<p>Criticism of Lampman, while recently successful in finally getting away from reading him merely as a descriptive nature poet, has not closely examined his complex relationship with Emersonian Transcendentalism, nor has it looked at his poetical career as a whole. Many critics portray Lampman as a "dreamer of dreams", an escapist, and the critics who have noticed transcendental tendencies in his poetry conclude that his poetical career was, like that of Emerson or Thoreau, a sustained retreat into nature. After first of all offering a fairer and more balanced biographical account of Lampman than has yet been offered, this study examines past and present criticism of Lampman and the biases that inform it, and looks at Lampmap's views of Emersonian Transcendentalism before coming to the major task which is to examine closely Lampman's three volumes of verse and to show that there is a development, a maturing, of his poetic vision. His first volume, Among The Millet (1888), reflects an attempt to give expression to the Emersonian identification of man with nature; in his second, Lyrics of Earth (1895), after adopting a thoroughly transcendeptal stance, he sees the dishonesty and inadequacy of this philosophy; and in his last volume, Alcyone (1899), he abandons his transcendental quest for unity with nature and gives uninhibited expression to his frightening, direct vision of nature and human nature. In Lampman there is an important, but hitherto neglected, transcendental-visionary development.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/9626 |
| Date | January 1980 |
| Creators | Arnold, Alexander Richard |
| Contributors | Ballstadt, Carl, English |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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