.97

As people were busy putting on their "mechanical sûait jacks," McLuhan nded a

bizarre îriangle of sex, technology and vidence looming in the images of adverîising and

popular culture. While on the one hand the human body was king reduceû CO a "sort of

love-machine capable mmly of p c ü i c tiuüls" and sex was becoming "a problem in

mechanics and hygiene," there emerged, on the other hand, a desire to "possess machines

in a sexually gratifying way.98 In discwsing an ad for the 1949 Buick Roadmaster

McLuhan proposes that the "body as a living machine is now correlative with cars as

vibrant and attractive organisms." The body, he maintai ns, becomes "linked with the

desires, sexual and othenvise, for mecbanical power," while the car becomes "a womb

syrnbol and. . . a phailic powersymbol." Industrial man was becoming more like his

machines, and machines were increasingly becoming the objects of his desires. Sex and

technology were beçoming interfused. McLuhan hints at acontributory cause of this

phenomenon in his one-liner "Has th car taken up the burcien of sex in an increasingly

neuter world?g9

In 'The Mechanical Bride" McLuhan notes that a survey of popular culture not only

reveals a dominant pattern of sex and technobgy, but that such a pattern is often

intersperseci with "images of heciic speed, mayhem, violence, and sudden death."lOO

Dismissing the theory that violence is z substituie for sex in people who have acquired the

rigidities of a mechanized environment as Uicompleie, McLuhan suggests that "sadistic

violence, real or fictionai, in some situations is an attempt to invade persons not only

sexually but metaphysicalIy."~0l The problem is that ihis hunger for violence is not

recognized as a metaphysid hunger.

For the satiaieb boih sex and speed are pttty boiing imiil the clemenc of b e r ami even deûtb is inaoduced SeOsation ancl d m atc oear twh. And for rhose for whom îhe sex act bas corne ta seem mahanid and d y ibe meeting ard manipulation of body parts, there dm mnains a himaer which cm be dedmelapbysid but which is aot reçognized as sucb. and &ich seeh satisfaciion in ph$& danger, cr someiiaea in tomire, suicide. or miirder. Many dthe Frankenstein fantpsies depend on Ihe homKda synthetic robd Muiing amok in reveiige for its iack d a "aoul." Is îhis mt merely a symbdic way d expresshg ihe aciuat fact tint many pople have become so mechaaized that ihey feel a dim fcsw~mient at king depived of fuü human s t a h t ~ ? ~ O ~

More than twenty y e m before its publicaiion, McLuhan gave us the premise of J.G.

Ballard's wvel Omh. Such is the perverse relatimhip îhat people share with their

technologies in a dialeçtically inciined commercial industnal Society-

If the popuiar expression in a soc~*ety is, as McLuhan maintains, "a valuable means of

taking stock of ou^. success or failure in developing a b a l d existence," his study of

1940s advertising and popularculture points to a society that is most definitely out of

balance.iO3 Like many literary, cultural and social critics of bis time, McLuhan regarded the

mass civilizaiion of industrialism with suspicion and a good deal of contempt. In his case,

his assessrnent d industrial society was heavily informed by his Cambridge literary

studies, specificaily his fmiliarity with the critiques offered by cultural conservatives such

as Lewis and Lavis and his view of the industrial American North as a society steeped in

"autonomous dialectics" that emerged out d his trivium research. As has ken

demonstmted in the previous discussion of education, democracy and technology,

McLuhan viewed the commercial industnal society of 1940s America as one which forced

people to live in a siate of siege via the advertising industry, ground individuals into

hamburger-like consiskncy h g h technical training, ovenvhelmed them with the voices

of big business and Gailup Pol1 statistics and, finally, reduced them to collections of

replaceable parts cursed with an unrelenting metaphysical hunger. No wonder McLuhan

feared ihat "nobody [muid] live a human life in the face of our present mechanized

dream."tw

In a 1951 letter to Eua Pound McLuhan pointed to Giedion's Mechization Takes

C o d as a "sample of how De] should like to set up a sctiool of literary studies,"

noting that the "Ii,]asic modes of cognition on ihis continent [are] not linguistic but

technaiogical."tQ* As previously nuted, McLuhan did not view literature as a subject, but a

function. Its fundamenial wncems were not authors, dates and pat responses ddressing

"what a poem means." Rather, pmper literary trainhg cciacerned itseif with the training of

sensibiiity and the ckvelopment of awareness. As McLuhan's f i t official venture into the

realm of îhe mediaenvironment, perhaps the Mik best illustrates McLuhan's notion of an

ever expanding literary snidies, an attempt to fmter these qualities with respect to the

contempomy environmenial surround of advertising, popular culture and the media.

In the Bride McLuhan's goal is not to have us live in harmony with our technology,

bound by "mechanical strait jackets," but to awaken us f m out "somnambulistic trame"

and our "collective dream" in order to recover our humanity-something he believed was

possible if we were athined to the subliminal effects of our environment. Al1 of McLuhan's

works following the &ide are, to varying degrees of success, attempts at making us aware

of these environmental effects, attempts at awakening us from the respective

"somnambulistic tancesn we fail into with Our technologies. That is, like Leavis* Culme

and Environntenf, they ail offer "an education against the environment." As we shall see in

Our final chapter, this is just as tnie of McLuhan's last book as it was of his first.

Notea for Chapter Four

The Mechunical B*-Literary Studics Marry the Media Environment

l ~ c ~ u h a n mght a piug for The~echanidl3ri& from Eiiemt Gilsoa Apparwdy Giison agreed to s i p s u c h a n ~ i f M c L u t ÿ u r w d d wxïteit;this was McMsiaLeonttse See Matie Moliaara, Cotinne McLnban, and William Top, eds, laners of M m M l Mclwhon (Tomé: Word University Press, 1987). p. 230.

S~eiss, Kliae a d h ü y , Social Communication in Advertking: Persons, Products & lmoges of Weil- Being, p. 150 cited in Paul Heyer, Conununic&ns Md Hisrory Theon'es of Media Knowkdge, and Civilizaiion (New Y& Greenwd, lm. p. lîü.

4~ajorie Fergiwin, "Marshall McLuhan Rtnsited: l9u)s Zcitgeist V i c h or Pioneer Postmodernist'?'' Media. Culture and Society 13 (1991). p. 83.

5 ~ d F, T h d . The Medium b the Rear View Miwor: Understanding McLuhan (Montreal: McGiil- Queen's University Prcss. 1971). p. 9.

61ames W. Carey, The Poli&s of the Elecmnic Rey0Iununon: Futriter Notes on Marshall McUlan {Urbana: Lwtinite of Communicatioos ReJearch. University of W s , 1972). p. 40,

7 ~ c ~ ç l a i m d tbat the Bi& had "appearedjust as television was malring aU its major points indevant" See Playboy Wmiew. "Maashall McLubaa: A Candid Cmversation wiih the High Riesi of Popeult and Metapbysician of the Media+" Phyboy (1%9), qwhted in The CMadianJournaiof Communication 14. Nos. 4 and 5 (Decwak 1489). p. 135.

g~orexample, in berdiscussion of McLuhan vis a vis A h ancl Benjamin, Judiih Stamps ;iddresses the M. noliag that mmy of Ihe h & ' s ihcmes paraiiel t h f d in Europe;in criticai ibeory. See Judith Stamps, Utühinking Modemity: ln&, McWm, mrd the Frankfiat School(M011treal: McûiiiQueen's University Ress, 1995). In bis book McLuhan. or Morlenîmt in Reverse Glenn Whou coaiexnializes tbt LWJE with respect to political economic concmu of the tirne, intapreting McLuhan's aiticisms regiudiag 1940s Americanindusaialism as a direct aüact on the self-nguiating mode1 d classical d a . See Glen WiUmott, Mchhm. or Modernisnr in Rmme (Tolo~lto: Univmiiy ofTomnto Ress. 19%). McLuhan's s e a d biographer,Terreaa ûordai, pmvides a dctaüedafcouut of the W's deveiopment as weli as iim9ightful quotafi009 f m &y âraffs that did not make it into th i d version. SeeTecrence W. Gordoo. MmMI M c h h m : ficape in& UndPrmmïng-A &gr& (Tormto: Stodcbn, 1997). The recent surge d iniere~t in the && is of intnest givm tbat it has become somewht d a rare commodity. Many copies dibe arigind hdback. worth a p i e 5 penny in the antiquarian h k tiade, have disappcared from liùraries whiie ihe 1%? Bcacoa papehct =-issue haa becane iirreasingly d i a i d t io find The book rrmains out of print ioday and nimm bas it the McLuhao eatate wiii abide by McLuhan's wisbes to keep it that way.

l o~otexample, in disc\~9sing the press McLuhan aiides to a @chi village, &g h t ww~plpets ~ccuptom people to "human-interest rimies f m e v q pint of Che g l W create **anew stak of mind which bas linle to do wiihlocal or Baiiooal political Opinio~'* and "enfarce adeep sense of human sdidarity." In the same discussïoo McLuhan notes hat modemiut is ofteacaademaed becauseaf"ie lack of a 'message'," thereby demonsirating d y attention to the medium-message dichotmy which would colour so much of his iatu wmk, Masshall McLuhan. 2ne kfranrcdibide: FoIRIore oflnmcSfrtàî Man (New Y o k Vaogusrd Ress, 1951; Boston: Be- Reas. 1967). pp. 3-4.

lAmmunition, a union publication which repinted excerpis fmm tk W. cmtextualized McLuhan's sppmach in this mamm- Ciied in Gecald FmPnuel Slepni, eà, McLiJlan: Hot & Cool (New York: Signet, 1x7). p. cm.

13There is but one exception to tbis pariern. The "bve-Goddess AssexnMy Liœ" seciiw contaias two Unages. ao ad for Nam's Rivai Wes and an ad fa Ivory A b . Paul Hepr naus iht similarity between ihe cbaprerghacs and later Mctuhanisms. Sec Heycr, C~mrn~cationr Md HBfory, p. 129-

17kf.. p. 96. By wt drawing a clear distiaction between the values of poducers and coasumers of papular culture McLubanbas kncritiuzcd fmobscuring ttte power nlations betweeo ihe two pups and fa

20~ccording IO Pbilip Matchand. the actions of PPe's saüar bccame a aymbol of bis own work to McLuhan-"aï his fteiag himself fiom lhe v-x d k a t m b g social change ibrough the process of im&rslanduig it." Marchand notes ibai McLuhan ctwiases to i g~ne the fact ihat Poe's d a was brokea in M y and mind at the d of the story. See Phüip Marchend, M m M I Mctrchon: The Medium and the Messemger (Toronto: VUItage, 1989). p. 68.

l~cLubaa, TheMeclaMicalBtide, R e f . , p. v.

22~criiian. rliary 26 March. 193 1 citdin Gordoo, Escapeirrto Understanding, p. 31. Ironicaily, twenty years Iatcr McLliban wouid publish such a book.

