The Year’s Work in Canadian Poetry Studies:   1978

    The following is a hand-list of criticism on English-Canadian poetry published in 1978.  Journal articles have been summarized or abstracted, according to the requirements imposed by the nature of the material.  Full-length studies and interviews have been included without comment.  It is hoped that the list will provide students and scholars with a reference point in the rapidly growing body of work in Canadian poetry criticism.

PRE-CONFEDERATION

Devereux, E.J., introd.  “George Webber’s ‘The Last of the Aborigines’.” Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978), 74-98.

This poem about the killing of the Beothuks, published in St. John’s in 1851, although not a major work, is yet a genuine, and for its time unusual, moral response to events which Webber made a serious attempt to research.  [Reproduces text of poem.]

Hughes, K.J.  “Oliver Goldsmith’s ’The Rising Village’.”  The Lakehead University Review, 7:2 and 8:1 & 2 (1978), 35-53.

Textual changes in Goldsmith’s poem reflect the writer’s shift in political consciousness from imperialism to nationalism.  The poem in its final version must be seen as a coherent structure, and as displaying a large measure of technical strength.

Keith, W.J.  “The Rising Village again.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 1-13.

Kenneth J. Hughes argues (in Canadian Poetry, no. 1) that Goldsmith’s poem can be seen to stand on its own, apart from its Old World relative, The Deserted Village.  But Goldsmith consciously modelled his poem on that of his great-uncle, and Hughes’ interpretation of it as a strongly political undercutting of the older work is difficult to accept.

Morley, William F.E.  “A soldier’s progress: some military records pertaining to John Richardson, a pioneer Canadian poet and novelist.”
        Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 65-75.

[Documents concerning Richardson’s military career from 1812 to 1818, mainly drawn from the War Office Monthly Return of Services, in the Public Record Office, London.]

Zezulka, J.M.  “The pastoral vision in nineteenth century Canada.” Dalhousie Review, 57:2 (Summer, 1977), 224-241.

In the work of Canadian narrative poets from Goldsmith to Crawford, the vision of Canada as a restored pastoral society functions as part of a national ethos.  More recent writers invoke the vision as a lost ideal.

CONFEDERATION

Bentley, D.M.R.  “Archibald Lampman on poets and poetry.”  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 9 (Winter, 1977/78), 12-25.

Examination of Lampman’s unpublished essays indicates that his literary criticism is part of a much larger philosophy, which is “basically and radically realistic, progressive, melioristic and moralistic,” and that the fundamental idea of his literary criticism is that good poetry “assists the movement of mankind towards perfection.”

____., introd.  “‘Canadian Poetry in its Relation to the Poetry of England and America’ by Charles G.D. Roberts.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/ Winter, 1978), 76-86.

[An edition of this previously unpublished address, with an introduction describing the occasion upon which it was given, and noting its significance in the development of Roberts’ thought.]

Campbell, Glen.  “The political poetry of Louis Riel:  a semiotic study.” Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 14-25.

Examination of six of Riel’s mainly unpublished poems reveals patterns which indicate that Riel was a man for whom reality was distorted by “rigid dialectical reasoning”.

Johnson, James F.  “Malcolm’s Katie and Hugh and Ion:   Crawford’s changing narrative vision.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter,
        1978), 56-61.

Crawford’s optimistic faith in the power of love to build a nation, which she affirms in Malcolm’s Katie, undergoes rigorous questioning in the later, and unfinished, Hugh and Ion.

McDougall, Robert L.  “D.C. Scott:  the dating of the poems.”   Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978), 13-27.

[A discussion of the reasons for, and the difficulties of, providing a chronology of Scott’s poetic production.  Tables, based on author-annotated copies of The Green Cloister and Collected Poems, follow.]

Monk, Patricia. “James De Mille as mystic:  a reconsideration of Behind the Veil.” Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 38-55.

Although De Mille’s mystical theories seem superficially to resemble those of the German Romantic philosopher Richter, examination reveals that the two writers differ widely in temperament and philosophy.  Behind the Veil is not wholly successful as a poem, but it is an interesting, even surprising, work which rewards close study.

