Duncan Campbell Scott
Encyclopedia
Duncan Campbell Scott was a Canadian poet
and prose writer. With Charles G.D. Roberts
, Bliss Carman
, and Archibald Lampman
, he is classed as one of Canada
's Confederation Poets
.
Scott was also a Canadian lifetime civil servant who served as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932, and is "best known" today for "advocating the assimilation of Canada’s First Nations
peoples" in that capacity.
, the son of Rev. William Scott and Janet MacCallum. He was educated at Stanstead
Wesleyan Academy.
Early in life, he became an accomplished pianist
.
Scott wanted to be a doctor, but family finances were precarious, so in 1879 he joined the federal civil service
. As the story goes, "William Scott might not have money [but] he had connections in high places. Among his acquaintances was the prime minister
, Sir John A. Macdonald
, who agreed to meet with Duncan. As chance would have it, when Duncan arrived for his interview, the prime minister had a memo on his desk from the Indian Branch of the Department of the Interior asking for a temporary copying clerk. Making a quick decision while the serious young applicant waited in front of him, Macdonald wrote across the request: 'Approved. Employ Mr. Scott at $1.50.'"
Scott "spent his entire career in the same branch of government, working his way up to the position of deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1923, the highest non-elected position possible in his department. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1932."
Scott's father also subsequently found work in Indian Affairs, and the entire family moved into a newly built house on 108 Lisgar St., where Duncan Campbell Scott would live for the rest of his life.
In 1883 Scott met fellow civil servant, Archibald Lampman. "It was the beginning of an instant friendship that would continue unbroken until Lampman’s death sixteen years later.... It was Scott who initiated wilderness camping trips, a recreation that became Lampman’s favourite escape from daily drudgery and family problems. In turn, Lampman’s dedication to the art of poetry would inspire Scott’s first experiments in verse." By the late 1880s Scott was publishing poetry in the presitigious American magazine, Scribner's. In 1889 his poems "At the Cedars" and "Ottawa" were included in the pioneering anthology, Songs of the Great Dominion
.
Scott and Lampman "shared a love of poetry and the Canadian wilderness. During the 1890s the two made a number of canoe trips together in the area north of Ottawa."
In 1892 and 1893, Scott, Lampman, and William Wilfred Campbell
wrote a literary column, "At the Mermaid Inn," for the Toronto Globe. "Scott ... came up with the title for it. His intention was to conjure up a vision of The Mermaid Inn Tavern
in old London where Sir Walter Raleigh
founded the famous club whose members included Ben Jonson
, Beaumont and Fletcher
, and other literary lights.
In 1893 Scott published his first book of poetry, The Magic House and Other Poems. It would be followed by seven more volumes of verse:
Labor and the Angel (1898), New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905), Via Borealis (1906), Lundy's Lane and Other Poems (1916), Beauty and Life (1921), The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1926) and The Green Cloister (1935).
In 1894, Scott married Belle Botsford, a concert violinist, whom he had met at a recital in Ottawa. They had one child, Elizabeth, who died at 12. Before she was born, Scott asked his mother and sisters to leave his home (his father had died in 1891), causing a long-time rift in the family.
In 1896 Scott published his first collection of stories, In the Village of Viger, "a collection of delicate sketches of French Canadian life. Two later collections, The Witching of Elspie (1923) and The Circle of Affection (1947), contained many fine short stories." Scott also wrote a novel, although it was not published until after his death (as The Untitled Novel, in 1979).
After Lampman died in 1899, Scott helped publish a number of editions of Lampman's poetry.
Scott "was a prime mover in the establishment of the Ottawa Little Theatre and the Dominion Drama Festival." In 1923 the Little Theatre performed his one-act play, Pierre; it was later published in Canadian Plays from Hart House Theatre (1926).
His wife died in 1929. In 1931 he married poet Elise Aylen, more than 30 years his junior. After he retired the next year, "he and Elise spent much of the 1930s and 1940s travelling in Europe, Canada and the United States."
He died in December 1947 in Ottawa at the age of 85 and is buried in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery
.
Even before Confederation, the Canadian government had adopted a policy of assimilation
. "The Canadian government’s Indian policy had already been set before Scott was in a position to influence it, but he never saw any reason to question its assumption that the 'red' man ought to become just like the 'white' man. Shortly after he became Deputy Superintendent, he wrote approvingly: 'The happiest future for the Indian race is absorption into the general population, and this is the object and policy of our government.'... Assimilation, so the reasoning went, would solve the 'Indian problem,' and wrenching children away from their parents to 'civilize' them in residential schools until they were eighteen was believed to be a sure way of achieving the government’s goal. Scott ... would later pat himself on the back: 'I was never unsympathetic to aboriginal ideals, but there was the law which I did not originate and which I never tried to amend in the direction of severity.'"
In 1920, under Scott's direction, it became mandatory for all native children between the ages of seven and fifteen to attend one of Canada's Residential Schools
. The children were taken away from their homes, their families, and their culture, with or without their parents' consent.
"In all, about 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools." Many of the children who attended these schools lived in terrible conditions; in some cases the mortality rate exceeded fifty percent due to the spread of infectious disease. Students were punished for speaking their native languages. In some cases they were physically, mentally, and sexually abused, actions either covered up or tolerated in the drive to achieve the objective quoted above.
When Scott retired, his "policy of assimilating the Indians had been so much in keeping with the thinking of the time that he was widely praised for his capable administration."