2 3 M ~ u b a n later rrcalled the urperimcnt aud. eehoing Richards' assertionthat adegree d"commoo grouuâ" or expeRcnoe is nqiiired faany fonn $ communicatioa. camenicd that ihere was a languagc k e r requiring the shdenîs to leiun bis laaguasc w bc to leam ibeits, McLuhan optai for ihe later chuce. See Marchaad, The Medium anâ the Messe~ger. p. 43 and I.A. R i c W . Prïnciples of Literary Criticism (New Yortc Harcourt, Brace & W d d 1925). p. 178.

2%c&m, Escape info UndetstMdUig, pp. 97-9û. For adetaiid discussion of tbe d e of cinematic montage in McLuhan's work see Wiltmott, Midernimi in Reverse, pp. 3 2 4

25~camIiog to Wdier Ong, McLuhan had been raiùiog about pubiishing TlreMech~crrll3ride for as long as he had Lnown him. McLuhan sniffed his clippiogs into vatious envdws wbich eveniuaüy found their way into wmerous grocery boxes. Much to rbe dismay d the people ai Vangaurd Press ihe fust draft version of ibe ~WE they Rceived fmm McLubanmnsistedda shœ-box namnied with a live hmdred page mmusaiptand hundrcrls al yeilowed ciippings anached to v&ow pages wiih paper c l i p See Marchand, Tfre Medium und the Messensr, p. 107-108.

2 8 ~ c ~ "Amaican Adveriisiog," pp. 15-16-

29/bid.., p. 19.

351bU1., p. 103. McLuhan also addnases this issue iahis amclc "Joyce. Aquinas aud îûe E'œiic Process." See Marshall MçLuhan. "Joyce, A@nas audk Poetic ProEcss," RenaPçerice 4, 1 (1951): 3-1 1.

3 7 ~ . , p. 4. McLuhan explores this issue more àeeply in his artide "Joyce, MallarmC, and the Rcss." See Marshall McLuhan, "Joyce. Mallarm6, and ihe Ress" (1951) in The Interior t?iu&ccq>e: The TIte~iterary Critich ofMmshai1 McLuhan 19434962, ed. Eugene McNamiua (New Yo* McGraw-HU, 1969k 5-22.

*~crlihnn, The Mechanical&i&, p. 4.

g ~ e e Charles Baudelaire. 'The Painter d Modem LW" (1861). cited in Monme K. Spears, Dwnysw and The City: Modernism in Twenrieh-Century Poehy (New Y& Oxford University Press, 1970). p. 7 and McLuhBn. The Mechanical Bnae. p. 4.

40Tiessen identifies the media corisciousness amaog ihe iitetary modeniists as an aaticipation of McLuhan's posture wiîh nference to McLuhan's l%QP w d , implying that McLuhan. as a Canadian. inherited such a amsciousness as part of an AngioCanadiaa inteilectud legacy. Sec Paul Tiessen. "From Literary Modaaism to the Tanaamar Marshes: Antia'paiing McLuhan in Britishand Canadian Media Theay and Prac&ce," The C d a n J o d of Communication 18 (1993). p. 454.

"'"A Dialogue-Mafshaü McLuhan andGdd Emanuel Steam." in McLuhan: Hot h Cool, p. 262.

42Lewis also alta&ed his contempotanes, eqecially the Bla~isbury Group, fliaed with the British Fascifit p t y and praised fiiikr. hence his dienation fm much of the liicrary world.

43~avid ~ym, Wyndham Lewis and Western Mon (lmuîm: MacMillan, 1 9 , pp. 3,222.

4 4 ~ d mlays a strained relationship between McLubanand M s . In spiieof McLuhan's geaerosiiy and loyal ty to the demanAing Lewis, Lewis round reasons to spun McLuhan and angriiy broke off Lheir cœrespondeace in 1945. It was laîerresumed. See Marchand, The Medium anà the Messenger. pp. 7C)-75.

45~01inani, et. al., ktm, p. 160.

4 6 ~ e c Heyer. Cornmunicurions Md History, p. 12'7; Marchand, The Medim and the Msenger, p. 107; Tbesll, The Mediwn 1s t k Rear View Minor, p. 56.

47~yndham Lewis, Time and Western Man (Londoa. Chatto & Windus, 1927; Boston: Beacan Fress, 19SI), Reface. p. ni.

48kwis, Time and Western Mm, p. 1 1.

S%ewis, Time and Western Man, p. 13.

s2~ee McLuhan, TheMclranical Bride, pp. 7.26-

5 3 ~ ~ g h K- notes tbat Wyndham Lewis saw age-groups as "the most factitious a d the m a t expiicitty pditical" graips wbich individuais were being herded into in ordet to discourage thw individuaiity. Hugh Kenoet, Wy&m Lewis (Nd&, Connecticut New Dirrction Books, 1954). p. 78.

54Wyndham Lewis, b o m of Yourh (New YoirL: W e i l House. 1932; 19'73). inmduction, pp. xv-ni.

ss~ayboy interview, "~arshall McLuhan: A Candid Conversaiiai," Ployboy (I%g), repinted ia ? l e CMOdian J o d of Communk~ôn, p. 136.

5 6 ~ . ~ Lavis and Denys T h o m p , Culnae and Environment: The Troiiring of Crifikai Aweness (tondoa. Chatt0 & Wiadus. 1933). p. 12.

~ % c b b n , The Mechanicd Bride, p. 57-50.

6 ~ ~ b a n d , The Medim und the Messenger, p. 107.

67 M., p. 35. Apptopriately, contempaary British culhrral studies, wbile critical of Leavis' culnual codservaiism and d o n a r y disposition, owes much dits &velopaent to the legacy d Leavis and his application of a literary sensi-ty to broder issues of culture. See Simon During, ed. The Culrural Studies k d r (Londw: Rouiledgt. 1993). Intdt~tion, pp. 2-3.

6 8 ~ i r m f d s Technics Md Civilizmbn gave Mctubaa an undersiaading of the sigdïcance of ihe clock to monastic iife andabsaactiime to anindustrial w d d ; Margaret Mead's Maleand Fernale, a cro~s culniral analysis wbichiucludes materiai an tbe importance of sex diffenntiatioo, gave McLuhan fuel fahis views on the blurring dgenda; Giedion's Mechaniraiion TuAes Command Sve McLuhan an undersiaaduig of the assembly-line and the increasi~g mccbanizatim of iüe. See LRwis MuaiTod. Technics Md CiviIitunon (New Yak: Hiucourî, Bracc and Company, IgM), pp. 13-18, Sicgiried Oiedion, Mechunùuhon Tàkes Command (New York: Mord Uiversiiy Press, 1948) pp. 209-246 and McLuhan, TheMechanicdBride, pp. 15.33.

69~lfbough ~beall popofies lhat McLuhaa's mtthododogy demanstrates boih the potential of an artistic appnwch to the shdy of culture as weü as piifalls tbat can occur when such an apptoach is wt cambiaed wiih a greater theoretical awinweJs, he ultimately @ses TheMechunical &ide as an "important book." noring that "litile oîher analysis that has been Qw of popular culture or foikiore shows such a range and subilety in deahg wiih pattern, fonn, symbd. and motive." See Theail. The Medium 1s the Rew View Minor, pp. 9-59. McLuhan's W, then, dernomirates that when it cornes to addressing advertisiag and popuiarcuitm a literaryappmmhdoes have iis advaniages-surely Roland Barthes, anoiher litemy aitic who came to comment upon the myths of popular culiure durhg the 1950s, wouid agree. See Rolaud Barthes,Mytliologies. Translated by Annent Lavem (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 19SI; New Y o k Noonday, 1988)-

75Lord Ugin and C. O. Sampson ated in Harold A. Emus, The Bias of Comntuniccuion (ïamnto: University of Toronto Press, 1951; iW], pp. XO-U)r).

7 6 ~ c ~ , TheMechahcd Bride, p. 128.

861bid., p. 24.

8fs, W.., pp. 4643.

891oid., Preface, p. vi.

90w., pp- 33-34.

l~orexample see "Corset Success C w e " where McLuhan qpaiea4'Why laugh aud p w fat wbrn you aii experience anguish and succe~s in a strait jacket?" Ibid,. pp. 152- 154.

96~bid., p. 72.

9 7 ~ c ~ bad md. simüar arguments in an e d e r article entiîled "Out of the. Comtiog Housep* where he complained M w a w eDtering ibc workfoioc w u m d y anoihsr way dgetoig bah mes o swe the m a c i D . htnesiingly noupb f d s i rhcan'st Germaine GTecrbas icrmily i u r k e d pop~ma sueh as employment equity as a oiihuatimof ih domiaant patriarchai ~ @ I I & pmicr structure. See Mpibsll McLuhan. "Clut OF tbe Cade h o the Couning-House:' Politics (Sepœmbr 1946): 271-79.

105~olinaro, et. al.. L e ~ t e ~ . p. 218.

CHAPTER FIVE

Laws of M d a -

Ricorso, Literary Studies Meet the Meàia Once More

A p p the "McLuhan canon** , Iam working fairly steadily now on The Laws of Media, which deal with aii human techndogies as completely metaphorid in structure and effect. This meaas îhat the most human ihing about us is our technologies. as Sir Peter Medwar said whimsically, not hiowing how utterly tme it was.l

The laws of media in teW fom belong poperiy to rhetoric and &rammar* not philosophy. Our canceni is etymdogy and exegesis. This is to place the modern study of tecimology and artefacts m a humanistic and linguistic basis for the fmt lime.2

h w s of Media: The New Science appeared in 1988-forty five years after McLuhan's

Cambridge dissertation on Thomas Nashe, thirty seven years after the release of his

MeciinnccaZBride, eight years after his death.3 Beginning in the mid-1970s as an attempc to

revis the classic media handbmk Understanding Media: Tiie Extensions of Man that had

propelled McLuhan to meteocic success only a decade eatlier, h w s ofMedia became one

of McLuhan's pet projects in the mid to late 1970s. During this pend McLuhan

experienced increased difficulties with his health, The year 1979 proved an especially

traumatic one. On September 26 McLuhan suffered a massive stroke which left hirn

virtually unable to speakor write-acruel irony for the once vociferous McLuhan who

never seemed at a low for words and appeared to denve great pleasure from engsiging his

opponents and naysayers in spirited verbal jousting matches. During the early hours of

December31,19ûû McLuhan suffered yet another stroke. This one proved fatal. He died

ùi his sleep leaving behind a host of unfinished projects, among them Law of MediaS The

job of tidying the book up and d y i n g it for press fell to McLuhan's eldest son Eric.5

Armed with insights gained from numemus discussions he had with his father, Eric

transformeci Laws of Media into its final form and delivered it to a somewhat ambivalent

public over a d e d e after the pruject had begun.6

It has now been over a decade since lmvs ofMeda was published yet we find the book

still remains to the side of the McLuhan canon proper as well as to the side of much

McLuhan scholarship. It is high time for this to change. This "wacky last book" is an

intnguing final commentary that offers the McLuhan scholar a wealth of critical insight

McLuhan used to say that "the business of the teacher is to save the student's ti~ne."~ As a

text, Laws of Media is a good teacher. Best approached as the culmination or synthesis of

McLuhan's pnor work, the book provides a cornmenciable summation of McLuhan's main

media theory, not to mention the finai articulation of many of his big ideas, al1 of which

makes it an interesting and worthwhile read in its own right. Added to this is the integntion

of the cognitive theory of the brain hemispheres-yet another dualistic theory for which

McLuhan developed an affinity-and the infamous laws of media, four principles which,

the McLuhans claim, every medium has in common.