Radu, Kenneth. “Patterns of meaning: Isabella Crawford’s ‘Malcolm’s Katie’.” Dalhousie Review, 57:2 (Summer, 1977), 322-331.

Crawford’s powerful use of symbolism deepens and complicates the central life-versus-death conflict which this melodramatic poem presents.

Ross, Catherine Sheldrick.  “Isabella Valancy Crawford:  solar mythologist.”  English Studies in Canada. 4:3 (Fall, 1978),
        305-316.

The solar myth provides Crawford with “a structure for the working out of [her] themes of love and despair and the purgatorial role of suffering.”

____.  “Isabella Valancy Crawford’s ‘Gisli the Chieftain’.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1978), 28-37.

Crawford draws upon Icelandic, Slavonic and Greek sources for the solar myth which informs all her work, and finds its fullest expression in “Gisli the Chieftain.”

Slonim, Leon.  “Notes on Duncan Campbell Scott’s ‘Lines in Memory of Edmund Morris’.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978),
        38-42.

[Biographical material concerning the relationship of Scott and the painter Edmund Morris.]

____.  “A source for Duncan Campbell Scott’s ‘On the Way to the Mission’.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 62-64.

Comparison of Scott’s poem with Ponteach; or the Savages of America, a play by Robert Rogers, suggests a possible source for Scott’s poem, and provides a contrast which illuminates the poem’s meaning.

Strong, William.  “Charles G.D. Roberts’ ‘The Tantramar Revisited’.” Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 26-35.

[A close analysis of “The Tantramar Revisited”, expanding upon earlier critical commentary, and intending to reinforce the accepted judgment of the poem as Roberts’ masterpiece.]

West, David S.  “Malcolm’s Katie:  Alfred as nihilist not rapist.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:1 (Winter, 1978), 137-141.

Robin Mathews (in SCL, 2:1 (Winter, 1977)), interprets Alfred’s “rape” of the unconscious Katie as explicitly sexual.  In fact, Alfred intends to carry Katie with him to the oblivion of death.

Whitridge, Margaret Coulby.  “Sarepta and the fatal fascination of the sonnet:  a tribute to Edward Brownlow.” Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:1 (Winter, 1978), 27-36.

The mystery surrounding the life of the young Montreal poet who wrote under the pseudonym “Sarepta,” and who died at the early age of 37, draws attention to Brownlow’s considerable talent and production as a sonneteer.

MODERN

Collins, Robert G.  “E.J. Pratt: the Homeric voice.”  Review of National Literatures, 7 (1976), 83-109.

As epic poet of an emerging national culture, Pratt, in his subjects, style and philosophy, speaks from a mental climate that is uniquely Canada.

Cook, Hugh.  “Development in the early poetry of Raymond Souster.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:1 (Winter, 1978), 113-118.

Contrary to most critical opinion, Souster’s work has undergone constant evolution throughout his career.

Darling, Michael.  “An interview with A.J.M. Smith.”  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 9 (Winter, 1977/78), 55-61.

Davey, Frank.  “Louis Dudek’s ’functional poetry’.”  Rune, no. 4 (Spring, 1977), 63-79.

Throughout his career, Dudek’s sense of a social duty for literature has led him to oppose theories which separate art from life.  His own poetry has developed toward a meditational mode which opens both extraordinary and mundane experience to poetic examination.

____.  “Louis Dudek’s red truck.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 9 (Fall, 1978), 71-86.

Dudek’s charting of the Modernist movement in Canada reveals a rationalist bias, which inform his criticism of Frye and McLuhan.  His championship of the anti-rationalist Souster, however, is indicative of a paradox in his aesthetic which has played a part in shifting Canadian poetry toward post-modernism.

Frayne, Helen.  “On Quebec:  an interview with Louis Dudek.”  CVII, 3:3 (January, 1978), 38-40.

Grady, Wayne.  “‘Who is this man Smith?’” Books in Canada, 7:9 (November, 1978), 8-11.

