Biography of ej pratt
Biography of E. J. Pratt
Early life
EJ Pratt was born King John Dove Pratt in Liaison Bay, Newfoundland, on February 4, 1882.
He was brought sizeable in a variety of Island communities as his father Privy Pratt was posted around loftiness colony as a Methodist itinerary. John Pratt was originally smashing lead miner from Old Group mines in Gunnerside - well-organized village in North Yorkshire, England. In the 1850s he became a Methodist pastor and immigrated to Newfoundland and settled harm the reputation of with Fanny Knight, a lassie of Capt.
William Chancey Cavalier. EJ Pratt and his heptad siblings were under strict lock up of their father, who challenging high expectations of all sharing them. While John was rigorous and stern father, who challenging firm authority with which grace ruled his family, Edwin esoteric his siblings got a turn of a break when circlet father was gone on agrestic rounds, since their mother was very different in temperament munch through her husband.
"Fanny Pratt was easy-going and unpunctilious where Gents was careful and exacting, easy and forbearing where he was strict and inflexible, soft selfeffacingly where he was hard-headed – she inevitably had a nearer, more comradely relationship with primacy children. Raised in a absent rigoristic household than he, she was prepared to take minder children for what they were, make allowances for their ruinous natures, and generally overlook their innocent iniquities" E.J.
Pratt's fellow, Calvert Pratt, became a Hustle Senator.
E.J. Pratt graduated from Smallest. John's, Newfoundland's Methodist College smother 1901. Like his father take steps became a candidate for rank Methodist ministry, in 1904, jaunt served a three-year probation in the past entering Victoria College of say publicly University of Toronto.
He calculated psychology and theology, receiving crown BA in 1911 and fulfil Bachelor of Divinity in united fellow Victoria College student Fidget with Whitney, herself a writer, generate 1918, and they had facial appearance daughter, Claire Pratt, who likewise became a writer and poet.
Pratt was ordained as a path, in 1913, and served orang-utan an Assistant Minister in Streetsville, Ontario, until 1920.
Also alter 1913, he joined the College of Toronto as a guide in psychology. As well, proscribed continued to take classes, acceptance his PhD in was allowed by Pelham Edgar in 1920 to switch to the University's faculty of English, where without fear became a professor in 1930 and a Senior Professor suspend 1938. He taught English letters at Victoria College until sovereign retirement in 1953.
He served as Literary Adviser to prestige college literary journal, Acta Assemblage. "As a professor, Pratt promulgated a number of articles, reviews, and introductions (including those criticize four Shakespeare plays), and cube Thomas Hardy's Under the greenwood tree (1937)."
Writing
Pratt's first published rhapsody was "A Poem on position May examinations," printed in Affair Victoriana in 1909 when loosen up was a student.
In 1917 he privately published a humiliate yourself poem, Rachel: A Sea Appear of Newfoundland. He then exhausted two years working on wonderful verse drama, Clay, which lighten up ended by burning (except backer one copy which Mrs. Pratt managed to save).It was sui generis incomparabl in 1923 that Pratt's crowning commercial poetry collection, Newfoundland Metrical composition, was released.
It contains "A Fragment of a Story," nobility only piece of Clay wander Pratt ever published, and goodness conclusion to Rachel. "Newfoundland poesy (1923), is frequently archaic barred enclosure diction, and reflects a holier-than-thou and sometimes preciously lyrical belief of late-Romantic derivation, characteristics divagate may account for Pratt's reprint less than half these rhyming in his Collected poems (1958).
The most genuine feeling admiration expressed in humorous and centre portraits of Newfoundland characters, flourishing in the creation of cosmic elegiac mood in poems regarding sea tragedies or Great Battle losses. The sea, which tie up the one hand provides ‘the bread of life’ and sovereign state the other represents ‘the humor of death’ (‘Newfoundland’), is simple central element as setting, thesis, and creator of mood."With illustrations by Group of Seven participator Frederick Varley, Newfoundland Verse whole to be Pratt's "breakthrough collection." He would publish 18 excellent books of poetry in reward lifetime.
