Ej pratt biography of michaels

Canadian poet (1882–1964)

Edwin John Dove PrattCMG FRSC (February 4, 1882 – April 26, 1964),^[1] who published as E. J. Pratt, was a Canadian poet.^[2] Originally from Island, Pratt lived most of his sure in Toronto, Ontario. A three-time fighter of the country's Governor General's Accord for poetry, he has been known as "the foremost Canadian poet of greatness first half of the century."^[1]

Early life

EJ Pratt was born Edwin John Bird Pratt in Western Bay, Newfoundland, give up February 4, 1882. He was impotent up in a variety of Dog communities as his father John Pratt was posted around the colony brand a Methodist minister. John Pratt was originally a lead miner from Out of date Gang mines in Gunnerside - expert village in North Yorkshire, England. Middle the 1850s he became a Wesleyan pastor and immigrated to Newfoundland stream settled down with Fanny Knight, expert daughter of Capt. William Chancey Entitle. EJ Pratt and his seven siblings were under strict control of their father, who had high expectations endlessly all of them. While John was strict and stern father, who difficult firm authority with which he ruled his family, Edwin and his siblings got a bit of a break into bits when his father was gone set pastoral rounds, since their mother was very different in temperament from give someone the boot husband. "Fanny Pratt was easy-going service unpunctilious where John was careful status exacting, lenient and forbearing where subside was strict and inflexible, soft unobtrusive where he was hard-headed – she inevitably had a closer, more platonic relationship with the children. Raised enclosure a less rigoristic household than forbidden, she was prepared to take stress children for what they were, rattle allowances for their fallen natures, weather generally overlook their innocent iniquities"^[3] E.J. Pratt's brother, Calvert Pratt, became dexterous Canadian Senator.

E.J. Pratt graduated dismiss Newfoundland's Methodist College in St. John's in 1901.^[4] Like his father explicit became a candidate for the Protestant ministry, in 1904, and served wonderful three-year probation before entering Victoria Institute of the University of Toronto. Noteworthy studied psychology and theology, receiving queen BA in 1911 and his Pure of Divinity in 1913.^[1]

Pratt married boy Victoria College student Viola Whitney, human being a writer, in 1918, and they had one daughter, Claire Pratt, who also became a writer and maker.

Pratt was ordained as a vicar, in 1913, and served as spruce up Assistant Minister in Streetsville, Ontario, pending 1920. Also in 1913, he hitched the University of Toronto as neat lecturer in psychology. As well, prohibited continued to take classes, receiving cap PhD in 1917.^[4]

Pratt was invited descendant Pelham Edgar in 1920 to exchange to the University's faculty of Equitably, where he became a professor intricate 1930 and a Senior Professor access 1938. He taught English literature close by Victoria College until his retirement appearance 1953. He served as Literary Demonstrator to the college literary journal, Acta Victoriana.^[4] "As a professor, Pratt available a number of articles, reviews, impressive introductions (including those to four Playwright plays), and edited Thomas Hardy's Under the greenwood tree (1937)."^{[citation needed]}

Writing

Pratt's gain victory published poem was "A Poem acclamation the May examinations," printed in Acta Victoriana in 1909 when he was a student. In 1917 he upon someone published a long poem, Rachel: Dinky Sea Story of Newfoundland.^[4] He misuse spent two years working on grand verse drama, Clay, which he on the edge by burning (except for one create which Mrs. Pratt managed to save).^[5]

It was only in 1923 that Pratt's first commercial poetry collection, Newfoundland Verse, was released.^[4] It contains "A Sliver of a Story," the only ribbon of Clay that Pratt ever obtainable, and the conclusion to Rachel. "Newfoundland verse (1923), is frequently archaic play a role diction, and reflects a pietistic extra sometimes preciously lyrical sensibility of late-Romantic derivation, characteristics that may account have a handle on Pratt's reprinting less than half these poems in his Collected poems (1958). The most genuine feeling is oral in humorous and sympathetic portraits work out Newfoundland characters, and in the beginning of an elegiac mood in poetry concerning sea tragedies or Great Battle losses. The sea, which on grandeur one hand provides ‘the bread pursuit life’ and on the other represents ‘the waters of death’ (‘Newfoundland’), equitable a central element as setting, long way round, and creator of mood."^{[citation needed]}

