An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

From the 1960s until his death in 2000, Al Purdy was one of the most prominent writers in Canada, famous for his frank language and his boisterous personality. He travelled the country and wrote about its people and places from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. A central figure in the CanLit explosion of the sixties and seventies, Purdy has been called the best, the most, and the last Canadian poet.

But Purdy's Canada no longer exists. A changing country and shifting attitudes toward Canadian literature demand new perspectives on Purdy's impact and accomplishments. An Echo in the Mountains reassesses Purdy's works, the shape of his career, and his literary legacy, grappling with the question of how to read Purdy today, a century after his birth and in a new era of Canadian literature. Contributors to the volume examine Purdy's critical reception, explore little-known documents and textual problems, and analyze his representations of Canadian history and Indigenous peoples and cultures. They show that much remains to be discovered and understood about the poet and his immense body of work.

The first sustained examination of Al Purdy's works in over a decade, An Echo in the Mountains showcases the critical challenges and rewards of rereading an iconic and influential Canadian writer.

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An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

From the 1960s until his death in 2000, Al Purdy was one of the most prominent writers in Canada, famous for his frank language and his boisterous personality. He travelled the country and wrote about its people and places from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. A central figure in the CanLit explosion of the sixties and seventies, Purdy has been called the best, the most, and the last Canadian poet.

But Purdy's Canada no longer exists. A changing country and shifting attitudes toward Canadian literature demand new perspectives on Purdy's impact and accomplishments. An Echo in the Mountains reassesses Purdy's works, the shape of his career, and his literary legacy, grappling with the question of how to read Purdy today, a century after his birth and in a new era of Canadian literature. Contributors to the volume examine Purdy's critical reception, explore little-known documents and textual problems, and analyze his representations of Canadian history and Indigenous peoples and cultures. They show that much remains to be discovered and understood about the poet and his immense body of work.

The first sustained examination of Al Purdy's works in over a decade, An Echo in the Mountains showcases the critical challenges and rewards of rereading an iconic and influential Canadian writer.

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An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

by Nicholas Bradley (Editor)
An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century

by Nicholas Bradley (Editor)

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Overview

From the 1960s until his death in 2000, Al Purdy was one of the most prominent writers in Canada, famous for his frank language and his boisterous personality. He travelled the country and wrote about its people and places from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. A central figure in the CanLit explosion of the sixties and seventies, Purdy has been called the best, the most, and the last Canadian poet.

But Purdy's Canada no longer exists. A changing country and shifting attitudes toward Canadian literature demand new perspectives on Purdy's impact and accomplishments. An Echo in the Mountains reassesses Purdy's works, the shape of his career, and his literary legacy, grappling with the question of how to read Purdy today, a century after his birth and in a new era of Canadian literature. Contributors to the volume examine Purdy's critical reception, explore little-known documents and textual problems, and analyze his representations of Canadian history and Indigenous peoples and cultures. They show that much remains to be discovered and understood about the poet and his immense body of work.

The first sustained examination of Al Purdy's works in over a decade, An Echo in the Mountains showcases the critical challenges and rewards of rereading an iconic and influential Canadian writer.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780228004301
Publisher: McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date: 09/23/2020
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Nicholas Bradley is associate professor of English at the University of Victoria.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

Introduction: Al Purdy's Century: A Programmatic Beginning Nicholas Bradley 3

Part 1 Transcendence, Love, and the Persistent Legend: In Search of Al Purdy

1 The Man Who Lived beyond Himself: Transcendental Al Doug Beardsley 45

2 His Muses, a mensa et torn Linda Rogers 56

3 Purdy's Mock Love Poetry: Misogyny, Nation, and Progress Shane Neilson 63

Part 2 Land Claims: Al Purdy and the Unpeaceable Kingdom

4 The Too Easily Kept Illusions: Myth-making, Private Canons, and Patterns of Exclusion J.A. Weingarten 77

5 Unsettling the North: Shame in North of Summer Misao Dean 106

6 Rune and Riddle in "The Runners" Ian Rae 126

7 The Poet and the Ethnographer: Purdy, Marius Barbeau, and the Poetry of Myth Nicholas Bradley 147

Part 3 Myths, Masks, and Texts: Al Purdy's Entangled Lives and Works

8 Scholarly Editing: A Way to Read "House Guest" Eli MacLaren 173

9 Six Ways of Looking at "Elegy for a Grandfather" Jamie Dopp 197

10 "One of us": Purdy Elite Culture, and the Visual Arts Ernestine Lahey 218

11 "Concerning Ms. Atwood": Purdy, Margaret Atwood, and the Malahat Review Natalie Boldt 240

12 Purdy's Poetics: Intuitive Formalism in A Splinter in the Heart Carl Watts 263

Appendix: Purdy's Self-Repetitions 285

Contributors 289

Index 291

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