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Poetry Canadian

Of Sunken Islands and Pestilence

Restoring the Voice of Edward Taylor Fletcher to Nineteenth-Century Canadian Literature

by (author) James Gifford

Publisher
Athabasca University Press
Initial publish date
Aug 2022
Category
Canadian, Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781771993449
    Publish Date
    Aug 2022
    List Price
    $34.99

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Description

Edward Taylor Fletcher was a nineteenth-century literary figure almost completely forgotten by history. Poet, travel writer, essayist, surveyor, philologist, and translator, Fletcher shared many characteristics with the great literary figures of the time. Yet his writing represents a significant departure from his contemporaries and a close reading of his work reshapes our understanding of the Canadian long poem and the cultural values of Canadian poetry. Fletcher spoke English, French, German, Italian, and other modern languages fluently and he studied or translated literary works in Icelandic, Finnish, Polish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit (among several others). His poetry interweaves Canadian landscapes with modern and ancient traditions of the East and West and integrates allusions and innovations from several different literary traditions including the Kalavela, the Mahabharata, and the Poetic Edda. By recuperating Fletcher’s nineteenth century works, James Gifford uncovers a unique Canadian literary voice who explored content, style, and concerns unlike the popular colonial narratives of his time.

About the author

James Gifford is Associate Professor of English and the Director of the University Core Curriculum at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Vancouver. He has published several scholarly works on Lawrence Durrell. His latest publication is Personal Modernisms (2014).

James Gifford's profile page