The Beginnings Of A National Literary Tradition

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these poets/authors was more
than ten years old when the Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867. However,
all of these writers were aware of the lack of a distinctive Canadian
literary tradition and they made efforts to create one for their successors.
While each of these men had their own distinctive writing style they all
sought to contribute and create a ‘national' literature. According to
R.E.Rashley in Poetry in Canada: The First Three Steps " there is no
Canadian poetry before [The Confederation Poets] time"(98). These men were
the first in a long line of authors and artists to conceive of the need for
a discernible national literature. The Confederation Poets function was to
"explore the new knowledge that they had acquired of themselves that had
been created by the interaction of environment and people and the concept
of evolutionary growth"(Rashley 98). Archibald Lampman was a key note in
the beginnings of a national literary movement. Before Lampman and the
other ...

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quote on the title page). The
importance of having this distinct literary "school" was a driving
inspiration in his art. Lampman is regarded "as the most talented of The
Confederation Poets"( W.J. Keith 18). It is amazing that this
unspectacular man could have such a profound effect on the evolution of
Canadian literary tradition. His upbringing was in a very conservative
environment as Lampman descended from Loyalists on both sides of his family
and his father was an Anglican clergyman. It seemed that "every element in
Lampman's upbringing told against the development of Canadianism in [him],
but Canadianism did develop very early"(E.K. Brown 97). As a child growing
up around ...

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