[A profile of A.J.M. Smith.]

Higginson, M. Constance.  “A thematic study of F.R. Scott’s evolutionary poetry.” Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:1 (Winter, 1978), 37-48.

A small number of Scott’s poem can be classified as “evolutionary,” developing theories which replace anthropomorphic myths with a concept of the elemental relationships of man with his environment.

McCormick, Marion.  “Why Louis Dudek thinks Modernism remains the central question in the arts.”  [Interview] Books in Canada, 7:8 (October, 1978), 37-38.

Nichol, bp.  “Some notes on Earle Birney’s ‘Solemn Doodles’.”  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 9 (Winter, 1977/78), 109-111.

Anyone approaching Birney’s pattern poems should be aware of the importance of the individual letters used in writing them.

Noonan, Gerald A.  “Incongruity and nostalgia in Sarah Binks.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:2 (Summer, 1978), 264 273.

The humour of Sarah Binks’ poems arises from their application of lyricism to trivia.

Rooke, Constance.  “P.K. Page:  the chameleon and the centre.” Malahat Review, no. 45 (January, 1978), 169-195.

Page’s visionary poetry develops through empathy and Sufi philosophy to find in centre in Love.

Seidner, Eva.  “Modernism in the booklength poems of Louis Dudek.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 7 (Summer, 1977), 14-40.

As a Modernist, Dudek rejects “decorative structures and sentimental content.”  In his long poems he strives for sincerity, for a language which authentically represents his subjects.

Tovell, Vincent.  “The world for a country:  an edited interview with Frank Scott.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978), 51-73.

Waddington, Miriam.  “Form and ideology in poetry.”  Laurentian University Review, 10:2 (February, 1978), 111-119.

[A personal and autobiographical discussion of the poetic process.]

Weir, Lorraine.  “Portrait of the poet as Joyce scholar.  An approach to A.M. Klein.”  Canadian Literature, 76 (Spring, 1978), 47-55.

Attention to Klein’s critical work on Joyce leads to understanding of the Joyce-derived concept of language as incarnation, as it functions in Klein’s poetry.

Zichy, Francis.  “‘Each in his prison thinking of the key’:  images of confinement and liberation in Margaret Avison.”  Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:2 (Summer, 1978), 232-243.

The dialectical struggle between confinement and liberation which operates in Avison’s work finds its solution in the religious affirmation of The Dumbfounding.

CONTEMPORARY

Allen, Robert.  “Post-Mortemism.” Moosehead Review, 1:2 (1978), 56-62.

The post-modernist inheritors of the poetics of Eliot and Pound, both avant-garde and academic, retreat into cynicism and obscurantism.  Many Canadian — especially West Coast — poets mistakenly accept fragmentation and alienation as given, and fail to engage in a dialectic which seeks to change the world.

Baker, Howard.  “Jewish themes in the works of Irving Layton.” Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 10 (Spring, 1978), 43-54.

Layton, although no theist, revels in his Judaism, tracing his “joyful sensuality” to his Hebrew roots.  His mature poetry is preoccupied with Jewish history, and with concern for the survival of the race, both in Israel and in the Diaspora.

Barbour, Douglas.  “The phenomenological I:  Daphne Marlatt’s Steveston,” in Futures in a Ground: Canadian essays on modern literature collected in honour of Sheila Watson. Ed.  by Diane Bessai and David Jackel. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978, pp. 174-188.

Influenced by the phenomenology of Olsen, Daphne Marlatt achieves in Steveston an expression of the encounter of the human consciousness with place.

____.  “Some thoughts on Science Fiction and poetry.”  Arc, no. 1 (Spring, 1978), 29-31.

Samuel Delany argues that the impulses behind the making of poetry and of sf are similar.  Some contemporary Canadian poets, in particular bp Nichol, employ sf concepts and images in their work.

Beardsley, Doug and Rosemary Sullivan.  “An interview with Dorothy Livesay.”  Canadian Poetry, no. 3 (Fall/Winter, 1978), 87-97.

