Edwin john pratt biography sample

Home / Biography Templates & Examples / Edwin john pratt biography sample

illus. E.J. Pratt: The Evolutionary Vision.

In 1971, the Canada Council began appointing two nine-member juries — one Anglophone and one francophone, each of which was overseen by a non-voting chair —­ drawn from experienced writers, academics and literary critics. "It seemed instinctive to him to write of molluscs, of cetacean and cephalopod, of Java and Piltdown Man.

The evolutionary process early became and always remained the central metaphor of Pratt's work." He added that evolution provided Pratt "the solid framework within which he could achieve an epic style," and also "gave him the themes for his best lyrics" (such as his much-anthologized "From Stone to Steel," from 1932's Many Moods.)Pratt founded Canadian Poetry Magazine in 1935, and served as its first editor until 1943.

In 1926 he established the Lorne Pierce Medal of the RSC for literary achievement and in 1927 the Edith and Lorne Pierce Collection of Canadian Literature at Queen's. The chair has been held since its founding by George Elliot Clarke.The E.J. Pratt commemorative stamp was released in 1983.PublicationsPoetryRachel: a sea story of Newfoundland, private, 1917Newfoundland Verse, Toronto: Ryerson, 1923.

Smith's anthology The Book of Canadian Poetry, Frye stated that, in Canadian poetry:The unconscious horror of nature and the subconscious horrors of the mind thus coincide: this amalgamation is the basis of symbolism on which nearly all Pratt's poetry is founded. John Pratt was originally a lead miner from Old Gang mines in Gunnerside - a village in North Yorkshire, England.

His long history with Victoria College, University of Toronto, is evident in the library there named in his honour.

Poetry Style

Writing in the early twentieth century, Susan Gingell (Gingell, xi.) notes that Pratt followed three traditions: the English literary, the Canadian tradition, most notably piqued by the Confederation poets and the new verse stemming from Britain and the United States.

"Pratt's work is filled with images of primitive nature and evolutionary history," wrote literary critic Peter Buitenhuis.

While John was strict and stern father, who had firm authority with which he ruled his family, Edwin and his siblings got a bit of a break when his father was gone on pastoral rounds, since their mother was very different in temperament from her husband. Pratt graduated from St. John's, Newfoundland's Methodist College in 1901. Cheeky genus homo, instead of being duly cowed by the Great Panjandrum, points out that He is largely man's invention in any case." Says Buitenhuis: "The poem is too simplistic to be convincing, but is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand Pratt's thought."Pratt's next book, "They are Returning (1945) celebrates the anticipated end of the war, but also introduces one of the first treatments in literature of the concentration camps.

illus. John Austin.Titans ("The Cachalot, The Great Feud"), Toronto: Macmillan, 1926. From E. J. Prat, Collected Poems(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited, 1946) frontispiece.