Ralph Gustafson
Encyclopedia
Ralph Barker Gustafson, CM
(16 August 1909 – 29 May 1995) was a Canadian
poet
and professor
at Bishop's University
.
, Quebec
on August 16, 1909. His mother was British
, his father Swedish
. He was educated at Bishop's University
, earning a B.A. (1st class honours and winner of the Governor General's medal along with many other awards) in 1929 and an M.A. in 1930, with a thesis on John Keats
and Percy Bysshe Shelley
. He also completed a B.A. at Keble College, Oxford
in 1933, an M.A. in 1963.
Over the years, Dr. Gustafson held a number of posts. He was music master, Bishop's College School, 1920–30; teacher of English St. Alban's School for Boys, Brockville, Ontario
, 1933–34; tutor and journalist, London, England, 1935–38; British Information Services, New York, N.Y., 1942–46; Professor and Poet-In-Residence, Bishop's University, 1963–79 and music critic, C.B.C., since 1960. Dr. Gustafson wrote over twenty volumes of poetry and prose and edited several anthologies of verse. He died in 1995.
His views on poetry are documented in essays collected in Plummets and Other Partialities (1986), and in letters to W.W.E. Ross published as A Literary Friendship in 1984. He also was in contact with John Sutherland.
Gustafson's early poetry owes a significant debt to Gerard Manley Hopkins
(as evidenced in The Golden Chalice (1935) and Alfred the Great (1937)), while Ezra Pound
, Wallace Stevens
, and W. B. Yeats were important influences on his later work.
In 1942, Gustafson edited the Anthology of Canadian Poetry which developed into the Penguin Book of Canadian Verse in 1958, both volumes a reflection of his extensive studies on the history of Canadian poetry.
for Fire on Stone.
He won the Order of Canada
in 1992.
He was awarded a D. Litt. from Mount Allison
in 1973, a D.C.L. from Bishop's University in 1977, and a D. Litt from York University
in 1991.
Winter Prophecies (1998) is a documentary profile (29 min.) on Gustafson's life and art directed by Donald Winkler and produced by the National Film Board of Canada
(NFB).
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(16 August 1909 – 29 May 1995) was a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at Bishop's University
Bishop's University
Bishop's University is a predominantly undergraduate university in Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Bishop's is one of three universities in the province of Quebec that teach primarily in the English language...
.
Biography
He was born in Lime Ridge, near DudswellDudswell, Quebec
Dudswell is a municipality of 1,600 people in Le Haut-Saint-François Regional County Municipality, in Quebec, Canada....
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
on August 16, 1909. His mother was British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, his father Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. He was educated at Bishop's University
Bishop's University
Bishop's University is a predominantly undergraduate university in Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Bishop's is one of three universities in the province of Quebec that teach primarily in the English language...
, earning a B.A. (1st class honours and winner of the Governor General's medal along with many other awards) in 1929 and an M.A. in 1930, with a thesis on John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
and Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
. He also completed a B.A. at Keble College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
in 1933, an M.A. in 1963.
Over the years, Dr. Gustafson held a number of posts. He was music master, Bishop's College School, 1920–30; teacher of English St. Alban's School for Boys, Brockville, Ontario
Brockville, Ontario
Brockville is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Though it serves as the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, Brockville is politically independent and is grouped with Leeds and Grenville for census purposes only.Known as the "City of the 1000...
, 1933–34; tutor and journalist, London, England, 1935–38; British Information Services, New York, N.Y., 1942–46; Professor and Poet-In-Residence, Bishop's University, 1963–79 and music critic, C.B.C., since 1960. Dr. Gustafson wrote over twenty volumes of poetry and prose and edited several anthologies of verse. He died in 1995.
His views on poetry are documented in essays collected in Plummets and Other Partialities (1986), and in letters to W.W.E. Ross published as A Literary Friendship in 1984. He also was in contact with John Sutherland.
Gustafson's early poetry owes a significant debt to Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
(as evidenced in The Golden Chalice (1935) and Alfred the Great (1937)), while Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, and W. B. Yeats were important influences on his later work.