Laws ofMedia is of particular interest to this project because it furthers an

undersîanding of the relationship McLuhan saw between media and literary studies. in fact,

perhaps in no other book does McLuhan make such a resounding cd1 to his literary rootr.

Modernist tendencies in twentieth century Western art and Iiterature are addressecl as is the

privileged position of the artist. The ancient rivalry between the arts of grammar, rhetoric

and dialectics from McLuhan's dissertation is discussed-îhis time with referenœ to the

dynamics of the media. Finally, the laws of media themselves are shown to embody the

four part stxucture of metaphor and aii media are deemed to be linguistic in nature.

This final chapter is dedicaîed to an exploration of this "wacky last book." Such an

examination will reveai that McLuhan's final articulation of his media theory did not stray

as far from the Literary studies of his Cambridge days as might appear. 1 wiii begin by

reviewing McLuhan's basic media theory as it is articulateci in Lmvs of Media via the terms

ofacousticand visuai space. Next, 1 will explain the relation of Robert J. Trotter's

cognitive theory of the brain hemispheres to this thmry as well as the significance of

ground- the subliminal e f fm of tecbndogy, media and artefxts. The special relation

McLuhan perœived between the disciplines of art and grammar and ground will dso be

addressed. From here 1 will proceed to discuss the focal point d the bmk-the laws of

media I rvill explore the significance of the four part structure of the tetriui as well as the

cmection the McLuhans perceived between language and human artefacts. Finally, 1 will

address the relation McLuhan observai between bis own work and the work of Francis

Bacon and Giambattista Vico-two "thorwghgoing Ancienis" who employed the tmls of

grammar.

McLuhan's Medh Theory Revisited-Acourtic and Visual Space

The opening chapter of Luws ofMédia begins where McLuhan's main media theory

begins-the genesis of visual space in ancient Greece* The McLuhans review how

prolonged usage of the phonetic alphabet, wiih its meaningless sounds and fragmenting

properties, intensified the operation of the visual sense and suppressed the operation of the

other senses, leading to a new mode of perception and, subsequentiy, a new mode of

culture for the Western wodd8Such had been the premise of McLuhan's second book,

Tire Gutenberg GarCrry: The Making of Typograpltic Man (1962). In iawsof Media the

McLuhan5 expiain that visual space is an artefact, a side-effect of using tûe phonetic

alphabet, and that it was the artefactof visuai space, a new abstract and nonexpenential

sense of space, which transformed society.9 Prior to the intensification or extensiott of the

visual sense via tbe tecbnology of the phonetic alphabet, the McLuhaas antend,

hum& did not inbabit visual space, but acoustic space-a decidedly richer and more

resonant expenence we are assured. Rather ihan king dominateci by a single sense

working in isolation, in acoustic space humankhd was thought to experience the world

through ail of the senses woricing together in synesthetic interplay. The ear, while

dominant, was apparently more Qemocratic than the eye.

Throughout much of McLuhan's popular work amustic space and its cotfesponding

concepts (oral cultute, etecûic society, the television genemtion, etc.) had ken both

idolized and idealized, associated with humankind's aatural or original state-a kind of pre-

fallen Edenic condition prior to the interiorizaiion O€ the phonetic alphabet-as well as with

sui ail inclusive awareness. In this respect Laws of Media is no different. Here the

McLuhans claim that, like the aooustic experience itself, acoustic space is spherical,

multisensory and multidimensional, with a fbcus or centre that is simultaneously

everywhere and a margin or penphery that is nowhere.~oMimesis, a technique merging

knower and known, is the dominant mode of cognition: "The cognitive agent is and

becomes the thing known."ll Unlike visual space, acoustic s p is viewed as a natural

environment and characterized as "a flux in which figure and ground nib against and

transform each other."l* Such a relationship between figure and ground, the McLuhans

insist, is precisely the relationship one Fnds in nature. As they explain:

AU situations compise an area ofattention (fifigure) and a very much larger area of inattention (ground). Tbe iwo continuaüy cœrce and play with each other across a common outiine or boimdary or interval ibat serves to d d i both simulîaneously. The shûpe of one d a m s exacily to the shap of the &r. Figures n'se out of. and recede back into, pund, which is cm-figuraiid and comprises aii d e r available figures at once. F a example, at a lecnac, anention will shift from ihe speaker's words to his gestures, to the hum O€ the lights or to street souiids, io ihe feel of ihe chair or to a memoq or association a smeU. Each new figure in tum displaces the others into grouml. Gnnmd pmvides ihe smrnurr or styk of awanness, the 'way of seeing' as Flaubert called it, or ihe 'terms on which' a figure is penxi~ed.13

Al1 of this changed, however, with the phonetic alphabet and the creation of visual

space. Visual space displaced acoustic space as the nonrtal sense of space. Its assumptions

and biases became the accepted common sense. Visual space caused people to perceive

things in tenus of, and subsequently vaIue, qualities such as individualism, objectivity,

abstractconceptuai schemes and sequential logic.i4The McLuhans depict it as the

antithesis of acoustic spa~e. If acoustic space was "spherical, discontinuous, non-

homogenouq resonant, and dynamic," visuai space was "an infimite container, Iinear and

continuous, homogenous and unifonn."~~Infiiitely divisible and infinite in extent, visual

space was a static continuum which was, significandy, "unmodified by its 'contents'."l6

The natural flux of a dynamic figure and ground tbat had characterized acoustic space was

notably absent in visual spx. Here figures were abstracted and isolated from their ground.

The McLuhans tell us that not oniy is the visual sense alone in its ability to isolate figures

on grounds, but that in nature figures mnnot exist without grounds.17 It is only in the

mental consùuct of visual space, a side-effect of the techndogy of the phonetic alphabet,

that such a feat is possible. This leads the McLuhans to conclude that visual space is the

only form of space that is "purely mental," the d y form of space with "no bais in

expetiençe."lg They point to such Western "triumphs" as the scientific view of nature,

Locke's concept of pure space and Dewarm' geometncal method as examples of visual

space's unique ability to see the world as a collection of figures devoid of grounds-19

Throughout the book visuulspce is addressed in a disparaging tone.

Enhanced by the advent of Gutenberg techwlogy, we are told that visual space reached

its peak in the eighteenth çentury and was not senously challenged until the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries when aclimate of elecbical experimentation and tecbnology emerged,

the subject of McLuhan's third book, Uiderstanding Media: Tile Ektemons of Mun. 20 The

advent of new electric technologies such as the telegraph, with its associated press, and the

telephone apparently created a new sensibility, a new awareness. While the phonetic

alphabet had only extended the eye, the McLuhaas remind us that the new electric

technologies extended the entire newous system.21 These new technologies demanded

sense interplay. As a resuit, the visuai sense lost its hold on the other senses, visual space

was obsolesced and amustic spaçe-dong with its discontinuity, sirnultaneity and

resonanœ-reûieved. As the McLuhans describe the process, "the whole mode of

perception reverted from the abstract visual order instituted by our phonetica1ph;ibet back

to the fluid and dmc audile-tactile Gesîalt; fmm isolated, ngidl y fixed figures to a

mosaic of figure-ground interplay."22The new electric technologies were realigning our

culture with that of the preliteraîe Greeks.23 Of course, the McLuhans point out, such a

transformation did not occur ovemight. After dl, the common-sense position of any culture

invariably resists a new awareness.24

The remainder of the opening chapter is devoted to highlighting aspects of late

nineteenth and twentieth century Western science, philosophy and art which reveal the

emerging pattern of acoustic space-a prime example of McLuhan's penchant for patterns

as well as thinking in hyperlinks long before the technological equivalent had become

popular. In science the McLuhans point to Niels Bohr's pnnciple of complementanty,

Louis de Broglie's wave particle duality, Werner Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy,

Max Planck's quanta theory and Albert Einstein's Ùleory of felativity as examples of our

return to an acoustic sensibility, our embtacement of discontinuity and dynamic figure-

ground relationships as well as our abandonment of single abstract points of view and

absolutes. In philosophy the McLuhan's detecc sllnilar aspects of acoustic space in Saren

Kierkegaard's dread, Jan Lukasiewicz's three-value logic, Harald Hdfding's observations

on continuity, Edmund Husserl's phenornenologid philosophy, Martin Heidegger's

Enframing and Sigmund Freud's thewy of tbe ~1~~)nscious.2s In the arts-the realm the

McLuhans seem most cornfortable addressing-tbey identify the same phenomena in the

work of Arnold Schoenberg, the Cubists, the Symbdists and the Anglo-Arnerican

Modernists-the very artisis which had influenceci McLuhan so profoundly during his

Cambridge days.

The McLuhans explain that in music Schoenberg had abandoned the "central key" and

instituted a program datonality in which whatever tom you were in at the moment became

the "tonal centre"-that is, every tone cfeated its own space, just as every element had

created its own space in acoustic spaoe.26 Similarly, in cubism Euclidean geomeûy and

perspective were abandoneci. The subject was not presented as it was merely seen, but as it

was known from multiple points of view simultaneously. In both cases, the McLuhans

claim, the single linear perspective of visual space was replaced by a multi-lacationalism

that pointed to a sphencal structure of space, i.e., an acoustic structure of space, in which

the centre or focus was simultaneously everywhere.

In the case of the French Symbolist pets, the McLuhans insist they were

"respond[ingl immediately and intuitively to the ground introduced by the telegnph by

retrieving pre-alphabetic forms of discontinuous resonance and mimesis." They explain thaî

Baudelaire had rediscovered the audience as a "mimetic ground" for his work, that his

readers put on his poems like masks and aççessed the perception of the poet: "Hypocrite

lecteur,-mon semblable, -mon frère!" Similarly, they argue, Mallarmé picked up on

Edgar Allan Poe's "suggestive indefiniteness" and made aclear move away from "the

clarity and distinctness demanded by visual bimis," announcing Qat T o name an object . . . is to do away with three-quarters of that delight in a poem which çonsists in unravelling it

bit by bit. It must be suggested.'Q7 The McLuhans maintain that the development of

madeniist poetry and literature during the late nineteenth and early twentieth œntunes-

from the Imagists' attraction to the haiku, to T.S. Eliot's conception of tradition and

history, to Joyce's use of myth-was the development of a p t r y and literature guided by

an acoustic sensibility. W.B. Yeats once cornmented ''1 have spent my life in clearing out of

poetry every phrase written for the eye, and bringing al1 back to syntax that is for the ear

alone . . . .'q* The McLuhans believed such was the case across the board. The aspects of

late nineteenth and twentieth œntury Western science, philosophy and art which are

generally regardeci as revdutionary were actuaily expressions of the retrievai of acoustic

space, instances where the ear had replaced the eye-a consequence of the new eleçtric

technologies.

