Book of Mercy (1984) occupies a central place in the career of Leonard Cohen, as comparison to a wide variety of Cohen "texts," from poetry, the novel and song to the personal interview and music video, reveals. Interviews and book reviews contemporary with Book of Mercy indicate that the latter contains a sincere message of faith and prophetic warning that Cohen publicly defends. Cohen's eclectic but reverent incorporation of language and ideas from Judaeo-Christian traditions of prayer and mysticism shows his regard for the sacred expression of his predecessors. As a result, Book of Mercy stands slightly apart from the rest of Cohen's oeuvre, yet it is not simply an anomaly. Instead, it forms an integral part of a prolonged narrative of spiritual desire that began in 1956 with Cohen's first book of poetry and has continued through to his latest album, The Future (1992) and a recent poem, "On the Path." Book of Mercy marked a renewed sense of artistic vocation and conviction in the work of Leonard Cohen that remains unshaken today.

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The concerns of the artist-figure are a central issue in the work of Leonard Cohen. His novels, poems, and songs, seen as a whole, form a portrait-of-the-artist. Cohen's artist-story is crafted with attention to the romantic tradition of the Kunstlerroman but extends beyond an initial apprenticeship phase, the focus of the Kunstlerroman, offering a more extensive exploration of the artistic vocation. The artist-figure, as he develops, encounters conflicts between his vocation and the demands of the outside world. Cohen's artist-figure endeavours both to make art and to self-create, and this creative impulse is simultaneously propelled and hindered by the romantic-love relationship, by the demands of an artist's role in the public sphere, by the aesthetic requirements of art itself, and by spiritual and religious issues. The last of these four concerns provides the artist-figure with a degree of lasting comfort through its mediation of some of the ongoing internal struggles of the artistic temperament. Cohen's portrait-of-the-artist attains a degree of depth and perspective by his own artistic persona's intrusion into his work, a persona he constructs in an ironic, self-conscious, and self-reflexive fashion.

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This thesis considers the theme of suffering and its resolution in the novels of Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, and William Burroughs, three avant-garde contemporary writers. It discusses most of their work in a general way, with reference to the theme of suffering; and it also analyses in a much more detailed manner the Subterraneans by Kerouac, The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers by Cohen, and Naked Lunch by Burroughs. Cohen envisions man as a suffering being who experiences his pain in many different ways. He criticizes the old ritual patterns in which suffering once took its form - the pattern of religion which teaches man that suffering is good, and History which teaches that the cycle of civilization operates only in terms of the torturer and his victim. He rejects, too, the contemporary form of pop art which ignores the fact that suffering is a very real and overwhelming part of man. Having lost the old ritual patterns of suffering, man feels alienated from his own personal pain. Through the magic of good art, Cohen feels, man can regain entrance to his own being, for by experiencing another's suffering in art, he can regain his own awareness of suffering. If we misinterpret or misuse our own pain, we become one of Cohen's 'losers,' for we lose the core of our being to false ritual. Cohen believes the ancient notion that suffering deepens character, and he argues that man, through an understanding of his own pain, becomes a richer and better person, more capable of recognizing the magic which exists along with pain. For magic does exist with pain, and in art we gain a momentary entrance into this world of magic. Through the investigation of self and the uniqueness of self, man comes to recognize the uniqueness and magic of all. The artist takes on the role of prophet visionary showing all men that "magic is afoot." Jack Kerouac suffered a different form of pain - a pain which originated in his desperate search for innocence. His Catholic heritage taught him that the world of mind and spirit could see God, while the physical body was the realm of the sinful and guilty. His life became a quest in search of an innocence in which man could, transcend his guilt and shame and become beatific. Kerouac named the entire beat generation beatific, but he could not evade his feeling of guilt and shame within his own life, and he fluctuated throughout life between ecstatic idealism and hopeless despair. His strong mother fixation was a major cause for the split between his sense of idealism and the life of the physical body - and his mother became associated in his mind with those aspects of consciousness he considered 'ideal.' Yet Kerouac also longed for freedom and individuality, realms of experience outside his mother's hold. He expressed his life within his art, showing his tension and anguish from the pull of these two forms of experience. Kerouac's final interpretation of suffering paralleled the Catholic vision, for art became, in his life, a means of personal confession and penance. William Burroughs' despair is expressed through fear and rage, and a figurative comparison with 'paranoia' defines the range of his suffering fairly closely. Burroughs fears persecution from society which controls man through his need, fearing especially the implosive and depersonalizing forces of society which threaten to degrade and annihilate man. Man's own body takes part in this social degradation, for it is man's body which succumbs to addictive need. Burroughs strives to preserve his sense of inner reality and freedom at all costs. He purges his own personal sense of fear through his art, and art becomes, in his use of it, a social act of exorcism. He shouts the unspeakable and becomes a priest in a cultural purification rite; he shows the absurdity of man's reality in the form of comedy and dream and these become the source of his release. He defends himself against social control by his ability to exaggerate the power of society to the point of the grotesque, and art becomes the written form of his protest. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The central idea of this study is an examination of the transformation of the image of the poet in different generations. My thesis problem is that the poet is dynamic, reflecting both the self-image and reception of society at different times. I collected data from many different sources- the primary sources were memoirs, poetry, short stories, novels and original documents from the Canadian Jewish Congress Archives and by speaking with historians about A.M. Klein, Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen. The secondary sources used were scholarly books about the poets articles from the Canadian Jewish press and documentaries. I used literary analysis for the poetry and I took a social-historical approach in the examination of the poets' relationship to the community and biography. The social historical approach and the literary approach were both used in this study to analyze the succession of Canadian Jewish poets. As an original contribution to the field, this study categorizes the three poets in a succession: Klein is the Jewish poet, Layton is the Canadian Jewish poet and Cohen is the spiritual guru, all reflecting the changing situation for Canadian Jews. I examine the first generation poet in this succession of gifted Canadian Jewish poets, A.M. Klein, the second generation, Irving Layton and the third generation poet, Leonard Cohen. Specifically, I argue that the roles and the reception to these poets have changed in the Jewish press as a result of changing times. As the years progress and the situation for worldwide Jewry becomes more stable with greater tolerance in a multicultural society, the poet moves away from the identification as a Jewish poet. In Klein's generation he is labeled as a Jewish poet. Layton fights the label of a Jewish poet and through controversy and celebrity he is recognized as a Canadian Jewish poet. Leonard Cohen re-defines the category of a Canadian Jewish poet in favor of a spiritual guru. This study provides an overview of the times and the issues that each poet faced in their generation. The first part of each chapter is devoted to a brief biography and an exploration of the way the Jewish community responded to the poets in terms of roles that they wanted them to undertake and the own reception to the poets in the local Jewish press. It is interesting that each poet served a different function in different generations as a response to the needs of the community. The second section of each chapter is an examination of the poets' self-image as depicted in their writing. All of the poets viewed themselves in the same manner, as spokesmen, controversial figures and as modern poets similar to ancient biblical figures. This section includes the ways the poets viewed their relationship with the community and their relationship to Judaism as a way of shaping their self-perception.