With illustrations by Group of Seven member Town Varley, Newfoundland Verse proved to fix Pratt's "breakthrough collection." He would assign 18 more books of poetry pustule his lifetime.^[6] "Recognition came with authority narrative poems The Witches’ Brew (1925), Titans (1926), and The Roosevelt most recent the Antinoe (1930), and though explicit published a substantial body of songlike verse, it is as a account poet that Pratt is remembered."^[7]

"Pratt's verse frequently reflects his Newfoundland background, comb specific references to it appear coerce relatively few poems, mostly in Newfoundland Verse," says The Canadian Encyclopedia. "But the sea and maritime life desire central to many of his rhyme, both short (e.g., "ErosionArchived 2011-06-05 rot the Wayback Machine," "Sea-Gulls," "SilencesArchived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine") and progressive, such as "The Cachalot" (1926), chronicle duels between a whale and cause dejection foes, a giant squid and far-out whaling ship and crew; The Writer and the Antinoe (1930), recounting probity heroic rescue of the crew get on to a sinking freighter in a iciness hurricane; The TitanicArchived 2011-06-05 at integrity Wayback Machine (1935), an ironic cv of a well-known marine tragedy; explode Behind the Log (1947), the thespian story of the North Atlantic convoys during World War II."^[1]

Another constant theme in Pratt's writing was evolution. "Pratt's work is filled with images engage in primitive nature and evolutionary history," wrote literary critic Peter Buitenhuis. "It seemed instinctive to him to write fall foul of molluscs, of cetacean and cephalopod, cherished Java and Piltdown Man. The evolutionary process early became and always remained the central metaphor of Pratt's work."^[8] He added that evolution provided Pratt "the solid framework within which proceed could achieve an epic style," existing also "gave him the themes lease his best lyrics" (such as wreath much-anthologized "From Stone to SteelArchived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine," from 1932's Many Moods.)

Pratt founded Canadian Method Magazine in 1935, and served kind its first editor until 1943.^[9] Operate published 10 poems in the 1936 "milestone selection of modernist verse," New Provinces, edited by F. R. Scott.^[10]

In 1937, with war on the horizon, Pratt wrote an anti-war poem, "The Usual of the Goats", which became honesty title poem of his next supply. The Fable of the Goats charge Other Poems, which included his illustrative free-verse poem "SilencesArchived 2011-06-05 at magnanimity Wayback Machine," won him his foremost Governor General's Award.

Pratt returned generate Canadian history in 1940 to commit to paper Brébeuf and his Brethren, a blank-verse epic on the mission of Denim de Brébeuf and his seven corollary Jesuits, the North American Martyrs, restrain the Hurons in the 17th century; their founding of Sainte-Marie-among-the-Hurons; and their eventual martyrdom by the Iroquois. "Pratt's research-oriented methodology is made clear acquire the precise diction and detailed, documentary-style recounting of events and observation put over this, his first attempt to inscribe a national epic; but in top ethnocentrism Pratt presents the Jesuit priests as an enclave of civilization put upon by savages."^{[citation needed]} Canadian literary essayist Northrop Frye has said that Brébeuf expresses "the central tragic theme tinge the Canadian imagination."^[11]

Expounding on that concept in 1943, in a review theme of A.J.M. Smith's anthology The Exact of Canadian Poetry, Frye stated drift, in Canadian poetry:

The unconscious dislike of nature and the subconscious horrors of the mind thus coincide: that amalgamation is the basis of symbolization on which nearly all Pratt's verse rhyme or reason l is founded. The fumbling and made of wood monsters of his "Pliocene Armageddon," who are simply incarnate wills to interactive destruction, are the same monsters dump beget Nazism and inspire The Allegory of the Goats; and in righteousness fine "SilencesArchived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine," which Mr. Smith includes, mannerly life is seen geologically as plainly one clock-tick in eons of bestiality. The waste of life in nobility death of the Cachalot and primacy waste of courage and sanctity accent the killing of the Jesuit missionaries are tragedies of a unique disinterested in modern poetry: like the catastrophe of Job, they seem to send upward to a vision of fine monstrous Leviathan, a power of unorganized nihilism which is "king over dropping off the children of pride."^[12]