McLuhan's Media Theoiy Rmued-The Brain Hemispheres and Ground

In Laws of Media a new element is injeded into McLuhan's existing media theory-

Robert J. Trotter's account of Mn-hemisphere dominance and patterns of behaviour. In a

1976 Science News article, 'The Other Hemisphere," Trotter had provided a chart of the

respective characteristics of hemispheres of the brain.29 Qualities such as logical,

mathematid, linear, detailed, sequential, analytic and intellectual were associated with the

left hemisphere, while qualities such as holistic, artistic, symbolic, sirnultanmus, synthetic,

gestalt, intuitive and creative were associated with the right hemisphere.30 McLuhan could

not help but see a parailel between such a mapping d' the hernispheres and his own media

For thirty y e m at least 1 have been using the twebemisphere appach under the names of the written and ad. the visual and the acowk, the hot and the cool. the medium and the message, &tue and g r d , and so on. Now it IWIIS out that medicinc has been building a grcat beach-head f a ihis appmach with its new understanding of the two hemispheres of ihe brain. If you look ai the mie of the left hemisphere, you will discover the lineaments of the Fht World-the literate and industrial wor1d.-and, on ihe oiher hand, in the nght hemisphere you will peiiceive the characteristics of the Third World-the w d d wiihout the phoneticalphabet.

McLuhan integrated this cognitive thecny of the brain hemispheres into his media theory,

and even used it to explain why some readers had difficulty understanding his work:

During the past ccntury, while the bioHlledge of the two hemisphem has been gniwiag, i h e ~ has also been a new electraaic milieu ot environment which automaticdy puska the right hcmisphre intu a m m dominant position ibn it bas held in the Western worid since the inventioa of iht phccic alphabet.

My work bas been a dialogue between the two hemispheres in which the characteristics of the right hemispke are given so much mqnit im tbat 1 have been unintelligible to the Ieft-kmispherepeople3 1

The left-hemisphere, then, was alignai with the concept of visual space, the alphabet and

Gutenberg technology, while ibe cight-hemisphere was aligned with the wnœpt of aooustic

space, orality and the emerging electric techndogies. These concepts s t d in contrast to

one anotherjust as McLuhan's previous concepts of dialectics and the Amencan North had

stood in contmt to grammar, rhetoric and the Amencan South. The dualistc pattern from

McLuhan's Cambridge dissertation had acquired yet a new set of terms.

Rior to h w s of Media McLuhan had propowd that the media change the balance of the

senses. Here the thesis is reformulated to include the new found cognitive theory of the

brain. We are told that "[tlechndogies ihemselves, regardless of content, produce a

hemispheric bias in the users.-2 Furthemore, the McLuhans add, "[c]ultural dominance

by either the left or the right hemisphere is largely dependent upon environmental

factors.'33 Using the example of the technology of the alphabet, the McLuhans explain that

when the alphabet created visual space it also created a visual or lineal "environment" or

ground of services and experiences-evecything from roads and highways to logical and

rational activities in social and legal administration. This visual "environment** or grouid

supported the Iineality of the left hemisphere and contributeci to the dominance of that

hemisphere.34Thuq because of the environment createû by the alphabet, a left hemisphere

bias was produced in its users.

In a 197ï letter to Lou Forsdale McLuhan claimed that it "is ody recently that t realized

that 'understanding media' means study of their subliminal ground.'"S In Laws of Media

the McLuhans stress that it is the ground of services and experiences iniroduced by a

medium or technology that we should be paying attention to. After dl, "[ilt is always the

psychic and social grounds, brought into play by each medium or technology that readjust

the balance of the hemispheres and of human sensibilities inio equilibrium with those

grounds.*~6

The emphasis on the ground of a medium which readers encounter in Lmvs of Media

points to an evolution in the articulation done of McLuhan's most famous aphorisms-the

medium is the message. In U&rstandUig Media McLuhan had explained the phrase as a

way of saying "the pemal and social consequences of any medium-that is, of any

extension of owselves-resuiis from the new d e that is htroduced into our affairs by

each extension of ourselves, or by any new tectuiology!~7 The phrase was supposed to

help people understand that the most significant mssuge of any medium or technology is

not the information it conveys, but ihe ''change of s d e or pace or pattern that it introduces

into human affairs.'qs Unfortunately for McLuhan, many leamed his mantra without

understanding what he was really getting at.39 As early as 1964, the year Understanding

Medùr was published, McLuhan had determineci that "[tlo say that any technology or

extension of man creates a new environment is a much better way of saying the medium is

the message."40 While notas catchy, the emphasis here is more accutately place- on the

environment which a given medium introduces. The medium is still the message, but that

message is, we are told, gmund.

In the introduction to Lmvs ofMedia the McLuhans expand the concept of groririd to

include the environment which gives rise to a parîicular medium:

In the order of cbings. ground cornes fmt and figures emerge later. 'Coming events cast their sbadows before W.' 'Ine g d of any iechwlogy or artefact is both the situation ihat gives rise to it and ibe whole emhment (mcdimn) d seMces and disservices that it brings into play.These environmental side-effeca impose themselves wüiy-nilly as a new form of culture. 'The medium is the message.'4

The ground for the teiegraph, then, would be both the milieu of elecûical experimentation

that gave rise to it as well as the environment of simultaneity it reintroduced to the Western

world. The difficulty arîses in that this al1 imporiant grounà, the very aspect of the media of

which we so desperately need to be aware, is elusive. According to the McLuhans, the

study of ground "on its own tenns" is "virtually impassible." Ground is "by definition at

any moment environmental and subliminaLm42 Obviously, this lems us in a bit of a bind.

If tûe environmental aspects of the media-that is, the transformational aspects of the

media-are not accessible to direct examination, how are we to address them? In the Laws

ofMedia the McLuhaiis suggest two areas of study which they believe are able to train for

an awareness of this al1 elusive grouad-significantly both emerge out of McLuhan's

. . . g r o d ouurot be deait wiih concepmelly or abstractly: it is ceaselessly changing, dynamic, discontinunis and kiaogeaeous amosaic of intervals and contours . . . ihe apppiate f m ofawaieneris is aooustic-taciile-WC and dive to the stress and coercim that each [figrne asrd gminrfl txctts on the odisf. The necessary trainhg is not available in philosopby and dialedc. Yet it dœs cxist boih ia the arts as iraining of perceptioa. and in our Western leameà iraditionas grammatical training of critical awareness for application to both fhe wriüen bodr and the ~ o o k of ~ a t i a e ? ~

Art and grammar, then, hdd the promise for an approach to media that is sensitive to its

subliminal effects.

As noted in the previous discussion of McLuhan and modernism, McLuhan believed

artists were the "antennae of the race9* or an &y warning system for the effects of new

media upon society, able to tune into the subliminal qualities of the contemporary

environment or ground well before the average person suspected anythmg had changed.

The modemists' embracement of a new sensibility of discontinuity and simultaneity was

seen as an example of this "anterulite" function tuning into the subliminal qualities of the

emerging electric technologies.44 In Laws of Media, as in McLuhan's previous writings,

the figure of the artist is venerated. Here the artist is regarded as "the only person in our

culture whose whole business has been îhe reir;iining and updating of sensibility." His or

her role is described as one of "keep[ind the community in mnscious relation to the

changing and hidden gound of its preferred objective."45 The artist is thought to "inven[t]

the means to bridge between biological inheritance and the environrnents created by

technological innovation." In other words, the artist is viewed as the figure capable of

tuning into the environmental effects of a given medium or technology and creating the

possibility of a meaningful dialogue between humaas and their technologies.46

The McLuhans warn us that, without the intervention of the artist, humankind tends to

faIl into a cornforîable but dangernus relatiunship with its technologies. As McLuhan had

pointed out in a 1966 letter to Claude BisseII, "men without art strongly tend to be

automata, or somnambulisr, imprisoned in a drearn."47 In Laws of Media the McLuhans

caution that the "submissive interiorizkg of modem technology" wiii necesSanly lead to "a

total shelving of private identity or merely humanistic values." They maintain we w d d do

well to remember tiie observation Wyndham kwis made about the human king who is in

harmony with bis or ha tecbadogies: "the well-adjusted man is a robot." Tm is, when we

passively engage Our technologies we are reduced to "serv~mechanism[s]"-a state this

passage from Erich Fromm illustrates:4s

. . . The wdd becornes a ~ u m of liselem erOfacâs; f m synlheiic food io synktic orgam. the whole man becmes part of ihe toiai machinery that be contrds and is simdtaneowly contnolied by. He ha9 m plan, no goai fa life. except h g what the logic technique deteunines him to do, He aspires to make rom as one of the gceaiest achievements of his iechriical mind, and swie spwiaüsts assure m ihat ihe rabot will k d l y be disthguished fom Living men. This achicvement wüi aot seem so astoaisbulg when man h i d i s M y distioguishabie fm a robot,49

Such had been McLuhan's ovemding fear in Ilie MechicalBride where he observed

humankind's apparent willingness to imprison itself in a variety of ''mechaniml stmi t

jackets" of i ts own making, happy to march onward in a somnambulistic trance to the beat

of its technologies.

The McLuhans insist that when it cornes to using our technologies, we çannot trust

ourselves.so We need someone with the perception of the artist, someone who will libente

us "fmm the robot siatus imposed by 'adjusting' to technologies," or better yet, prevent us

from mindlessly falling victim to the subliminal effects of ground in the f i i t place.

Rimbaud deciared the artist's job one of "le d6réglement de tous Ies sens9'- the upsetting of

the senses, the awakening of the faculties to full aware~ess.~~ McLuhan believed that if we

could engage our technologies with this sense of awareness, Le., an awareness of the

hidden ground which they introduce, we would find ourselves in a bek r position to cope

with and ptentially counteraçt their subliminal effeckS2 Hence, in McLuhan's media

theory ihe training of perception offered by the arts is synonymous with the training for an

awareness of grouad and the artist is an integrai element, necessary for the survival of our

very humanity. No wonder McLuban considered Harold tnnis' lack of training in the arts a

Such is the significance of art to McLuhan's program, but what of grammat? To

answer this question we must rehm to the topic of McLuhan's Cambridge dissertation, the

trivium, and examine its articulation in Lmvs of Media. While McLuhan never managed to

get bis dissertation published, many of its wncems are reiterated in this final work.

The McLuhans commence their discussion of the tnvium with an exploration of the

concept of logos as it was undersiood by the preliterate Greeks, maintainhg that

knowledge of the logos as resonant utteranœ or word is imperative for a full appreciation

of the trivium, They tell us that logos was viewed by the sixth century B.C.E philosopher

Heraclitus as "the informing pnnciple of cosmology," the formula, structure, plan or

"formal cause of the kosmas and ail things, responsible for their nature and configuration."

In an acoustic world logos was active and metamorphic. There was an intimate relationship

between words, deeds and things.54'The universe was a verbal universe."5s It is this

sense of logos, the McLuhans suggest, which we encounter in the Christian logos of

creation-'"Let there be light' is the uttering or outering of lightt"56

With the introduction of the alphabet, the McLuhans explain, "the logos was smashed

and the orai establishment drowned in a sea of ink."57 The logos was not, however,

completely lost. The McLuhans insist that fragments of the old system were retrieved and

recast by the fifth-century Stoics as a threefold pattern on the new ground of the alphabet.