In 1942, Gustafson edited the Anthology of Canadian Poetry which developed into the Penguin Book of Canadian Verse in 1958, both volumes a reflection of his extensive studies on the history of Canadian poetry.
Recognition
Gustafson won the Governor General's Award 19741974 Governor General's Awards
Each winner of the 1974 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-English Language:*Fiction: Margaret Laurence, The Diviners....
for Fire on Stone.
He won the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
in 1992.
He was awarded a D. Litt. from Mount Allison
Mount Allison
Mount Allison is a peak southeast of Fremont, California. It is part of a ridge that includes Mission Peak and Monument Peak. Unlike the former two peaks, Mount Allison is located on unincorporated private property owned by a broadcasting company....
in 1973, a D.C.L. from Bishop's University in 1977, and a D. Litt from York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in 1991.
Winter Prophecies (1998) is a documentary profile (29 min.) on Gustafson's life and art directed by Donald Winkler and produced by the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
(NFB).
Works
- The Golden Chalice (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1935)
- Alfred the Great (London: Michael Joseph, 1937)
- Epithalamium in Time of War (New York: L. F. White, 1941)
- Lyrics Unromantic (New York: Privately printed, 1942)
- Flight into Darkness: Poems (New York: Pantheon, 1944)
- Quebec, Late Autumn (Offprint from Queen's Quarterly, 1950)
- Quebec Winter Scene (Offprint from Dalhousie Review, 1952)
- Hard Litany (Offprint from the Dalhousie Review, 1953)
- Rivers Among Rocks (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960)
- Rocky Mountain Poems (Vancouver: Klanak, 1960)
- Sift in an Hourglass (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966)
- Ixion's Wheel: Poems (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969)
- Selected Poems (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972)
- Theme and Variations for Sounding Brass (Sherbrooke, P.Q.: Progressive Publications, 1972)
- Fire on Stone (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974)
- Corners in the Glass (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977)
- Soviet Poems: Sept. 13 to Oct. 5, 1976 (Winnipeg: Turnstone, 1978)
- Gradations of Grandeur: a Poem (Victoria: Sono Nis, 1979)
- Sequences: Poems (Windsor, Ont.: Black Moss, 1979)
- Landscape with Rain (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980)
- Nine Poems (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1980)
- The Remarkable Heavens (Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 1980)
- Conflicts of Spring (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981)
- Dentelle / Indented: Poems (Trans. Roland Sutherland, et al. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Colorado College Press, 1982)
- The Moment is All: Selected Poems, 1944-83 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983)
- Solidarnosc: Prelude (Sherbrooke, Que.: Progressive Publications, 1983)
- At the Ocean's Verge: Selected Poems (Ed. John Walsh. Literary Series. Redding Ridge, Conn.: Black Swan, 1984)
- Directives of Autumn (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1984)
- Impromptus (Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 1984)
- Twelve Landscapes (Toronto: Shaw Street, 1985)
- Manipulations on Greek Themes: Poems (Toronto: Ascham, 1986)
- Collected Poems (Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis, 1987)
- Winter Prophecies (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987)
- The Celestial Corkscrew and Other Strategies (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic, 1989)
- Shadows in the Grass: Poems (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991)
- Configurations at Midnight (Toronto: ECW, 1992)
- Collected Poems Vol. 3 (Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis, 1994)
- Tracks in the Snow (Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan, 1994)
- Visions Fugitive (Montreal: Vehicule, 1996)
External links
- http://db.archives.queensu.ca/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll&BU=http%3A%2F%2Fdb.archives.queensu.ca%2Fdbtw-wpd%2Ffondsdb%2Fquery-fonds.html&TN=fonds&SN=AUTO25865&SE=1013&RN=0&MR=20&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=2&XP=&RF=Fonds+Results&EF=&DF=HTML+-+Fonds+Display&RL=1&EL=1&DL=1&NP=3&ID=&MF=&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=6974&NR=0&NB=0&SV=0&BG=ffffff&FG=000080&QS=query&OEX=ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1Ralph Gustafson fonds] at Queen's University Archives
- Ralph Gustafson's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Oolichan Books