E. J. Pratt and the McGill poets

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521868761.016

14 - E. J. Pratt and the McGill poets

from PART THREE - MODELS OF MODERNITY, POST-FIRST WORLD WAR

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2010

Adrian Fowler

Edited by

Coral Ann Howells and

Eva-Marie Kröller

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Coral Ann Howells: Affiliation:
University of Reading; University of London
Eva-Marie Kröller: Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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Summary

Modernism took its time crossing the Atlantic, and when it arrived in downtown Toronto, it was as if it had eaten too much roast beef and drunk too much claret during its first-class passage. It was introduced to the Canadian nationalism of the 1920s. It was taken to see the Group of Seven. It fell asleep during a debate at the Arts and Letters Club about whether Bliss Carman was a better poet than Wilson MacDonald, and it didn’t wake up for twenty years.

This view of modernism’s arrival in Canada by a talented contemporary writer can be corroborated by a glance at the introductions of two major anthologies of Canadian poetry at the time of the First World War. In The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse (1913), after anxiously taking up most of his Preface considering at least five different sets of criteria to define Canadian poetry, Wilfred Campbell gives up and concedes that “the true British-Canadian verse, if it has any real root and lasting influence, must necessarily be but an offshoot of the great tree of British literature, as the American school also is, though less obviously.” Campbell then goes on to justify the inclusion of poems by the Duke of Argyll, Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. In a similar vein, John W. Garvin, in his “Editor’s Foreword” to Canadian Poets (1916), gives a soaring characterization of poetry which, “at its height, implies beauty and the driving force of passion.”

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature , pp. 272 - 288

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521868761.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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References

Campbell, Wilfred, “Preface,” in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1913).Google Scholar

Djwa, Sandra and Moyles, R. G., eds., E. J. Pratt: Complete Poems, 2 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), vol. I.Google Scholar

Edel, Leon, “Memories of the Montreal Group,” The E. J. Pratt Lecture, 1984 (St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1986).Google Scholar

Edel, Leon, “Introduction,” Kennedy, Leo, The Shrouding: Poems (Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1975 [1933]).Google Scholar

Garvin, John W., “Editor’s Foreword,” in Canadian Poets (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916).Google Scholar

Gnarowski, Michael, “Introduction,” New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976).Google Scholar

Kelly, Peggy, “Politics, Gender, and New Provinces: Dorothy Livesay and F. R. Scott,” Canadian Poetry 53 (FallWinter 2003).Google Scholar

Kiberd, Declan, “Introduction,” Joyce, James, Ulysses (Toronto: Penguin, 1992 [1922]).Google Scholar

Macfarlane, David, The Danger Tree (Toronto: Macfarlane, Walter and Ross, 1991).Google Scholar

Norris, Ken, “The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism,” Canadian Poetry 11 (FallWinter 1982)Google Scholar

Pratt, E. J. Collection, Victoria University in the University of Toronto. Quoted in Djwa, Sandra, E. J. Pratt: The Evolutionary Vision (Vancouver: Copp Clark, 1974).Google Scholar

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