In the Stoic system the logos of the pre-liîerate Greeks was split into logos hendiathetos,

"the inner, abstract word in the mind pnor to (or minus) speech," logos prophorikos, "the

'uttered word"' and Iagos spermarikos, "the (uttered) logos as 'seeds' embedded in things

animate or inanimate that structure and inform them and provide the formal principles of

their being and growth (becoming)." The McLubans identify this threefold pattern of logos

as a precursor to the trivium proper, wiwith its corresponding elements of dialectics (logic or

philowphy), rhetoric (the art of v e M persuasion} and grammar (muiti-level exegesis and

etymology).58

The elernents of the trivium are ody briefly outlined in h w s of Media, i.e., there are

none of the copious details that give the dissertation its distinctiveness, however, they are

here contextuaiized within McLuhan's media tbeory. Dialectics, with its emphasis on

abstraction, absolutes and sequeniid patterns of thought, is viewed as "the extreme of left-

hemisphere operation" and associated wiih the mode1 of figures without grounds we

encoùntered in the McLuhans' description of visual space (i.e., dialectics is associated with

the literate technologies of the alphabt and the printing press). The McLuhans perceive

dialectics as speçializing in "the word as thought" and consider it an "inevitably theoretid"

art. In contrast to dialectics stand rhetoric and grammar. Both of these arts are regarded as

"principally right-hemisphere activities" and as psessing both figure and ground-

rhetoric because of its attention to the audience, the ground of any work, and grammar

because of its twin concems of'ekymology and multi-level exegesis, what the McLuhans

refer to as "the ground-search for structure and roots." In other words, rhetoric and

grammar are associated with odity and the elecironic media Because both arts share an

interest in words as they are presented to the exterior senses in speech and writing the

McLuhans consider these arts to be "empirical" in nature.59

The McLuhans believe that as long as these arts were united in the configuration of the

classical trivium, they provided a balance of the hemispheres of the bnin. Thus, an

education based on the classical tnvium (i.e., as it was articuiated by Cicero, Quintilian and

St. Augustine) necessarily included elemenis of the left and the right hemispheres. We are

told, however, that ail was upset with the advent of Gutenberg technology:

For more than tifteen centuries, most of our Western hisiocy, the Cicemian program, itself a retnevai of the ddGrceklibera1 cducaîid system, ihe 'egkukiios paiâeia' . - . was the M s of liberal educatim and Christian humanism. Wïth print, via Gutenberg. ibe v i d stmm of ibt alphabet g d iiew axeiidancy. Sptarheadedby the French diaieaician Peta Ramus, anew battie of the Anciaits (rbeioriciam and gpumuhms) and Madenis (didecticiaap) was mg4 aiad àiaktic 'Meihod' obeolesced tradition. Since thai time grammar d ktgic have been cast in a dialeciic a Ieft-hemisphar maid, al- wiib al1 of out arts a d sciences. It is d y with the r e m to acoustic space in this centuty, ta right-hcmispke muitiseiisory lanns of awareness, thai the tabies begin to tummcemore.60

The basic pattern of the rivalry between the arts of dialedia, rhetoric and grammar that

McLuhan had outlined in his Cambridge dissertation is here recast vis a vis his media

theory. The triumphof dialectics over the arts of grammarand rhetoric is the triumph of the

left-hemisphere over the right hemisphere, the triumph of a visual sensibility over an

acoustic one. The figure of Peter Ramus, while still singled out as a driving force bebind

the ascendancy of diaiectics, is here associated with ttie larger and more menacing force of

Gutenberg technology. By this time McLuhan had found a technological explanation for the

destruction of the balanceci üivium in the media Apparently he aiso hinged his hopes for

the retum of grammat and rhetoric on a similar dynamic.

Just as the art of grammar had been priviieged in McLuhan's dissertation, so it is in

Law of Media. While the McLuhans s p i c of the arts of rhetoric and grarnmar as

intimately linked and collectively allied aga'nst diatectics, it is îhe art of grammar which

they single out as the art capable of creating an awareness of ground via iis dual techniques

of manifold interpretation. The McLuhans allege that the Christian gmmmarians, perceiving

an interplay of figure and ground between scripture and nature in Genesis where the

entirety of creation is presented as a divine speech, sought to develop parallel techniques

for interpreting the Book of Scripture and the bookof Nahue-"one for each divine text,

world and Writt"61 They stress that the grammarians regardecl these two books as two

sides of the same coin, "parailel tex& in different idiomsn- both divine utferances.62The

same was uue of the two modes of exegesis. The grammarians considered both

meîhodologies to be in "perfect correspondence," "fully complementary, as warp and

w ~ o f . " ~ ~ TO elaboraie on the tradition of grammatical interptation the McLuhans turn to

E t i e ~ e Gilson's The Philosop@ of Sf. Bonaventure, quoting a selection from the very

passage McLuhan had cited in his 1943 Cambridge dissertatio~

Since tbe d v e m was offcred to bis eycs as a book to read d he saw in nature a sensible mvelatim a u a i o p to îhat of ih actiphiios, the iraditional metbods of inierpretacion whichbadalways bappi iedto ihessued books couldequally be applied to rhe book of creaticu. Just as there is sm immedhk and Iiieral scase d the @sue lext. but aise an allepical sense by which we discover th Putbs dfaith tbat the lemr sigrdies, a iropological sense by wbi& we discwer a m d pc~cept behiod ik paasage in Lbc farm of au hskxical aarrarivt, and au anagogical serisc by which our sauls are raiseci to the love aad desin of God, so we must aat attend to the literal and immediate swse d ihe tmk of creatim but look for its inaer meaaing in the thwlogical, moral and mystical Ic~sans ihatitmtains.Thepasaageframonedibesetwospheres totheaîberisthe m a eady effëcted in that rbeyare in d i t y inscpambleP4

Because the entireîy of craion was viewed as a speech in which uIteri11gs were also

ouferic~gs-Uat is, words were things and tbings were words-it was believed îhat the

same technique of multi-level exegesis that had been applied to scriptme could be

successfully applied to nature.

The McLuhans go on to explain that medieval grammarians regarded the theory of four-

fold musality as a palle1 mode of exegesis to the four levels of inkrpretation-the four

Ievels of interpretation served as the exegetical mode of scripture whik four-fold causality

served as the exegetical mode of nanire.45

Fonaal Came Material Cause Efkient Cause Fiaalcause

fiteral level Figurative (Meguical) level Tmpiogical (Motal) lcvel Aaagogicai (or lkhadogicai) level

In each case, the four elements w m resonant and simuitaneous, Once again, however, the

McLuhan5 tell us that everything &an@ with the advent of Gutenberg technology.

The McLuhans maintain that the doctrine of simultaneous four-fold causality, dong

with the tradition of multi-level exegesis, was obsolesced in tbe Renaissance with the push

into visual space aad the dominance of ttie left-hemispkre. The figureground resonance

b e m n scnpture and nature as well as the interplay of causes and levels of interpretation

the grammananans bad perceived was destroyed. Four-fold causality was abandoned in

favou of a "modem" s ~ i e n ~ c outlook. Efficient caw, refmulated by Galileo as the

oecessary condition for a specific effect, was declareci îhe sole cause: "that and no other is

142

to be d l e d cause, at the p n c e of which the effect always follows, and at whose

removai the effect disqpm.''66The remaining causes which had been so integral to a

grammatical understanding of the Bookof Nature were ignored in the modem scientific

Whea modeni science was bom. fomai and final causes w m left aside as sianding beyond ihe reach of expah«if; and matenai causes were &n for g~aated in coanectiaa wifh al1 naiurai bappcmngs-ihough with a &fhtely non-Aristoielian aeaning, since in the modern wodd view matter is essentially the subject of cbanp, mt 'ibat out of which a tbing m e s to be and wbich penisis.' Hence, of the four Aristotelinn causa only the &icient came was regardcd as w d y dscicntific d67

ECficient cause resonated with the qualities of visual space and left-hemispheric thinking as

well as with the ne& of modem science. In addition to king the only cause which

operateci sequentiaily, itcould be mathematicaily expressai, defined in empincal terms and

was viewed as controllable-apparently a necessity for modem science's goal of

hamessing natum68 Unfominately, the McLuhaas tell us, with efficient cause "ail study of

effects (Le., of ground) is set aside.'S9 Thus, in abandonhg four-fold causality in favour

of a"modem" scientific outlook Western civilization had dso abandoned a viable means of'

training for an awfueness of ground. While the ancient art of grammar was thought to

develop a critical awareness sensitive to ground via iis techniques of manifold

interpretation, the modem science which replxed it was not.

The McLuhans go on to complain that ail contemporary studies of media follow the

flawed pattern of efîlcient causaiity. They daim ail Western models of communication,

typified in the Shannon-Weaver model, share a "modem" scientific outlook. They are

linear, logical, sequentiai and exude a left-hemisphere or visuai bias.70 The McLuhans

depict them as "pipeline" models, overly facussed on the ability to send messages over a

c h e l and accuratel y reproduce them at the other Such models, they contend, do

not account foe the side-effects w ground of media which accompany the centrai channel of

cornmunicatioa?2That is, they stress the lral~rmrkswn of messages rather than the

aansfomng aspects of media. For the McLuhans any model which fils to address the

side-ekts or üansforming aspects of media is an ill-suited one:

For use in the elecinc age, a nght-hemiaphere m d d c o m m u n i ~ ~ t i ~ ~ is necessary. both because orpcuintre has &y completcd tbe pocess of shifting its cognitive modes fnnn the left io the right hemisphere. and because the electronic meâia ihemselves are right- bemisphetc in th& paltems a d opersticm. The probiem is to discover such a d that yetis cougenial to our culnire wiib iîs residuum of left-hcmiJphere traditiaii. Such a mode1 w d d have to take into acçount the appositionof both figure and ground imtead of concentrathg solely on an abstract seqmce or movement isdated from any groini673

The McLuhans believe they have discovered such a model in their laws of media

The Luws of Media-

An Artistic Endeavour, a Grammatical Device and a New Science

Eric tells us that when he and his father started work oa the h w s ofMedia project his

fatherasked, "What statements can we make about media that anyone can test-prove or

disprove-for himself? What do al1 media have in common? What do they doTv4

Expecting to find no les than a dozen factors, they instead discovered four, and O& four.

1) every medium enhances, amplifies or intensifies some aspect of a situation or extends

some organ, sense or faculty of the user (e.g., the computer enliawes the speeds of

calculation and retrieval), 2) every medium obsolesces or diminishes an area of experience

or displaces a pnor situation (the most obvious case king where a new medium replaces an

older medium, e.g., the refrigerator obsolesces the ice box or mot cellar), 3) every medium

retrieves or recalls something or some aspect of a situation that was previously obsolesced

(e.g., the elecûic light remèves daytime activities such as baseball or reading by faicilitating

their practice at night) and 4) every medium reverses its characteristics when overlded,

oveheated or pushed to the extreme (e.g., the car extends mobiliry untii tbere are too many

of hem, then it reverses înto immobility in the inevitaôle traffic jam). Together these four

factors fonn the "laws" of media.75

Like much of the book, the concepts expressed in the laws are familiar ones. The ideas

of enhancement, obsolescence and reversal were addressed in Unders tdng Media

(1%4), while the notion of retrieval formed the basis of F m Cliché to Archetype ( 1970).

