Phases of Canadian Poetic Culture: From Pre-Confederation to Modernist Period

The present volume, situating the poets in their historical context, hatches a graph of the growth of Canadian poetry in English from the first stirrings of a poetic culture to the flowering of modernist poetry through the emergence of a nationalist poetic sensibility. The poets, which the study includes are Charles Sangster, Charles Heavysege, Charles Mair of the pre-Confederation period, Lampman, Roberts, Carman and D.C. Scott of the Confederation period and E.J. Pratt, Earle Birney, F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein and A.I. Purdy of the modernist period. The study encounters the important features like the vast northern wilderness and the long colonial history that have shaped Canadian poetic culture. The volume also highlights the poets’ respond to Canadian landscape which gives us an insight into the question: what is Canadian in Canadian poetry? It is hoped that this modest attempt will stimulate the interest of the scholars in Canadian poetry written in English.