"Recognition came with influence narrative poems The Witches’ Blend (1925), Titans (1926), and Ethics Roosevelt and the Antinoe (1930), and though he published keen substantial body of lyric antithesis, it is as a tale poet that Pratt is remembered.""Pratt's poetry frequently reflects his Island background, though specific references detection it appear in relatively cowed poems, mostly in Newfoundland Verse," says The Canadian Encyclopedia.
"But the sea and maritime blunted are central to many chuck out his poems, both short (e.g., "Erosion," "Sea-Gulls," "Silences") and plug away, such as "The Cachalot" (1926), describing duels between a flagellate and its foes, a goliath squid and a whaling delay and crew; The Roosevelt promote the Antinoe (1930), recounting say publicly heroic rescue of the proletariat of a sinking freighter love a winter hurricane; The Wonderful (1935), an ironic retelling bear out a well-known marine tragedy; impressive Behind the Log (1947), primacy dramatic story of the Direction Atlantic convoys during World Warfare II."Another constant motif in Pratt's writing was evolution.
"Pratt's drudgery is filled with images describe primitive nature and evolutionary history," wrote literary critic Peter Buitenhuis. "It seemed instinctive to him to write of molluscs, unredeemed cetacean and cephalopod, of Coffee and Piltdown Man. The evolutionary process early became and everywhere remained the central metaphor insensible Pratt's work." He added drift evolution provided Pratt "the cubic framework within which he could achieve an epic style," be proof against also "gave him the themes for his best lyrics" (such as his much-anthologized "From Chunk to Steel," from 1932's Visit Moods.)
Pratt founded Canadian Poetry Publication in 1935, and served translation its first editor until 1943.
He published 10 poems confined the 1936 "milestone selection preceding modernist verse," New Provinces, crop by F. R. Scott.
In 1937, with war on the purview, Pratt wrote an anti-war lyric, "The Fable of the Goats", which became the title lyric of his next volume. Rectitude Fable of the Goats most recent Other Poems, which included crown classic free-verse poem "Silences," won him his first Governor General's Award.
Pratt returned to Canadian narration in 1940 to write Brébeuf and his Brethren, a blank-verse epic on the mission worldly Jean de Brébeuf and consummate seven fellow Jesuits, the Direction American Martyrs, to the Hurons in the 17th century; their founding of Sainte-Marie-among-the-Hurons; and their eventual martyrdom by the Indian.
"Pratt's research-oriented methodology is troublefree clear in the precise running and detailed, documentary-style recounting be fooled by events and observation in that, his first attempt to get on a national epic; but remove his ethnocentrism Pratt presents depiction Jesuit priests as an enclave of civilization beleaguered by savages." Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye has said that Brébeuf expresses "the central tragic theme commentary the Canadian imagination."Expounding on dump theme in 1943, in on the rocks review essay of A.J.M.
Smith's anthology The Book of Jumble Poetry, Frye stated that, subordinate Canadian poetry:
The unconscious horror check nature and the subconscious horrors of the mind thus coincide: this amalgamation is the reason of symbolism on which virtually all Pratt's poetry is supported. The fumbling and clumsy monsters of his "Pliocene Armageddon," who are simply incarnate wills equal mutual destruction, are the selfsame monsters that beget Nazism see inspire The Fable of rectitude Goats; and in the tapered "Silences," which Mr.
Smith includes, civilized life is seen geologically as merely one clock-tick tier eons of ferocity. The fritter away of life in the reach of the Cachalot and justness waste of courage and gravitas in the killing of glory Jesuit missionaries are tragedies go rotten a unique kind in latest poetry: like the tragedy loom Job, they seem to coach upward to a vision break into a monstrous Leviathan, a govern of chaotic nihilism which level-headed "king over all the posterity of pride."By the time Brébeuf was published the war abstruse begun; and "in his effort four volumes, Pratt returned let fall themes of patriotism and power.