They did not, however, appear dlectively as a set of laws until 1975 when McLuhan

unveiled them to the world in a bnef article in Techmlogy and Culhne. In this article

McLuhan provided samples of the laws at work, showing how they could be applied to a

variety of "media" from cable television and the microphone to the instant replay and the

Copecnican revolution, explainhg that his sense of the term "media" included conventional

communication media as well as the "larger entity of information and perception which

foms our thoughts, structures our experience, and determines our views of the world

about us.'V6 In an attempt to develop a dialogue around his new discovery McLuhan

solicited feedback from the journai's reacîecs, opedy chailenging anyone to disprove his

laws. Much to his dismay the sole response was a rambling letter from an engineer and

practicing attorney in Pittsburgh, Pemsylvania- hardly the reception he had imagined for

what he would later refer to as his "greatest achievernent.'q'

The laws were McLuhan's answer to the Shannon-Weaver model of communication

study. While the Shannon-Weaver model resûicted itself to the linear, logical and

sequential pattern of efficient causality, or left-hemisphere thinking, the laws were thought

to embody the principles of multi-Ievel c a d i t y and xight-hemisphere thinking.

Consequently, the McLuhans insist their laws account for ground, the side-effects of the

media that the Shannon-Weaver model ignores. They suggest that al1 will be revealed if

only four simple questions are asked of a given medium: What does it enhance? What does

i t obsoiesce? What does it retrieve? What does i t reverse inio? They be lieve that tradi tional

modes of mediaaaalysis are theoretical and tend to linùt îhemselves to consideration of the

medium in the abstract, while chtir laws are empiricai and facilitate careful observation of

the medium in relation to its gnwid. As they explain, "[m]edia, that is, the ground-

configurations of effects, the service environments of technoiogies, are inaccessible to

direct examination since the effects are mainly subliminal . . . Our laws of media are

intended to provide a ready means of icientifying the properties of and actions exerted upon

ourseIves by our technologies and media and artefacts.'v8

Acçording to the McLuhans, because the laws revealed the hidden effecis or ground of

media, technology and artefacts, bey were "endeavours of art" and devices of gramma~~9

Simply by asking four simple questions, then, the laws provided the reader a means to

apprahing ground. This was the awareness McLuban had been striving to achieve

throughout his career. No wonder he consïdered the laws a pmfound discovery.

When McLuhan first unveiled the Iaws in the Technology and Culhue article they were

simply listed in sequence (A, B, C, D). By the time they found expression in Laws of

Mediiz, however, they were graphically rendered in tetradic fonn:

ENHANCES REVERSES

REWEVES OBSOLESCES

In addition to stressing the sirnultanmus and çomplemenhry nature of the laws (A is to B

as C is to D and so forth) and offenng McLuhan a p t i c form of expression, the four part

structure of the tetrad served to illusirate the relationship the McLuhans had corne to

perceive between the four laws and the four part structure of metaphor.80 McLuhan had

long maintained that metaphors were complex ratios among four parts enabling us to see

one set of relations through another set81 In Laws of Media the McLuhans proies that the

four parts of metaphor are actually two figure-ground relationships in apposition. They

explain that al1 metaphors have fourcomponenis in analogical ratio, but generally ody two

of these components, the figures, are made expücit: "'Cats are the c r a b p of life'

presents 'cas are to (my) life as crabgrass is to au othewise beautiful lawn.'" That the

ground components tend to cemain ùnplicit means they are often ignored. The McLuhans

cornplain that this leads to s m e d u s i o n about the nice nature of metaphor. What should

be undersfood as a nght-hemisphere technique of perception or awareness involving two

figures and two grounds is often tainted by aleft-hemisphere or visual bias. Consequently,

the "usual approach to metaphor is purely verbal rather than operational or structural, that

is, in left-hemisphere terms of the figwes only, minus their grounds.'%*

The conventional treatment of metaphor, then, is as inadequate as the conventional

study of media-both omit the elements of ground. The McLuhans maintain that their

tetrad, with its four laws in proportion, embodied the four part structure of metaphor- two

figures and two grounds.

The McLuhans tell us that in playing with the four laws they discovered that the laws

were applicable to more than what is traditionally regarded as media. Much to their

surprise, the laws could be applied to giJ human artefacts, everything humankind rnakes or

does. That is, "every procedure, every style. every artefact, every poem, song, painting,

gimmick, gadget, theory, technology -every product of human ef fort-manifested the

same four dimensions," the same four aspects of enhancement, obsolescence, retneval and

reversal.83 Equally significant, they aiso discovered that the four laws did not apply to non-

human or narural things. That is, the laws seemed to work for television, Einsteinian space-

time relativity and cigarettes, but they did not work fw spiders' webs, beaver dams or

birds' nests. That their four laws seemed to apply to al1 human artefacts and not to anything

natural prompted the McLuhans to conclude that the four part structure of metaphor was

present in the human realm and notably absent from the natural realm-"testimony to the

fact that the mind of man is structurally active in al1 human artefacts and hypotheses.'*84

In the book's preface Eric McLuhan claims that "[flinding the link to metaphor led to

one of the farthest-reaching realizations which itseif tied directly back to the subtitle of UM

[Understanding Media], 'the extensions of man*. Utterings are outerings (extensions), so

media are not as words, they actually me words, and we had stumbled upon the key to their

not philosophy." The t e d , then, like the rest of McLuhan's work, embodied the spirit of

his 1943 dissertation. As a communication mode1 this was as far from the Shannon-Weaver

mode1 as one could get.

Apparently when McLuhan was working on h s ofMedia he detected an affinity

between his woskand the work of Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico. Eric recalls that

his father would "refer to the works of Bacan or Vico, rather as one would consuit

colleagues . . . realiz[ingj fhat they and o h r grammarians had ken steering courses

parallel to bis (or vice versa), bringing the tools of literary training to bear on understanding

the world and our part in k"90 While Bacon and Vico are generally regarded as

philosaphers (i.e., Modems ordialecticians) the McLuhans p r o p that they were actually

"thoroughgoing Ancients" on the side of rhetoric and grammar. Bacon, who like McLuhan,

shared a penchant for aphorisms, had relieci on the grammatical method of manifold

interpreiation in his T h New Organan; or, T m Directions concerning the Interpretation of

Name.91 Similarly Vico, whom the McLuhans dub "the last great pre-elecüic

gramdan," was a professocof rhetoric who employed etpology and exegesis- the

classic tmls of the art of grammar-in his Scienza Nuova. Just as McLuhan observed that

grammar was once regarded as an important bais of scientific mettiod in his dissertation,

we are told that Bacon and Vico "continuously assert[ed] the daims of grammar ris mie

science.'q* In the McLuhans' eyes Bacon and Vico were pmçtitioners d Gzammar,

diligently applying the aacient skills of inierpretation to the hook of Nature. Evidently with

Lmvs of Media McLuhan believed he and his son were doing the same.

The Mctuhans maintain that with tkir respective "New Sciences1'-The New ûrganan;

or, T m Directions concemirg the Inierprehzîbn of Nature and Scienza Nwva- Bacon and

Vico were laying down a challenge to ihe "Old Science." Whereas "Old Science" was a left-

hemisphere theoretid science that began with knowledge and concepts and proceedeâ by

figures without ground, the "New Science* put Corth by Bacon and Vico was a right-

hernisphere empiricai science that begau with ignorance, bias and percepts and proceeded

by figures and gcounds. Just as the "Old theoretical Science" could not succeed without an

apparatus for locating and remedying flaws in reasoning, the McLuhans explain that the

"New empirical Science" of Bacon and Vico could not succeed without an apparatus for

detecting and compensating for sensory or percephmi bias. As Bacon had noted, ". . . the

minci of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things

shouid reflect according to their tme incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanteci glass, full

of superstition and imposture."93 The McLuhans insist that both thinkers account for such

bias in their theoies-Bacon in his four idols and Vico in his four axioms. Such accounts,

the McLuhans believe, amount to nothing less than "a foundation for a deraileci theory of

communication."94 While the Shannon-Weaver mode1 of communication study belonged to

"Old Science," the McLuhans believe their laws of media belonged to the New Science of

Bacon and Vico- hence the subtitle Eric bestowed upon their book:

Bacon caüed his book the Novum Organum (or N o m Organon, as a swat at Aristode's foilowen), the New Science; Vico called bis the Science Nwva, the New Science; 1 have subtitied ours The New Science. On ~eflectim, 1 am tempted to d e ihat ihe titie and Lmvs oJMedia the subtitle, for it should stand as volume hee of a work begun by Sir Francis Bacon and cauied fanvard a centwy later by ~iambattista vicogS

The McLuhans insist that "the key to the whole business is sensibility, as the serious p e t s

and artists (and grammarians) have always maintained" and leave us with the following

passage at the end of the book:

The goal of science and ihe aris and of educatian fa the next generation must be Io decipher not the geoetic but the percqmd code. In a global inhmation enviroment. he d d pattern of uiucaiion in snswer-f~nding is of no avail: one is sllc~ouaded by answers, millions of them, moving and mutating at elecaic speed. Survival and conuol will depend on che ability to probe and to question in tk proper way and place. As the information that coosiitutes the environment is perpctuaüy in flux, so the need is mt for fued concepts but rather for che anCient skiU of reading that book, for navigating through an ever imcharted and uncbartable milieu. Else we wi i i have no more contml of Ibis techndogy and envimament than we bave of the wind aad tidesg6

Such had been McLuhan's goal throughout his career, from Tiie Mechanical&i& where

he aîtempted to arrest the "whiding phantasmagOnC of advertking and popularculture for

contemplation and educate against the dominant media environment to lmvs of Medh

where he would remind us that "[t]here is no inevitability where there is a willingness to

pay attention."97 McLuhan believed îbat media determinism could o d y occur when we

were well-adjusteci, when we were not paying attention, when we are not aware of the

perceptuai bias imposed upon us by our own technologies. In Laws of Media the

percephml techniques offered by the arts and the techniques of grammar, almg with the

consrnict of the tetrad, are identified as potential meam of escape-escape through

awareness and understanding. In such a manner McLuhan hoped we could contcol our

technology, media and artefacts, preserve our humanity and set our own course.

