A. M. Klein

Zailig Hirsch Pollock (Trent University)

Ed. by Wendy Roy, University of Saskatchewan
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

Born 14 Feb 1909
Died 20 Aug 1972
Activity 1929-1972

Places

Born in Ukraine
Active in Canada

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

A. M. Klein holds a central place in Canadian literature for two reasons. He was the first writer from an ethnic minority – that is, of neither French nor English background – to have made a genuine and lasting contribution to the multi-cultural fabric of Canadian literature. In addition, Klein was one of Canada’s leading modernist poets, and his account of the role of the poet in the mid-twentieth century, “Portrait of the Poet as Landscape”, is one of the most powerful and most frequently cited poems in Canadian literature. In fact, Klein’s career, with its great achievements and tragic conclusion, can best be seen as a working out of the tensions, unbearable at times, between his Jewishness and his modernity.

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2530 words

Citation: Pollock, Zailig Hirsch. "A. M. Klein". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 December 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2534, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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