Canadian Anthology

By Carl F. Klinck and Reginald E. Watters

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771511469
• ISBN13: 9780771511462
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Gage Distribution Co
• Length: 724 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An Entrance Into A Mystery

This is the famous green book in which all of us Americans learned about Canadian poetry and writing in high school. We would trudge back and forth with this green book, heavy, knocking at our kneecaps through our bookbags. Between its covers we learned from Klinck and Watters the main four periods of Canadian literature: the eighteenth century, the pre-Cofederation period, the "New Nation" and the 20th century. Perhaps today the editors would include more First Nations people among the writers. For me, as a schoolboy, the book didn't really start hopping till I read some of Bliss Carman and Archibald Lampman. And then it moved into high gear with the modernist writers of Canada, including Morley Callaghan, F.R. Scott, A. M. Klein and Dorothy Livesay. I cried my eyes out over David, a poem by Earle Birney in which two very close male friends go mountain climbing for sport, and the narrator loves David enough to give him the ultimate gift. I alwaus wished I had a friend who would do for me, what he did for Dave. Robertson Davies seems like a dud stuck in the middle of some cool writers. He's in love with himself, it's plain to see. I much prferred Malcolm Lowry, and the Canadian Anthology does not stint in giving a huge chunk of his masterwork UNDER THE VOLCANO. I also liked George Johnston, the famous Air Force ace of Canada who served in World War II, and his slightly ribald poem called, "Elaine in a Bikini." That mdae the boys sit up a bit it did. Irving Layton, Margaret Avison, Leonard Cohen brought us right up to the present time and it wasn't long before we were identifying with a new, rebellious generation of Canadian poets such as Gwen MacEwen, Jay Macpherson, and D.G.Jones. It's a shame this book after had to end! I don't know about the rest of my peers but this book gave me an appreciation for the vastness and breadth of Canada that put me in good stead much later, when finally I crossed the frontier and took my first steps on Canadian soil. I was drunk on pale Canadian ale, tottered, fell.