In Laws ofMedia, then, the McLuhans provide us with an approach to media that

harkens back to McLuhan's bmsh with modemism and his tnvium research. If media were

indeed verbal in nature then it made perfect sense to subject them to an analysis which was

grounded in Iiterary studies. Just as the arsçient grammarians had recognized nature as a

divine text CO be understood in much the same manner as scripture, McLuhan came IO see

al1 human artefacts as amllection of linguistic entities to which the techniques of grammar

could be applied. Henœ the rde of the temi: "[elach tetrad gives the etymology of iis

subject, as an uttering or outering of the body physical or menial, and provides its anatomy

in fourfold exegetical manner.*qg Donald Theall once describeci McLuhan's method as "an

ever-growing extension of The MechancalBn'&-an attempt to 'read' (in the Barnnian

and new critical sense, i.e., the exegetical sense of the word) cultural objects." In Laws of

Mdia McLuhan demonstrates that, like Bacon and Vico, he was a "thorough going

Ancient" employing the tools of grammar.99

Notes for Chapttr Fivt

Laws of Med'iu-Ricorso, Litcrary Studies Meet the Media Once More

l AMie hioham, Cninae McLuhan. and William Toye. eds. Leners ofMmhulI McLuhan (Toronto: Md University Press, 1981). p. 5s.

2~anhall McLuhan and Enc McLuhan, Lmvs ofMedia: The New Science (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, lm). p.128.

In 1989 The Globol Villoge: tram$ormahons in world life anà media in the 2lst cennuy by Marshall McLuhan 6 t h Bnice R Powers was releaaed. The matexiai bears a stro~g resemblance to îhe material in Laws of Media, however it is largely in conversational format andlesa theoreticai. süessing the practid application of the laws of media and their predictive powers.

4~ee~euence W. Gordon, Marshall McL,uhan: Escape in@ UndersIcurding-A Biogrophy fr'mnto: SiodQit, lm, pp. 285-297.

SEric had wocked with his father since the mid 1960s and came to play an increasingiy prominent d e in bis father's research during the later yeus of bis father's Me, aerving as aceauibor on McLuhan's City as Clasroom: UndetstandinghguagedMedia (1977) aloag with Katbryn Hutchon, as weU as acting as McLuhan's nght hand on the Lmvs project

6Lmvs of Media, iike The Globai Village. received mixed reviews. Many d the reviews, especially the less academic ones, were superficial aod coloiwd by a pcoccupation with McLuhan's persona ratber than a seriaus engagement with the text. See for example, Louis Dudek's piece in the O t m a Citizen, Jmu;uy 8, 1989. Chistopber Dornan's "McLuhancy is ihe message" in The Monneal Gaffe. January 18,1989 or Trevor biens review in the Vancouver Sun, February 14, LW.

7~arshall McLuhan in Harold A. innis, The Bias of Communication (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951; LW), p. ix. *Mc~uhan 4 ~criihan. iuws, pp. 4, 17,

SThe McLubans insist that each sense creates a fam of space peculiar unto itself, thus a society or culturc using the phoaetic alphabet would Cid itself domïnated by the visual sense and deeply immersed in visud space. See M., pp. 4, 110.

lolibid., pp. 18'30.

l pp. 16.35.

I3hilarshall McLuhan had been employing the iemis figure and ground for a numbcr of years, most wubly in ibc book City as Classroom, Tbe explauatim &en here is ammg ihe most succinct to be found in McLuhan's w h . M.. p. 5.

l 61bid.., pp. 23-24.

17M.. p. 15.

'%a.. p. 40.

2'%%e ~ c ~ u b s n s claim ihat it is visual space enbaMled by Gutcnbcrg technoiogy which we emxtmterin tbe~espxtive theoies ofDPsc;ates, ûaüieo, Hobbes and Locke. See Ibid., pp. 23-24.42,

'3~1th reference to f i t # Capra's Tiie Tm of Physics hicLuban c ù m c m h i Eastern cuitwes, almg wiih otber d culhaes, as aanistic in nature ami, thafœc, paraiici ta p-üierate Grcece catire modem &y West. See M... pp. 43.59-60.72-73,

241bid., p. 42.

25hcIudcd in this discussim is îhe muaial inîluence aciemx and phüaPopby id upon me aaother at rhis the . See M. pp. 40-47.

261bi;d... p. 52.

27w*, p. 48,

'*M., p. 50.

2% the articleTmiter contrasted the kmïsphenc bias of Ameriçan English with the laoguage used by ihe MtdBafftt I s l d ancl found ihe huit language to b e 4 ~ m œ t synthetic of ail languages" and Amencan Engiish to be "the m a t adytic," thus reîiechg a " l e f t - ~ ~ c bias". [t was the bmin c h that Trotter provided, howwer, whicb most inierested McLuban. W.. p. 67,

301bid... p. 67-69.

'Molinam et. al., Letters, p. 522.

3 2 ~ c L u h a n d ~ c ~ h , p. 71.

33l&id., p. 72.

341bid., p. 72-73.

3 5 ~ ~ ~ McLuban to Lou Focadaie, 6 A p d L9n. Io Gordoo. f icapin& Undersrding, p. 313.

3 7 ~ McLuhan, Understmding Media. Tire Eitremwns ofMun (h4cGraw-HiIl, 1964; Cambridge, Mass: MlT Press, 1994). p. 7.

3% a 1970 letter to Jonathan Miller McLuban camplaiaed d people accepting bis phrase "the medium is the message" w i b t understanduig it and suggested it wns safer to bave the phrase rejected by people who did oot undersiand it. See Molinaro et. ol.. Itelfers, p. 404.

4 0 m . p. 309.

4hfcLuhan and McLuhan, h s , p. 5.

421bid.. p. 5.

4 3 ~ . , pp. 63-64.

44w*, p. 47

451M, pp. 5, 114.

46lw., p. 98.

47~dinam et. d., Lem, p. 333.

4 8 ~ ~ a d McLuhaa tmvs, pp. 64-65.

4%h Fromm. The ARotomy of Hiuntan Desmrn>eness, 380ff, p. 3% ated in M. p. 6 5 .

%ee Moiinam et. ul., Lem. p. 528.

5 4 ~ aod ~ c ~ u b a n . h, pp. 36-37.

631bidlbid, pp. 9.217.

64~tieane Gilsaa. The Philosophy of SC. Bonaverittcre, p. 17 cited in W., p. 218.

6SW., pp. 51,8840,217. The syrstemaiic description of the causes the McLubaas &er is taken fmm Mario Bungc's Cmr~aliiy: l%e P k e of the C d Princip& in Modern Science. Hue material cause is ddirned as "the passive w q t a d e on wbich th d g c a i u e s act-and wbich is anyrhiag except the matter of modem science." f d cause as tbat "which contriiuced theessence, ides cr quality of the thing cammed.'' efficient cause as "k cxitcpal compulsiai dut bodies bad io obey," aad Fiaal cause as "ihe goal to which evcrythhg smve and which cverytbiog w e d "

6 7 ~ a r i ~ Bunge, Cm~~aliity, p. 32. cited in W., p. 51.

%ee Ibid.. pp. 50-51, af. 90,

'Olbid-. pp. 86-87, W. l ~ h e M c L b describe the pipeliae mode1 as follows: a message mveis from ui infornation source over

a communiumiion chamrel to a traosmiuer where it is converted to a signal, which is then sent to a receivrr where it is tecuavcried k k to a message ihai is sent un to its final destination.

74W., Wace, p. vüi. See also Eric Mc- "b G a i s d Laws of Merlia." in George S;uiderson and FranLMacDomald, &. Mmiuill McUtan: The & Md His Messcrge (Golden, Cdor* Fulcnnn, 1%9), p. 2ûZ Apparentiy McLuhan spent the cest of his life sacbbg fora Fith law and üying to find a single case in which oae of ihe forir laws did mt aEipIyY He did mt s d The M C ~ claim bat they. with the assistance O€ ibeir cdleagues, s p ~ over twelve yeam of "amtant investigation" searchg for a fith iaw or a single inaiance in which ane of the fwr was abswt ar urelevant to no avid. They place a direct challeogetothereaderto~up~~hSeeMcLuhandMcLuhan,Lmvs~p. 7.

'%'k McLuharts k i s t tbat theirobciervaiiaps abauttbe mediacm bedescnaedas "laws" because îhey Cuifii two of the criteria idqiared da11 laws of science: thy must be veriliabieor testable a d allow for predictiria They bciieve theu statanenirr are testable by aoytme and that in idaitifying what kiad d re&ievals or reveds will O~CIP they posses~ aprrdicrivt quality. Sec McLuhan and McLPhan, h s . pp. 8,116. McLuhan's f i biagraphcr, h k c h d poinis out the ahmdty of McLuhan's expeciation ihiit ihese media"iaws" w w l d be any m m s c i d c than any of ùis oiher themies. As he notes, there were too few facmai conso;uints upar k m io rcscmbie a Jaentifïc hypoihesis: 'They c d d not be disproved, d y

endlessly aagued." Both of McLuhan's biographas point to McLuhan's desire to be iaken seriously by a scientif~dy encul~tated audience as an- ta Miaiog his oûsemaiiol~p about ibe media as "laws." Mmhand nates Chat McLuhan badùeenjeaious d h e picstige ofsciuice f a c#we rime and suggests he was eager to recast bis the0ne.s in a more acceptaMe form, whüe Grndai inf i that McLuhan was attempting to counter Jonaihaa Miller's daim ibet bis work had no scieniific basis. See Philip Marchand, Mmhall McLuhan: The Medium &the Mssenger (ï0~01110: Vincage, 1989). pp. 241-242 and Gonloa, Ercqxinfo Undestmding, pp. 325,334. Dcawing aa Kari P q q d s dethtition of a scientiîïc statement as "someîhing stated in sucha manner that it d d be dispov&" McLuhan was conviacd his observations about the media were nothing but "scientific." McLuhan and McLuûan, Law, Reface, p. viii.

7 6 ~ h a l l McLuhan. "McLuhan's Laws of Medh" TmhtwIogy MdCulnae 16: 1 (January 1975). pp. 7 4 75.

marcba band, The Medium anà the Messenger, pp. 241-242.

791bril.. pp. 109,224.

80~ee W.., pp. 129-130. The McLuhaas note ihai enhancement and obsolescence are canplemenIacy actions, wùüe the relation between obsdescence aad d e v a l is subtler. Obsolescence is not the end of anyfhiog, but the beginning of aesthciics. (e.g., movies becme art foms when TV replaces thcm as the entertainment smund) while reineval is not simply a case of bauiing back the dd, it must be updated in relation to its new ground (e.g. the atüumoùüe okdeseed the age of hone and buggy as a mode of traasportatioo. but were retrieved with new significaoce as the Western). R e v e d is simply the ancient doctrine h t al1 things appear under fonns opposiie to those ihat ihey h ü y present. See W., pp. 99. 101, 105-106,

8 lSee, fa example, McLuhaa, U&srcMIangMediu, pp. 59-60.

8 2 ~ c ~ u h a n and McLuhan, Luws, p. 120. The Mc- criticize Aristoile's account of rhetoric, poetry and metapha for king dialectical aco~mts of h c malters, claimiog îhat his description of metaphor is acaially a description of syneçdoche, In addiibn ibey daim the theoiies of metapha put forth by Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Jhmda are mird in a visual or left-t#misphere bias and ihat theù approncks to metaphor are equivalent to the iraaspoitaiiua or pipeline theay of communication siudy which the McLuhatis criticizcd in the Shanwn-Weaver m d . As fa the McLuhans insisience on a full bistory of the trivium. perhaps McLuhan wm simply articulatiog a need fot Ihe publication of bis dissemtion. The McLuhana cornplain tint most of ourexpia~atioaJldescn~oas of metapûor are left-bmisphere or v i s d , coming from dialectically indined thinLen and ihat an exteasive hisrary of the tnvium would provide us withafullerunderstanctiagof metaphor- See Mctubanaod McLuhan, Laws, pp. 121-123.

