The passionately held views of A.M. Klein are focused in these essays on literature and the arts. Ranging from the formally theoretical to the intensely personal, they reflect the enthusiasm and the conviction characteristic of all Klein's writing.Among the subjects that come under the critic's unblinking eye are various genres of Jewish literature, illuminating not only on their own terms but also for what they reveal about Klein's Jewish poems. There are also essays on Canadian, ...

The broad range of A.M. Klein’s interests, ideas, and activities is reflected in this selection of articles, editorials, and reviews – a selection that also displays the qualities that distinguished all his creative writing and the highly idiosyncratic nature of his style.The writings in this volume span a most critical juncture in human affairs; a period that witnessed the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Nazism, and communism, the Second World War, and the emergence of the ...

Throughout his career A.M. Klein struggled to define for himself the role of the poet in the contemporary world. Deeply rooted in the traditions of Judaism, and at the same time powerfully attracted by the freedom and scope of international modernism, he sought to reconcile past and present, community and creative individuality. Whether or not he finally achieved his own high aims, it was, in his own words, 'something merely to entertain them.' The result was a body of work immensely rich ...

Much of A.M. Klein's finest prose is to be found in the mass of uncompleted work that he abandoned at the time of his breakdown, and that became accessible only when his papers were deposited in the National Archives. Notebooks offers a generous selection of this work, revealing previously unsuspected facets of Klein's character and artistry.The fiction, criticism, and memoirs collected here focus on Klein's exploration of the role of the artist. The works illuminate crucial period...

Ten years, ten authors, ten critics. The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littérature canadienne reaches into its ten-year archive of Brown Bag Lunch readings to sample some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature. This anthology offers readers samples from some of Canada’s most exciting writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each selection is introduced by a brief essay, serving as a point of entry into the writer’s work. From the east coast of...

The original At the Mermaid Inn, one of the most notable literary endeavours in Canada, was the result of the combined efforts of three poets: Wilfred Campbell (1858-1918), Archibald Lampman (1861-99), and Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947).A Saturday column that ran in the Toronto Globe from 6 February 1892 until 1 July 1893, it covered a wide range of material – original poetry and prose, book and music reviews, articles on philosophy, politics, poetics, religion...

This volume established Isabella Valancy Crawford as one of Canada's principal poets. Coupled with an introductory collage of viewpoints and reactions to her work by James Reaney its provides a vivid glimpse into the literary past of this country.Although her poetry reflects the patterns of her time, Isabella Valancy Crawford was able to accept the raw and vigorous Canadian landscape on its own terms. She was the first of our poets for whom it became the setting for struggle, passi...

Now available in paperback, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles rediscovered primary material on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors, spanning the entirety of her high-profile career and the years since her death.The first volume, A Life in Print, focuses specifically on Montgomery’s role as a public celebrity and author of the resoundingly successful Anne of Green Gables (1908). The selections give a strong impression of Montgomery as a writ...

This special collection, edited by Germaine Warkentin and Linda Hutcheon, celebrates the centennial of the birth of Northrop Frye. Projecting forward instead of back, the articles in this volume look to the future of Frye’s ideas in the critical climate of the twenty-first century. The publication of Frye’s Collected Works has brought about a serious reconsideration of his criticism and how it speaks to the future—and not just that of literary studies. The ideas within explore the Frye canon ...

For bpNichol, who called himself a writer who writes about the act of writing,” criticism was not only a means to address his own poetics and the textual practices of his generation; it was just as essential to his imagination as were his poems themselves.Finally, after years of readers struggling to find or access many of Nichol’s innovative critical writings, this much needed and anticipated volume makes it possible to follow Nichol through his thirty-year-long thoughtful engagem...

p>This anthology offers readers a selection of Newfoundland writing which will illuminate the unfolding of the province’s history and culture and at the same time command respect as literature. It is comprised of 65 selections from literary and historical sources, which range in time from an extract from the Vinland sagas to a poem written in 1968 by a Newfoundlander. The selections are arranged in four parts: Discovery and Exploration; Transatlantic Outpost; Colonial Era; Breakers Ahead (...

Fiction that reconsiders, challenges, reshapes, and/or upholds national narratives of history has long been an integral aspect of Canadian literature. Works by writers of historical fiction (from early practitioners such as John Richardson to contemporary figures such as Alice Munro and George Elliott Clarke) propose new views and understandings of Canadian history and individual relationships to it. Critical evaluation of these works sheds light on the complexity of these depictions....