Bessai, Diane.  “Death is a happy ending: a dialogue in thirteen parts,” in Figures in a Ground:  Canadian essays on modern literature collected in honor of Sheila Watson. Ed. by Diane Bessai and David Jackel. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978, pp. 206-215.

[Interview with Robert Kroetsch.]

Bieman, Elizabeth.  “Wrestling with Nowlan’s angel.” Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978), 43-50.

Nowlan draws on, and up-ends, Biblical sources in “The Anatomy of Angels,” which bears comparison with the poems of Donne in which the relationship of body and spirit, and of poetry and prophecy, is expressed.

Bilan, R.P.  “Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Journals of Susanna Moodie’.” Canadian Poetry, no. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1978), 1-12.

Atwood’s book is tightly organized, deriving its strength from its cumulative effect, as it traces, through developing images of trees, fire, light and darkness, the process by which the persona Moodie “becomes the spirit of the land she once hated.”

Bowering, George.  “Reading before Tish.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 9 (Fall, 1978), 87.

[A list of 25 books which Bowering had read just prior to the first publication of Tish]

Bowering, Marilyn.  “Pine boughs and apple trees:  the poetry of Patrick Lane.” Malahat Review, no. 45 (January, 1978), 24-34.

Out of the West Coast experience of exile, Patrick Lane has developed a poetry of sincere language, which discourages self-deceit, and voices “truths about the meaning of place in terms of the people living there.”

Cooley, Dennis.  “Double or nothing: Eli Mandel’s Out of Place and Another Time.” Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 10 (Spring, 1978), 73-81.

Mandel searches for, but fails to find, the “vernacular voice” in which to write of the place of his childhood.

Dragland, Stan.  “James Reaney’s ‘pulsating dances in and out of forms’,” in The Human Elements:   critical essays. Ed. by David Helwig.  Ottawa:  Oberon Press, 1978, pp. 112-133.

[A study of Reaney’s work which focusses on The Donnelly Trilogy, but which contains passing commentary on his poetry.]

Fitzgerald, Judith.  “Interview with Victor Coleman.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 8 (Spring, 1978), 5-14.

____.  “Victor Coleman’s poetry.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no.8 (Spring, 1978), 15-25.

Coleman is a phenomenological thinker whose poetry attempts to illuminate and convey the experience of the chaotic moment.

Francis, Wynne.  “The farting Jesus:  Layton and the Heroic Vitalists.” CVII, 3: 3 (January, 1978), 46-51.

Layton, “Heroic Vitalist,” rages against Christianity, and reclaims Jesus as Jewish hero.

____.  “The Little Magazine/Small Press Movement and Canadian poetry since 1950.” Laurentian University Review, 10:2 (February, 1978), 89-109.

[A survey of the current scene.]

Hunter, Lynette.  “Form and energy in the poetry of Michael Ondaatje.” Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:1 (Winter, 1978), 49-70.

Ondaatje’s Billy is symbolic of the artist, finding metaphors for energy, release, equilibrium and control, creating reality and dying with it, yet living on through the mythic nature of his experience.

Jones, D.G.  “In search of Canada:  Dennis Lee’s ironic vision.” Arc, no. 1 (Spring, 1978), 23-28.

Lee’s poetic seems to reject current Humanist and Modernist trends toward continentalism.  Though he shares some Modernist doctrines, he is set apart by the particular, and Canadian, quality of his ironic vision.

Lane, M. Travis.  “Travelling with Saint Theresa:  the poetry of Paulette Jiles.” Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 10 (Spring, 1978), 61-72.

In her travel poems, Jiles’ self pursues self toward growing strength and humanity.  Her work exhibits a mature expressionist technique and a feminist perspective.

Lecker, Robert.  “Better quick than dead:  Anne Wilkinson’s poetry.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:1 (Winter, 1978), 35-46.

Wilkinson’s passion for life and creation leads her to seek a kind of transcendence of death in consciousness of her “identity existing in various forms throughout time.”

____.  “Daphne Marlatt’s poetry.” Canadian Literature, no. 76 (Spring, 1978), 56-67.

Marlatt’s development through her books of poetry published to date has been toward a language which gives full expression to perception of the caught moment in the dynamic flux of experience.