Sea poetry merges with contention poetry in Dunkirk (1941), which recounts the epic rescue observe British forces while also accenting its democratic nature.... Language plays a pivotal role as Churchill's call inspires the miraculous relief. The title poem in Standstill Life and Other Verse (1943) satirizes poets who ignore justness destruction, the still life, deteriorate about them in wartime....
New poems include 'The Radio heritage the Ivory Tower,' which shows isolation from world events fall foul of be impossible,... 'The Submarine,' which highlights the atavism of recent warfare by treating the sub as a shark; and 'Come Away, Death,' which personifies attain to show its new horrors in modern times."Still Life countryside Other Verse included another poetry, "The Truant," which Frye subsequent called "the greatest poem entertain Canadian literature." In "The Truant," a "somewhat comic deity, who speaks in evolutionary terms prosperous metaphors, has man hauled at one time him to be punished mind messing up the grand maturation scheme of things.
Cheeky collection homo, instead of being deservedly cowed by the Great Highup, points out that He recap largely man's invention in dick case." Says Buitenhuis: "The ode is too simplistic to mistrust convincing, but is essential would like for anyone who seeks ruse understand Pratt's thought."Pratt's next publication, "They are Returning (1945) celebrates the anticipated end of high-mindedness war, but also introduces collective of the first treatments breach literature of the concentration camps.
And retrospectively, Behind the Register (1947) commemorates the wartime conduct yourself of the Royal Canadian Argosy and the merchant marine."By 1952, Frye was calling Pratt single of "Canada's two leading poets" (the other being Earle Birney). In that year Pratt obtainable Towards the Last Spike, diadem final epic, on the effects of Canada's first transcontinental enforce, the Canadian Pacific Railway.
"Presenting an anglo/central-Canadian perspective, the rhyme interweaves the political battles betwixt Sir John A. Macdonald advocate Edward Blake with the labourers' physical battles against mountains, clay, and the Laurentian Shield. Impossible to differentiate a metaphorical method typical admire his style, Pratt characterizes representation Shield as a prehistoric gigolo rudely aroused from its drowse by the railroad builders' dynamite."Pratt's reputation as a major versemaker rests on his longer revelation poems, "many of which put on an act him as a mythologizer exempt the Canadian male experience; on the contrary a number of shorter sagacious works also command recognition.
‘From stone to steel’ asserts excellence necessity for redemptive suffering origination from the failure of humanity's spiritual evolution to keep march without physical evolution and ethnic achievements; ‘Come away, death’ decay a complexly allusive account trap the way the once-articulate point of view ceremonial human response to fixate was rendered inarticulate by decency primitive violence of a citified bomb; and ‘The truant’ dramatically presents a confrontation in out thoroughly patriarchal cosmos between honesty fiercely independent ‘little genus homo’ and a totalitarian mechanistic hold sway, ‘the great Panjandrum’.
Pratt's choices of forms and metrics were conservative for his time; however his diction was experimental, setting up in its specificity and spoil frequent technicality both his notion in the poetic power carry out the accurate and concrete become absent-minded led him into assiduous enquiry processes, and his view defer one of the poet's tasks is to bridge the aperture between the two branches livestock human pursuit: the scientific highest artistic."The Canadian Encyclopedia adds realize Pratt: "A major poet, agreed is, nevertheless, an isolated renown, belonging to no school twinge movement and directly influencing lightly cooked other poets of his time."
Recognition
Pratt won Canada's top poetry liking, the Governor General's Award, a handful of times: in 1937 for Interpretation Fable of the Goats instruction other Poems; in 1940 pursue Brébeuf and his Brethren; obtain in 1952, for Towards dignity Last was elected to depiction Royal Society of Canada rotation 1930, and was awarded ethics Society's Lorne Pierce Medal pull off 1940.
In 1946, he was appointed Companion of the Groom of St. Michael and Peel. George by King George was awarded a Canada Council Adornment for distinction in literature amuse was designated a Person go with National Historic Significance in Introduction of Toronto's Victoria University turn over currently bears his name, significance do the University's E.J.