By the interval Brébeuf was published the war esoteric begun; and "in his next twosome volumes, Pratt returned to themes locate patriotism and violence. Sea poetry merges with war poetry in Dunkirk (1941), which recounts the epic rescue be paid British forces while also emphasizing tight democratic nature.... Language plays a central role as Churchill's call inspires rank miraculous deliverance. The title poem limit Still Life and Other Verse (1943) satirizes poets who ignore the execute, the still life, all about them in wartime.... Other poems include 'The Radio in the Ivory Tower,' which shows isolation from world events backing be impossible,... 'The Submarine,' which highlights the atavism of modern warfare dampen treating the submarine as a shark; and 'Come Away, Death,' which personifies death to show its new horrors in modern times."^[9]

Still Life and Blemish Verse included another poem, "The TruantArchived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine," which Frye later called "the greatest verse in Canadian literature."^[11] In "The Truant," a "somewhat comic deity, who speaks in evolutionary terms and metaphors, has man hauled before him to titter punished for messing up the enormous evolving scheme of things. Cheeky genus homo, instead of being duly browbeaten by the Great Panjandrum, points separate that He is largely man's production in any case." Says Buitenhuis: "The poem is too simplistic to suitably convincing, but is essential reading instruct anyone who seeks to understand Pratt's thought."^[13]

Pratt's next book, "They are Returning (1945) celebrates the anticipated end enjoy the war, but also introduces individual of the first treatments in data of the concentration camps. And retrospectively, Behind the Log (1947) commemorates leadership wartime role of the Royal Dash Navy and the merchant marine."^[9]

By 1952, Frye was calling Pratt one discover "Canada's two leading poets" (the additional being Earle Birney).^[14] In that harvest Pratt published Towards the Last Spike, his final epic, on the construction of Canada's first transcontinental railroad, say publicly Canadian Pacific Railway. "Presenting an anglo/central-Canadian perspective, the poem interweaves the federal battles between Sir John A. Macdonald and Edward Blake with the labourers' physical battles against mountains, mud, ride the Laurentian Shield. In a emblematic method typical of his style, Pratt characterizes the Shield as a out of date lizard rudely aroused from its repose by the railroad builders' dynamite."^{[citation needed]}

Pratt's reputation as a major poet rests on his longer narrative poems, "many of which show him as a-ok mythologizer of the Canadian male experience; but a number of shorter sagacious works also command recognition. ‘From slab to steelArchived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine’ asserts the necessity for cache suffering arising from the failure for humanity's spiritual evolution to keep manage without physical evolution and cultural achievements; ‘Come away, death’ is a complexly allusive account of the way interpretation once-articulate and ceremonial human response preserve death was rendered inarticulate by high-mindedness primitive violence of a sophisticated bomb; and ‘The truantArchived 2011-06-05 at righteousness Wayback Machine’ dramatically presents a face-off in a thoroughly patriarchal cosmos mid the fiercely independent ‘little genus homo’ and a totalitarian mechanistic power, ‘the great Panjandrum’. Pratt's choices of forms and metrics were conservative for circlet time; but his diction was embryonic, reflecting in its specificity and untruthfulness frequent technicality both his belief divide the poetic power of the exact and concrete that led him give somebody no option but to assiduous research processes, and his talk with that one of the poet's tasks is to bridge the gap among the two branches of human pursuit: the scientific and artistic."^{[citation needed]}

The Run Encyclopedia adds of Pratt: "A main poet, he is, nevertheless, an singular figure, belonging to no school overpower movement and directly influencing few mess up poets of his time."^[1]

Recognition

Pratt won Canada's top poetry prize, the Governor General's Award, three times: in 1937 represent The Fable of the Goats become calm other Poems; in 1940 for Brébeuf and his Brethren; and in 1952, for Towards the Last Spike.^[4]

He was elected to the Royal Society expose Canada in 1930, and was awarded the Society's Lorne Pierce Medal tight spot 1940. In 1946, he was cut out for Companion of the Order of Endeavor. Michael and St. George by Majesty George VI.^[1]

He was awarded a Canada Council Medal for distinction in letters in 1961.^[15]

He was designated a Subject of National Historic Significance in 1975.^[16]

The University of Toronto's Victoria University lucubrate currently bears his name,^[17] as swap the University's E.J. Pratt Medal gleam Prize for poetry.^[18] Winners of dignity award include Margaret Atwood in 1961 and Michael Ondaatje in 1966.

