Celebrity and the Poetic Dialogue of Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Celebrity and the Poetic Dialogue of Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen
Abstract
The author notes that at the beginning of Leonard Cohen’s career as a poet, he met Irving Layton, the most controversial mentor he could have chosen among Canadian writers. These two Montrealers soon began writing poems for and about each other, often with reference to each other’s works. The author explains that during the intense years of their celebrity, this poetic dialogue was a vehicle for a pointed rivalry, but the poets also revealed concern for each other and for their freedom of expression. The author points out that Cohen initiated and often sustained the dialogue by questioning Layton’s persona and his implied fear of being defined by his audience. More influenced by Layton’s poems than vice versa, Cohen implied that he was afraid of being defined by Layton and his generation. The author contends that these potentially real fears are reflected in the ironically masculine and religious representations of celebrity in their poetry. He argues that by exploiting the problematic authority of masculinity and religion, Layton and Cohen promoted each other’s celebrity; however, they also fashioned their personas to be ironic, and both appeared wary of their culture’s extraordinary approval of them.
Publication
Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne
Volume
Vol. 34
Issue
no. 2
Pages
77-105
Date
2009
Language
en
URL
Citation
Deshaye, Joel. “Celebrity and the Poetic Dialogue of Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen.” Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne Vol. 34, no. 2 (2009): 77–105. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/12703/13629.
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