Antimodernist Antecedents in Early Canadian Modernism: Archibald MacMechan's "A Ballade of Canadian Literature" and F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet". Issue 3 (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Narbonne, André
• Is Part Of: American review of Canadian studies. Volume 49:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 394
• Page End: 412
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Archibald MacMechan -- Canadian criticism -- early modernism -- Dean's window -- educated antimodernism; Comparative civilization -- Periodicals; Canada -- Civilization -- Periodicals; Canada -- Periodicals; United States -- Periodicals; 971
• DOI: 10.1080/02722011.2019.1650084
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0272-2011

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Archibald MacMechan's regular column in the Montreal Standard entitled "The Dean's Window" (1906–1933) is an important index to educated antimodernist literary values. MacMechan brought his reading of world literature into his appraisals of the Canadian scene, through his groundbreaking work, Headwaters of Canadian Literature (1924). In a 1912 "Dean's Window" column, MacMechan, a published poet, opened with a poem of his own, "The Ballade of Canadian Literature, " which anticipated F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet"—itself a seminal work of early Canadian modernism. By no means binaries, the degree to which modernism and antimodernism could resemble each other is manifest in MacMechan's and Scott's poems, even though Scott's poem eviscerates the Canadian Authors Association, an organization of which MacMechan was a founding member.