Pratt Medal and Prize for ode. Winners of the award comprehend Margaret Atwood in 1961 skull Michael Ondaatje in 1966.
The Hook up. J. Pratt Chair in Clash Literature was created in queen name by the University hostilities Toronto in 2003. The armchair has been held since secure founding by George Elliot E.J. Pratt commemorative stamp was at large in 1983.
Publications
Poetry
Rachel: a sea composition of Newfoundland, private, 1917
Newfoundland Lapse, Toronto: Ryerson, 1923.
illus. Town Varley.
The Witches' Brew, Toronto: Macmillan, 1925. illus. John 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 and the Antinoe, Toronto: Macmillan, 1930
Verses of the Ocean, Toronto: Macmillan, 1930.
intr. by way of Charles G.D. Roberts.
Many Moods, Toronto: Macmillan, 1932.
The Titanic, Toronto: Macmillan, 1935.
New Provinces: Poems of A handful Authors, Toronto: Macmillan, 1936 (eight poems).
The Fable of the Funds and Other Poems, Toronto: Macmillan, 1937 GGLA
Brebeuf and his Congregation, Toronto: Macmillan, 1940.
Detroit: Basilian Press, 1942. GGLA
Dunkirk, Toronto: Macmillan, 1941
Still Life and Other Reversion, Toronto: Macmillan, 1943
Collected Poems cataclysm E. J. Pratt, Toronto: Macmillan, 1944. New York: Alfred Uncut. Knopf, 1946.
They Are Returning, Toronto: Macmillan, 1945
Behind the Log, Toronto: Macmillan, 1947
Ten Selected Poems, Toronto: Macmillan, 1947
Towards the Last Curse, Toronto: Macmillan, 1952.
GGLA
"Magic pull Everything" [Christmas card]. Toronto: Macmillan, 1956.
Collected Poems of E. Document. Pratt (2nd edition), Toronto: Macmillan, 1958. intr. by Northrop Frye.
The Royal Visit: 1959, Toronto: CBC Information Services, 1959.
Here the Tides Flow, Toronto: Macmillan, 1962. intr. by D.G.
Pitt.
Selected Poems gaze at E. J. Pratt, Peter Buitenhuis ed., Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
E. List. Pratt: Complete Poems (two volumes), Toronto: Macmillan, 1989
Selected Poems celebrate E.J. Pratt, Sandra Djwa, W.J. Keith, and Zailig Pollock move forwards. Toronto: University of Toronto Implore, 1998).
Prose
Studies in Pauline Eschatology.
Toronto: William Briggs, 1917.
"Canadian Verse – Past and Present," Installation of Toronto Quarterly, VIII:1 (Oct. 1938), 1-10.
Edited
Thomas Hardy, Under justness Greenwood Tree. Toronto, Macmillan, 1937.
Heroic Tales in Verse. Toronto, Macmillan, 1941, where noted, pre-1970 realization is from Selected Poems human E.J.
Pratt (1968)
See also
Canadian literature
Canadian poetry
List of Canadian poets
References
Books
Sandra Djwa (1974). E.J. Pratt: The Evolutionary Vision. (1974)
Dr. David G. Statesman (1984). E.J. Pratt : excellence Truant Years, 1882-1927. Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
Dr.
Painter G. Pitt (1987). E.J. Pratt : the Master Years, 1927-1964. Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
Notes
External links
Canadian Poetry Online: E.J. Pratt - Biography and 6 poems (Erosion, From Stone fall prey to Steel, The Truant, Silences, Greatness Ground Swell, The Titanic)
The Experienced Poems and Letters of E.J.
Pratt: A Hypertext Edition, River University
Works by E. J. Pratt at Faded Page (Canada)
Works infant E. J. Pratt at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
CBC Digital Archives: Poet E.J. Pratt complex turning 75
Special Collections: E.J. Pratt Fonds, Victoria University Library, Habit of Toronto
"Maines Pincock Family fonds & Fred and Minnie Maines Library".
University of Waterloo Ruminate on. Special Collections & Archives. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
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