A. W. Purdy

J. A. Weingarten (McGill University)

Ed. by Cynthia Sugars, University of Ottawa
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 30 Dec 1918
Died 21 Apr 2000
Activity 1938-2001

Places

Born in Canada
Active in Canada

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

Born in 1918, Al Purdy is a major figure in Canadian literary history. His poetry demonstrates his mastery of a sophisticated and broadly appealing poetic voice sustained by its own paradoxes: erudite and working-class, modern and romantic, sensitive and gruff, compassionate and callous. Purdy’s frank tone and unadorned diction refreshed and appealed to readers ready for a departure from the immensely difficult high modernism typical of many Anglo-American poets publishing between 1900 and 1960. Although Purdy adopted this accessible voice as he wrote about a wide range of topics, his poems about history and the Canadian landscape earned him the highest praise from his contemporaries and led many critics to regard his writing as …

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3600 words

Citation: Weingarten, J. A.. "A. W. Purdy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 October 2021 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3665, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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