The first book on the Canadian poetic elegy challenges all previous ideas about the purpose of mourning.

The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada gathers together primary literary documents including manifestos, reviews, critical essays, and recollections to illustrate the most significant developments in the rise of modernist English Canadian poetry. Rather than present exclusively academic criticism, the editors have carefully selected original texts by the principal figures of modernism to offer readers a behind-the-scenes look at twentieth-century poetry in Canada. Collecting several decades of writings by luminaries beginning with pivotal essays by John Sutherland and A.J.M. Smith, and including George Bowering, Northrop Frye, Irving Layton, P.K. Page, F.R. Scott, Raymond Souster, and William Carlos Williams, this volume also provides explanatory notes to guide the reader and to evaluate the significance of each piece in its literary and historical context. This classic work of Canadian literary studies is now back in print with a substantial new introduction and appendices by Michael Gnarowski, who explains and interprets the essence of key initiatives in the unfolding of a modernist point of view. The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada offers a comprehensive chronological path from the earliest examples of Canadian modernism to the beginning of the postmodern period.

An essential anthology of modern and contemporary Canadian poetry for two decades brings a vibrant, multi-lingual culture to life. The anthology includes 34 poets, many of them published in the UK for the first time.

The search for a distinctive Canadian literature is not new. It began in the 1820s, and even then involved many of the same issues that concern critics today. Much of this early material is now inaccessible to most Canadians. Carl Ballstadt has selected for this volume a number of the most importance statements from a century of growth. The pieces come from essays, prefaces, and editorials published between 1823 and 1926 in a variety of works including the major literary periodicals of the time. Among the authors are Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Daniel Wilson, Goldwin Smith, G. Mercer Adam, Pelham Edgar, J.D. Robins, J.D. Logan, and Charles Mair. The major themes they treated, with frequent diversity of views, are the kind of writing best suited to a new country; the economic and spiritual barriers to the creation of literature; the feasibility of creating a ‘national’ literature; the need for serious criticism; the relationship between European traditions and the developing Canadian imagination; Canada’s ‘northern’ character; the advantages of two cultural streams; and the significance of Canadian achievements in poetry. This book provides essential background to anyone concerned with the path Canadian literature followed to modern times.

This book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature. Contributors pay attention to the social, political and economic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fiction, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, francophone writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing in a country traditionally defined by its regions. Also discussed are genres that have a special place in Canadian literature, such as nature-writing, exploration- and travel-writing, and short fiction.

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature provides a broad-ranging introduction to some of the key critical fields, genres, and periods in Canadian literary studies. The essays in this volume, written by prominent theorists in the field, reflect the plurality of critical perspectives, regional and historical specializations, and theoretical positions that constitute the field of Canadian literary criticism across a range of genres and historical periods. The volume provides a dynamic introduction to current areas of critical interest, including (1) attention to the links between the literary and the public sphere, encompassing such topics as neoliberalism, trauma and memory, citizenship, material culture, literary prizes, disability studies, literature and history, digital cultures, globalization studies, and environmentalism or ecocriticism; (2) interest in Indigenous literatures and settler-Indigenous relations; (3) attention to multiple diasporic and postcolonial contexts within Canada; (4) interest in the institutionalization of Canadian literature as a discipline; (5) a turn towards book history and literary history, with a renewed interest in early Canadian literature; (6) a growing interest in articulating the affective character of the "literary" - including an interest in affect theory, mourning, melancholy, haunting, memory, and autobiography. The book represents a diverse array of interests -- from the revival of early Canadian writing, to the continued interest in Indigenous, regional, and diasporic traditions, to more recent discussions of globalization, market forces, and neoliberalism. It includes a distinct section dedicated to Indigenous literatures and traditions, as well as a section that reflects on the discipline of Canadian literature as a whole.

Collection of poems with an introduction to each poet.