____.  “Robert Kroetsch’s poetry.”  Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 8 (Spring, 1978), 72-88.

Kroetsch finds a voice through memory by the process of unnaming realities in order to rename them.  Only then can the dialectic of his meditational poetry come into play.

Lye, John.  “The road to Ameliasburg.”  Dalhousie Review, 57-2 (Summer, 1977), 242-253.

Despite its rhetorical vigor and boisterous social criticism, Al Purdy’s poetry is sensitive and humane.  Its focus is upon the individual, whose sources of strength are seen to lie in sympathy and in history.

Mallinson, Jean.  “Ideology and poetry:  an examination of some recent trends in Canadian criticism.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 3:1 (Winter, 1978), 93-1009.

John Bentley Mays’ attacks on the work of Phyllis Webb and Daphne Marlatt, Frank Davey’s criticism of P.K. Page and the early Avison, and George Amabile’s commentary on Atwood’s poetry, are based upon doctrinaire, ideological criteria.  Because of its prescriptive nature, their criticism distorts and misinterprets its subject.

[The discussion is pursued by Mays, Mallinson and Davey in SCL, 3:2 (Summer, 1978), 282-287.]

Mandel, Eli.  “Ecological heroes and visionary politics:  contemporary primitivism in Canadian writing.”  The Lakehead University Review, 7:2 and 8: 1 & 2 (1978), 3-15.   [Previously published in Rune, no. 2 (Spring, 1976)]

Contemporary Canadian “primitive” poets such as bissett and Nichol attempt to transcend all imprisoning structures, even those of language itself.

Mayne, Seymour, ed.  Irving Layton:  the poet and his critics. Toronto:  McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1978.

McCaffery, Steve.  “Bill Bissett:  a writing outside writing.” Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 9 (Fall, 1978), 7-23.

Bissett’s “libidinal flows” release energies trapped inside repressive language structures such as grammar.

McFadden, David.  “The twilight of self-consciousness,” in The Human Elements: critical essays.  Ed. by David Helwig. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1978, pp. 78-96.

London-born poets Christopher Dewdney and Robert Fones are working at the beginning of “a great change in world consciousness.”  It will be many years before their poetry is widely accepted or understood.

McMillan, Sharon.  “Susan Musgrave:  hinging the blind memory.” Malahat Review, no. 45 (January, 1978), 73-81.

Musgrave’s shamanic poetry represents West Coast landscape through appeal to emotions, conjuring “the connection between the aboriginal and the collective unconscious of her audience.”

Montreal English Poetry of the Seventies. Ed. by André Farkas and Ken Norris.  Montreal:  Véhicule P., 1978.

Moritz, A.F.  “The Man from Vaudeville, Sask.” Books in Canada, 7:1 (January, 1978), 9-12.

[A profile of the poet John Newlove.]

Nichol, bp.  “A conversation with Fred Wah. T.R.G. Report One: Translation (Part 3).”  Open Letter, ser. 3, no. 9 (Fall, 1978), 34-52.

Nodelman, Perry.  “The Silver Honkabeest:  children and the meaning of childhood.” Canadian Children’s Literature, no. 12 (1978), 26-34.

Dennis Lee’s poems for children chart the stages of childhood, from pure childish behavior, through recognition and defiance of grownup reactions to such behavior, to the conscious loss of childhood itself.

Norris, Ken.  “Montreal English poetry in the Seventies.”  CVII, 3:3 (January, 1978), 8-11.

[A survey of the current scene which emphasizes the dynamic quality of the Montreal writing community.]

Oates, Joyce Carol.  “A conversation with Margaret Atwood.” The Ontario Review, no. 9 (Fall-Winter, 1978-79), 5-18.

Scobie, Stephen.  “His legend as jungle sleep:  Michael Ondaatje and Henri Rousseau.” Canadian Literature, no. 76 (Spring, 1978), 6-21.