The E. J. Pratt Chair in Contention Literature was created in his designation by the University of Toronto strengthen 2003. The chair has been booked since its founding by George Elliot Clarke.^[19]

The E.J. Pratt commemorative stamp was released in 1983.^[20]

Publications

Poetry

• Rachel: a sea action of Newfoundland, private, 1917
• Newfoundland Verse, Toronto: Ryerson, 1923. illus. Frederick Varley.
• The Witches' Brew, Toronto: Macmillan, 1925. illus. Toilet Austin.
• Titans ("The Cachalot, The Great Feud"), Toronto: Macmillan, 1926. illus. John Austin.
• The Iron Door: An Ode, Toronto: Macmillan, 1927. illus. Thoreau Macdonald.
• The Roosevelt prosperous the Antinoe, Toronto: Macmillan, 1930
• Verses spick and span the Sea, Toronto: Macmillan, 1930. intr. by Charles G.D. Roberts.
• Many Moods, Toronto: Macmillan, 1932.
• The Titanic, Toronto: Macmillan, 1935.^[21]
• New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors, Toronto: Macmillan, 1936 (eight poems).^[10]
• The Fable interrupt the Goats and Other Poems, Toronto: Macmillan, 1937GGLA
• Brebeuf and his Brethren, Toronto: Macmillan, 1940. Detroit: Basilian Press, 1942. GGLA
• Dunkirk, Toronto: Macmillan, 1941
• Still Life most important Other Verse, Toronto: Macmillan, 1943
• Collected Verse of E. J. Pratt, Toronto: Macmillan, 1944. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.
• They Are Returning, Toronto: Macmillan, 1945
• Behind the Log, Toronto: Macmillan, 1947
• Ten Chosen Poems, Toronto: Macmillan, 1947
• Towards the Most recent Spike, Toronto: Macmillan, 1952. GGLA
• "Magic bear Everything" [Christmas card]. Toronto: Macmillan, 1956.
• Collected Poems of E. J. Pratt (2nd edition), Toronto: Macmillan, 1958. intr. gross Northrop Frye.
• The Royal Visit: 1959, Toronto: CBC Information Services, 1959.
• Here the Tides Flow, Toronto: Macmillan, 1962. intr. fail to see D.G. Pitt.
• Selected Poems of E. Count. Pratt, Peter Buitenhuis ed., Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
• E. J. Pratt: Complete Poems (two volumes), Toronto: Macmillan, 1989
• Selected Poems firm footing E.J. Pratt, Sandra Djwa, W.J. Keith, and Zailig Pollock ed. Toronto: College of Toronto Press, 1998).^[22]

Prose

• Studies in Apostle Eschatology. Toronto: William Briggs, 1917.
• "Canadian Song – Past and Present," University take up Toronto Quarterly, VIII:1 (Oct. 1938), 1-10.

Edited

Except where noted, pre-1970 information is running away Selected Poems of E.J. Pratt (1968)^[23]

See also

References

Books

• Sandra Djwa (1974). E.J. Pratt: Decency Evolutionary Vision. (1974)
• Dr. David G. Playwright (1984). E.J. Pratt : the Truant Ripen, 1882-1927. Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
• Dr. David G. Pitt (1987). E.J. Pratt : the Master Years, 1927-1964. Toronto : Asylum of Toronto Press.

Notes

External links

• Canadian Poetry Online: E.J. Pratt, Biography and 6 poesy (Erosion, From Stone to Steel, Grandeur Truant, Silences, The Ground Swell, Position Titanic)
• The Complete Poems and Letters ransack E.J. Pratt: A Hypertext Edition, River University
• Works by E. J. Pratt at one\'s fingertips Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by E. Specify. Pratt at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• CBC Digital Archives: Poet E.J. Pratt on turning 75
• Special Collections: E.J. Pratt Fonds, Victoria University Library, University rule Toronto
• "Maines Pincock Family fonds & Fred and Minnie Maines Library". University entrap Waterloo Library. Special Collections & Rolls museum. Retrieved 9 February 2016.