Modernism in Canada and The United States
In Canada and the United States modernism emerges from transnational engagements with global intellectual movements while also grappling with local intellectual, cultural, and political developments…
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Anglo-Modernism in Canada
Among the movements originating in Western Europe that instigated the modernist turn in anglophone Canadian literature, the most prominent were symbolism, impressionism, aestheticism, and decadence,…
New Dance Theatre (1949–1955, Toronto, Canada)
Originally called the Neo Dance Theatre, the New Dance Theatre (NDT) was a modern dance performance group that was based in Toronto from 1949 to…
Symbolism Overview
Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam,…
Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
Knister, (John) Raymond (1899–1932)
Raymond Knister was one of Canada’s earliest modernist writers. Although Knister is best known as an imagist poet, he wrote and published work in a…
Vivier, Claude (1948–1983)
Claude Vivier is perhaps the best known of all Quebec composers, both in Canada and abroad. In 1967, after being removed from the religious establishment…
Ryan, Oscar (1904–1989)
The leading cultural activist in the Canadian Communist Party in the 1930s, Oscar Ryan was the formative figure in the Workers’ Theatre movement in Canada…
Nortje, Arthur Kenneth (1942–1970)
From the University of the Western Cape, Arthur Nortje left for Jesus College, Oxford, to which he returned after teaching for two years in Canada.…
Newlove, John (1938–2003)
Born on 13 June 1938 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, John Newlove was a poet and editor who helped to define Canadian national literature during a…
Finch, Robert (1900–1995)
Canadian poet, editor, and critic Robert Finch was born on May 14, 1900 in Long Island, New York, but immigrated to Canada, adopting it as…
Patriquin, Donald (1938--)
Donald Patriquin is a composer known chiefly for contributing to choral repertoire in Canada. Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, he studied composition as a teenager with…
Joachim, Otto (1910–2010)
Born in Düsseldorf and eventually settling in Montreal, Canada, Otto Joachim was a composer, violist, painter, and instrument builder. Joachim fled Nazi Germany in 1934…
Wilson, Ethel (1888–1980)
Ethel Wilson was a modernist prose writer who lived in Vancouver, Canada. Wilson began writing late in life; although she was only six years younger…
Adaskin, Murray (1906–2002)
Born in Toronto, Ontario and passing in Victoria, British Columbia, Murray Adaskin was a violinist, composer, and academic whose music was widely performed in Canada.…
Gerrard, Saida (1913–2005)
Toronto-born Saida Gerrard was one of the first artists to import modern dance to Canada following study in the United States. Her early training included…
Ross, W. W. E. (1894–1966)
William Wrightson Eustace Ross was a pioneering modernist poet in Canada in the early twentieth century. He experimented with free verse, Imagism, and Japanese poetic…
Waddington, Miriam (née Dworkin) (1917–2004)
Canadian poet Miriam Waddington was born in Winnipeg’s Jewish North End neighbourhood in Manitoba, Canada on 23 December 1917. Waddington was honoured with several awards…
McLuhan, Marshall (1911–1980)
Born Herbert Marshall McLuhan in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Marshall McLuhan was a literary critic, communications theorist, public intellectual, and the father of modern media studies.…
Baird, Irene (1901–1981)
Canadian novelist and civil servant Irene Baird is best known for her second novel, Waste Heritage (1939), which was based on firsthand research into the…
Sorel, Ruth Elly Abramovitsch (1907–1974)
Upon immigrating to Montreal in 1944, Ruth Abramovitsch (also known as Abramowitz) Sorel was one of the first dancers to regularly teach and perform modern…
Lowry, Malcolm (1909–1957)
Malcolm Lowry (1909–57) was a British-born writer, best remembered for his 1947 novel Under the Volcano. Born in England, Lowry spent much of his adulthood…
Anhalt, Istvan (1919–2012)
Istvan Anhalt was a Hungarian-born Canadian composer and one of the leading figures in avant-garde composition during the second half of the twentieth century in…
Jarvis, Judy (1942–1986)
Judy Jarvis, a choreographer, dancer, and teacher, was a significant figure within the Canadian modern dance community. Following early dance studies in Toronto, she spent…
Livesay, (Kathleen May) Dorothy (1909–1996)
Dorothy Livesay was a Canadian poet, journalist, activist, social worker, instructor, field worker, and author of short fiction, literary criticism, radio plays, and autobiography. Her…