Ondaatje’s references to Rousseau lead to recognition of his kinship with the painter in his love of the bizarre, in his perception of the interpenetration of domestic scene and “jungle,” and in his attempts to freeze the transient moment.

____. Leonard Cohen.  Vancouver:  Douglas and McIntyre. 1978.

Sherman, Kenneth.  “An interview with Irving Layton.”  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 10 (Spring, 1978), 7-18.

Silver, Jack.  “Moving into winter:  a study of Daphne Marlatt’s Our Lives.”  Open Letter, ser. 3:8 (Spring, 1978), 89-103.

Kwakiutl legends of the house of the Cannibal Spirit and the coming of winter underlie the images of dwelling which Marlatt develops in Our Lives.

Solecki, Sam.  “An interview with Tom Wayman.” Rune, no. 3 (Spring, 1976), 62-72.

Solway, David.  “The flight from Canada.”  CVII, 3:3 (January, 1978), 4-5.

Cultural identity is not to be found in “inspired jingoism,” but in a healthy eclecticism, which will lead to synthesis, and thus to genuine identity.

Stevens, Peter.  “Experimental poetry since 1950.”  Laurentian University Review, 10:2 (February, 1978), 47-61.

The experimental poets of the Sixties have produced some good, but much facile work; however their effect upon poets who open themselves to a variety of influences seems to have been beneficial.

See also: Gibbs, Robert. “Proprioception: reply to Peter Stevens.”  Laurentian University Review, 10:2 (February, 1978), 63-65; and:  Broad, Margaret.   “A report on the discussion of the paper by Peter Stevens and the response by Robert Gibbs.” Laurentian University Review, 10:2 (February, 1978), 87-88.]

Twigg, Alan.  “Talking straight with Trower.” Quill and Quire, 44:11 (August, 1978), 25.

[Interview with B.C. poet Peter Trower.]

Van Wilt, Kurt.  “Layton, Nietzsche and Overcoming.”  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 10 (Spring, 1978), 19-42.

Layton’s whole work displays a strong Nietzschean influence, evident in his presentation of the poet as prophet and Overman, uniting the Apollonian and the Dionysian, and constantly in a state of becoming.

Whiteman, Neil.  “A left to the mind:  the poems of Patrick Lane.” CVII, 3:4 (Summer, 1978), 49-52.

Lane’s work is flawed by both lack of vision and lack of craft.

Wood, Susan.  “Reinventing the word:  Kroetsch’s poetry.”  Canadian Literature, no. 77 (Summer, 1978), 28-39.

Kroetsch, in his poetry as much as in his novels, seeks out his own past, and a language of metaphor and association in which to account for his personal history, and tell the stories of the future.

GENERAL STUDIES

Capone, Giovanna.  Canada:  il villagio della terra:  Letteratura canadese di lingua inglese. Bologna: Patnon, 1978.

Dudek, Louis.  Selected essays and criticism.  Ottawa:  Tecumseh, 1978.

In our own house:  social perspectives on Canadian literature. Ed. by Paul Cappon. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978.

Mathews, Robin. Canadian Literature:  surrender or revolution? Toronto:  Steel Rail, 1978.

McClung, M.G.  Women in Canadian Life:  Literature.  Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1978.

[Contains comment on Livesay and others]

The New Land:  studies in literary theme. Ed. by Richard Chadbourne and Hallvard Dahlie.  Waterloo:   Wilfrid Laurier U.P. (for the Calgary Institute for the Humanities), 1978.

A Political Art:  essays and images in honour of George Woodcock. Ed. by William H. New. Vancouver:  UBC Press, 1978.

Schoeck, Richard J. “Reflections on Canadian poetry.” Review of National Literatures, 7 (1976), 67-82.

Canadian poetry is characterized by its long dependence on, and its revolt against, nineteenth-century French and English romanticism; by its experience of an isolating and hostile environment, which poets have confronted either directly, or through myth; by the failure of the nation to achieve a fully bilingual culture.  These conditions may be seen as an initiatory stage in development toward a fully mature national literature.

Compiled by Linda Dowler