Manifold Division: Desmond Pacey's History of English-Canadian Poetry

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Manifold Division: Desmond Pacey's History of English-Canadian Poetry
Abstract
The author notes that Desmond Pacey's career as a critic of Canadian literature and criticism, beginning with his prefiguring of a pattern later developed by others such as Montreal poets A.J.M. Smith (1902-1980) and John Sutherland (1919-1956), ultimately ends with his confirming the lines of regional decentralization that follow from literary critic Northrop Frye's re-creation of that very same early work. He explains that an outline of Pacey's career in effect traces the trajectory of the work of Smith, Sutherland, and Frye, and as do all reflections, it actually serves to reverse what it ostensibly replicates. The author argues that a re-examination of Pacey's history of Canadian literature reveals its movements of retreat, re-inscription, and relocation; its most characteristic leanings are toward ambivalence and paradox. He concludes that despite Pacey's striving for a sort of synthesis in the history of Canadian literature, his history ends in a representation of manifold division. Similarly, his history of Canadian literary criticism ends in binary opposition, maturity deferred.
Publication
Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne
Volume
Vol. 22
Issue
no. 2
Pages
1-27
Date
Summer 1997
Language
en
URL
Citation
Kokotailo, Philip. “Manifold Division: Desmond Pacey’s History of English-Canadian Poetry.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne Vol. 22, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 1–27. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/scl/1997-v22-n2-scl_22_2/scl22_2art01.pdf.
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