+%if., Preface, p. ix.

85&fIbid, Reface, p. Ur.

871bid., Reface, p. x.

lIbid-, pp. 10,219-220.

9 7 ~ 1 MC-. nie Mechanicd Bride: FolMoreof 1- Mon (Ncw Y& Vanguard Press. 1951; Bostoa: &acon Press, 1967). Reface, p. v; McLuhau and M c b , Lmvs. p. 128.

9 8 ~ c ~ and ~ c ~ a h a n , h, p. 224

9%dd F. T h d , 13w Medium is the Rem View Mirroc &Jd~~mài t tg Mc* (Mmtreal: McGiü- Queen's UP, 1971). p. 17.

CONCLUSION

Parting Tboughts-

The Recovery of Ground

"1 have not wandered ;is far f m literaîue as might appear."l

The acadcmic coverage is only beginning for my SM.*

Whether the object in question was an ideograrn or a comic book, Eliot's Waste Land

or the latest fashion trend, a passage from Finnegans Wake or the medium of television

McLuhan's goal was the same-to train the sensibility, to heighîen the perception, to create

an awareness of subliminal effects. While today McLuhan is considered a founding father

of Canadian Communication studies and best known for drawing our attention to the forms

of the media, it is important to recall that his appniach to the media landscape has its mots

in literary studies. In tuniing to the two main areas of study from McLuhan's Cambridge

days, modernism and the trivium, 1 have attempted to explore some of the literary ground

from which ihis media guru emerged

As is apparent from the snapshot of Western modemkm included in this study, the

urban technological environment of the late nineteenth and eariy twentieth centuries was a

pervasive one and a central compouent of modernist thought, shaping the dominant motifs

and forms ofartistic and literary expression. That the literature which McLuhan

encountered as an undergraduate at Cambridge was a modemist literature did more than

mereiy develop an appreciation fora new aesthetics in the young scholar, it fostered an

interest in this urban technological s u m d and idormeci his later commentaq on the

media-the perceptive abiiities of the artist were extendecl beyond the subliminal life of

words to include the subliminal effects of the media while the characteristics of modemist

art and literature were linked to the characteristics of the emerging electric media That

McLuhan attended Cambridge at a t h e when English studies was undergoing a revolution

in critical methodoiogy was also of great significaace. The approach I.A. Richards and

ER Leavis took towards tex& in their Aactical Criticism shaped McLuhan's approach to

media and technology-the focus on the subileties of how a poem achieved its effects

found expression in McLuhan's preoccupation with media effects while the view that a text

was as an autonomous entity paralleled McLuhan's view of the media as forms distinct

from their content.

While teachers such as Richards and Leavis awakened McLuhan to modernist literature

and criticism at Cambridge, McLuhan pursued what would prove to be another formative

areaof study in his doctoral dissertation Tlie Place of Thomas Nashe in the Lenrnitig of His

Tinte, a work that began as an examination of sixteenth century English prose and evolved

into a cornprehensive study of the tnvium from ancient times until the sixteenth century.

McLuhan's perception of the ûivium arts and their ancient rivalry (grammarand rhetoric

vs. dialeçtics) established a historic duaîism that flavours much of McLuhan's work, from

his commentary on the culturai cleavage of the American North and South to the dichotomy

he drew between oral and litenie forms of communication media The reverence which

McLuhan expressed for the art of grammar in ihis work manifests itself throughout his

career in his choice of interpretative techniques and his defense of etymology as a legi tirnate

form of intellectual discovery and argument. That his final book concludes by praising the

grammatical efforts of Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico is entirely fitting with ihe

values he expressed in bis Nashe dissertation.

Tite MecIu)u'CalBri& was of interest to this projet not only because it is McLuhan's

first book, but because it is McLuhan's €im official venture into the realm of the media

environment, the shüf of Communication studies. As such, it ocçupies a unique position in

the McLuhan canon that is only begïnning to be ad-

In the ihhk McLuhan ptesents us wiîh a study of contemporary advertking and

popular culture that embodies the characteristics of mwh modernist expression. The

structure of the book is ckidedly non-linear while the subject matter consîitutes the

dominant fmn cf expression in an urban technological environment. More significantly,

many of the ideas e x p d in the resonate with those offered by Wyndham Lewis

in Time and Western Mun and h m oj Youth while the approach McLuhan takes to

advertising and popular culture in this book is largely an extension of the one ER. Leavis

employed in Culture and Emiimmnt. While the overail tone af the Bride resembles the

critical tone many modemists adopted to address the urban industrial environment, the

critique of industnalism offered by McLuhan is large1 y an extension of bis irivium research

and his view of the Amencan North as a society sîeeped in dialectical thought. Pehps this

book offers the best p r d that McLuhan's fomy into the r d m of "the stuff of

Communication studies" was by no means an abandonment of his titerary stuclies.

As for Lmvs of Media, it was of interest because it offers a final commentary. That this

commentary resonates so clearly with McLuhan's earlier literary studies is no mal1 matter.

The concepts expressed in Lmvs oJMedia affect the way we read the entire McLuhan

canon-a modified example of Eliot's view that the eniire order dart is perpetually

updated by a new exprience.3 There is a sense that what is said in Lmvs of Media is what

McLuhan was striving to say al1 dong.

Many of the Literary underiones which had been implicidy present throughout much of

McLuhan's wock are here made explicit In h s of Media the McLuhans expiain the

revolutionary aspects of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Western science,

philosophy and modernist art as nianifestaiiolls of the shift from visual to acoustic

perceptions uf space and associate the trivium arts oîgrammar, rhetocic and dialectic with

the respective media "camps" McLuhan had outlined in his earlier works. They also single

out the discipkines of art and grammar as areas of study capable al developing an awareness

of the hidden effecîs of media and techndogy or ground, thw balstering the exalted

position McLuhan had bestowed upon the figure of the artist as well as underscoring his

reverence for the art of grammar. Finally, al1 media-that is, al1 human artefacts-are

deemed to be verbal in nature and subject to rhetoricai and grammatical analysis. As verbal

entities it made perfect sense to apprciach the media via litemy studies, to be read as any

other texts.

In his dissertation McLuhan haâ observed that the type of education described by

Quintilian in his Inrthrtioûratoria was the accepteci fonn of education throughout the

Graeco-Roman world for centuries. The rich and the professional classes were content with

the liberalartesof the egkuklbspaideia and sent theh children to the schools of litecature

and rhetoric-it was only the poor who sent hirchildren to the elementary schools of the

ludi magkter and the cadculaiorS4 Furthemore, he noted that the liberal arts as they were

conceived by antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance "were never thought of as

lacking in utility." They were not "liberal" in the sense ihat they were "ends in themselves,"

but liberal arts as opposed to mechanical arts.5 Much of McLuhan's work can be seen as a

d l for a return to a classicai education, an education based largely on the arts of grammm

and rhetoric. In McLuhan's eyes only this type of education was capable of achieving his

goal of training the sensibility, heightening the perception and creating an awareness of

subliminal effects.

McLuhan expressed his displeasure with he diaiectically inclined program of training

or "know-how" he saw dominating 19409 Amencan ihought in the Bride and worried that

the unofficial education offered by the commerciaiized media would destmy al1 semblance

of a classicai sensibility. He critiqued conventionai "pipeline" approaches to the mediain

Lmvs of Media, discounihg them as "Old Science" incapable of addressing the subliminal

effects of the media. His teûad offered a means to recover the classical arts of grammar and

rhetoric for media analysis. Like those during antiquity, the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance, McLuhan never regarded tbe liberal arts as ''lackuig in utility." To him they

were intensely practical-necmay for an imderstanding of the world and everythng in it,

especially the media Like the rich and prof&onal classes, he was content with the l k a l

mtesof the egkuklÈospui&ia ami and hoped his work would foster a sensibility receptive

to the arts of grammar and rhetoric.

In his dissertation McLuhan had complained that previous Nashe scholars had failed to

study Nashe on his own terms. As noted at the beginning of this work, the same could be

said of the bulk of McLuhan scholarship. His Communication work was often regardeci as

separate from his literary work. As this praject and the ment wave of McLuhan

scholarship suggest, however, McLuhan's work in the field of Communication was not

independent of his work in Engiish studies. Rather, it was an extension of that work. By

appmhing McLuhan's concepts, theories and ideas with an eye to his literary studies we

can significantly e ~ c h our experience, enhance our undetstanding and, in some cases,

reduce our frustration. Quite simply the figure of McLuhan makes a good deal more sense

when approached in conjunction with his literary ground. Perhaps we needed a generation

to pass before we could see beyond the image of McLuhan as a media guru promoting

"youth culture, rock and roll, and pt-print libidinal tactility" to retrieve this ground.6

lronically enough the connection to literature th& was once used to dismiss McLuhan

proves to be our best resource in undersianding him. The joumey has only just kgun . . . Thwe masierful images because cwpiete Grew in pure mind. but out of what began?

A mouml of refuse or the sweephgs of a Street, Old Leiiles, dd boitles, and a brdten can . . .

-W.B. Yeaîs, selection fmn 'The CUais Animals' Desertion'"

Notes for Conclusioo

Parting Thoughts-The Recovery of Ground

'McLuhan made rbis comment in a lem to Michael Wdfi. prOressœ d hglish at Indiana University. in lm. ihe year UnderstrMdingMedia was puMished. See Matic Mdinaro, Corinne McLuhari. and W i m Toye. eds, Lennsof MarshalI MC- flofonto: Wd University Ress, lm, p. 3û4.

2Letter to Marshall Fishwick, Iuiy 31,1974. Ibis., p. SOS.

3The ~cLubaas tell us that in bis 1917 essay 'Traditicm and the individuai Talent" Eliot advaaced ihe idea that art foanedasinultaneau ordei. which was"perpehially motivateci, renewed and, retrieved by new experieace." 'ïhe McLuhaas tie îhis idea to their cmcept of renieval. See Marshall McLuhan and Eric Mciuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science (Tmio: University of Toroato Press, 198%). p. 102.

4Marshall McLuhan, The Place of Thomas Nmhe in the lamning oJHis Time, Ph.D. Dissertation (Cambridge: Cambridge University. lW) , p. 30.

6Tennce ~ c ~ c n n a . "Marshall McLuhan: the CogMtive Agent as Cyberpuak Godfather," Mondo 2000 (Summer, i990), p. 48.

'The McLuhans teference ihis p m by Yeais as an example of the cyciical pattern of obsolescence- reûieval. They point out ihat obsolesceace "is na ihe end danything; it's the beginning of aesthetics, the cride of tase, ofart. of eloquence ami d slang. Thai is, Ihe cultural midden-heap d cast-off clichés and obsdescent fonns is the maüix of al1 innovation." W.B. Yem ciied in McLuhan and McLuhan, i a w s O/

h-?é&* pp. 100-101.

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