The central idea of this study is an examination of the transformation of the image of the poet in different generations. My thesis problem is that the poet is dynamic, reflecting both the self-image and reception of society at different times. I collected data from many different sources- the primary sources were memoirs, poetry, short stories, novels and original documents from the Canadian Jewish Congress Archives and by speaking with historians about A.M. Klein, Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen. The secondary sources used were scholarly books about the poets articles from the Canadian Jewish press and documentaries. I used literary analysis for the poetry and I took a social-historical approach in the examination of the poets' relationship to the community and biography. The social historical approach and the literary approach were both used in this study to analyze the succession of Canadian Jewish poets. As an original contribution to the field, this study categorizes the three poets in a succession: Klein is the Jewish poet, Layton is the Canadian Jewish poet and Cohen is the spiritual guru, all reflecting the changing situation for Canadian Jews. I examine the first generation poet in this succession of gifted Canadian Jewish poets, A.M. Klein, the second generation, Irving Layton and the third generation poet, Leonard Cohen. Specifically, I argue that the roles and the reception to these poets have changed in the Jewish press as a result of changing times. As the years progress and the situation for worldwide Jewry becomes more stable with greater tolerance in a multicultural society, the poet moves away from the identification as a Jewish poet. In Klein's generation he is labeled as a Jewish poet. Layton fights the label of a Jewish poet and through controversy and celebrity he is recognized as a Canadian Jewish poet. Leonard Cohen re-defines the category of a Canadian Jewish poet in favor of a spiritual guru. This study provides an overview of the times and the issues that each poet faced in their generation. The first part of each chapter is devoted to a brief biography and an exploration of the way the Jewish community responded to the poets in terms of roles that they wanted them to undertake and the own reception to the poets in the local Jewish press. It is interesting that each poet served a different function in different generations as a response to the needs of the community. The second section of each chapter is an examination of the poets' self-image as depicted in their writing. All of the poets viewed themselves in the same manner, as spokesmen, controversial figures and as modern poets similar to ancient biblical figures. This section includes the ways the poets viewed their relationship with the community and their relationship to Judaism as a way of shaping their self-perception. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

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