In Poets of the Younger Generation (1901), Scottish literary critic William Archer
wrote of Scott:
The Government of Canada biography of him says that: "Although the quality of Scott's work is uneven, he is at his best when describing the Canadian wilderness and Indigenous peoples. Although they constitute a small portion of his total output, Scott's widely recognized and valued 'Indian poems' cemented his literary reputation. In these poems, the reader senses the conflict that Scott felt between his role as an administrator committed to an assimilation policy for Canada's Native peoples and his feelings as a poet, saddened by the encroachment of European civilization on the Indian way of life."
"There is not a really bad poem in the book,” literary critic Desmond Pacey said of Scott's first book, The Magic House and Other Poems, “and there are a number of extremely good ones." The 'extremely good ones' include the strange, dream-like sonnets of "In the House of Dreams." "Probably the best known poem from the collection is 'At the Cedars,' a grim narrative about the death of a young man and his sweetheart during a log-jam on the Ottawa River. It is crudely melodramatic,... but its style — stark understatement, irregular lines, and abrupt rhymes — makes it the most experimental poem in the book."
His next book, Labour and the Angel, "is a slighter volume than The Magic House in size and content. The lengthy title poem makes dreary reading.... Of greater interest is his growing willingness to experiment with stanza form, variations in line length, use of partial rhyme, and lack of rhyme." Notable new poems included "The Cup" and the sonnet "The Onandaga Madonna." But arguably "the most memorable poem in the new collection" was the fantasy, "The Piper of Arll." One person who long remembered that poem was future British Poet Laureate
John Masefield
, who read "The Piper of Arll" as a teenager and years later wrote to Scott:
New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905) revealed "a voice that is sounding ever more different from the other Confederation Poets ... his dramatic power is increasingly apparent in his response to the wilderness and the lives of the people who lived there." The poetry included "On the Way to the Mission" and the much-anthologized "The Forsaken," two of Scott's best-known "Indian poems."
Lundy's Lane
and Other Poems (1916) seemed "to have been cobbled together at the insistence of his publishers, who wanted a collection of his work that had not been published in any previous volume.". The title poem was one that had won Scott, "in the Christmas Globe
contest of 1908,... the prize of one hundred dollars, offered for the best poem on a Canadian historical theme.". Other notable poems in the volume include the pretty lyric "A Love Song," the long meditation, "The Height of Land,"
and the even longer "Lines Written in Memory of Edmund Morris." Anthologist John Garvin called the last "so original, tender and beautiful that it is destined to live among the best in Canadian literature."
"In his old age, Scott would look back upon Beauty and Life (1921) as his favourite among his volumes of verse," E.K. Brown tells us, adding: "In it most of the poetic kinds he cared about are represented." There is a great diversity, from the moving war elegy "To a Canadian Aviator Who Died For His Country in France," to the strange, apocalyptic "A Vision."
The Green Cloister, published after Scott's retirement, "is a travelogue of the sites he visited in Europe with Elise: Lake Como, Ravelllo, Kensington Gardens, East Gloucester, etc. — descriptive and contemplative poems by an observant tourist. Those with a Canadian setting include two Indian poems of near-melodrama — 'A Scene at Lake Manitou' and 'At Gull Lake, August 1810' —that are in stark contrast to the overall serenity of the volume." More typical is the title poem, "Chiostro Verde."
The Circle of Affection (1947) contains 26 poems Scott had written since Cloister, and several prose pieces, including his Royal Society address on "Poetry and Progress." It includes "At Delos," which brings to mind the poet's approaching death:
in 1899 and served as its president from 1921 to 1922. The Society awarded him the second-ever Lorne Pierce Medal
in 1927 for his contributions to Canadian literature
.
In 1934 he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.
He also received honorary degrees from the University of Toronto
(Doctor of Letters
in 1922) and Queen's University
(Doctor of Laws in 1939).
In 1948, the year after his death, he was designated a Person of National Historic Significance.
However, as the Encyclopædia Britannica
points out, Scott is "best known at the end of the 20th century," not for his writing, but "for advocating the assimilation of Canada’s First Nations peoples."
As part of their Worst Canadian poll, a panel of experts commissioned by Canada's National History Society named Scott one of the Worst Canadians in the August 2007 issue of The Beaver.
Arc Poetry Magazine renamed the annual "Archibald Lampman Award" (given to a poet in the National Capital Region) to the Lampman-Scott Award in recognition of Scott's enduring legacy in Canadian poetry, with the first award under the new name given out in 2007.
The 2008 winner of the award, Shane Rhodes
, turned over half of the $1,500 prize money to the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, a First Nations
health centre. "Taking that money wouldn't have been right, with what I'm writing about," Rhodes said. The poet was researching First Nations history and found Scott's name repeatedly referenced. Rhodes felt "Scott's legacy as a civil servant overshadows his work as a pioneer of Canadian poetry", in the words of a CBC News report.
Anita Lahey, editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, responded with a statement that she thought Scott's actions as head of Indian Affairs were important to remember, but did not eclipse his role in the history of Canadian literature. "I think it matters that we're aware of it and that we think about and talk about these things," she said. "I don't think controversial or questionable activities in the life of any artist or writer is something that should necessarily discount the literary legacy that they leave behind."
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy of Canadian Poetry.
Canadian poetry
- Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...
and prose writer. With Charles G.D. Roberts
Charles G.D. Roberts
Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts, was a Canadian poet and prose writer who is known as the Father of Canadian Poetry. He was "almost the first Canadian author to obtain worldwide reputation and influence; he was also a tireless promoter and encourager of Canadian literature......
, Bliss Carman
Bliss Carman
Bliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....
, and Archibald Lampman
Archibald Lampman
Archibald Lampman, was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in...
, he is classed as one of Canada
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...
's Confederation Poets
Confederation Poets
"Confederation Poets" is the name given to a group of Canadian poets born in the decade of Canada's Confederation who rose to prominence in Canada in the late 1880s and 1890s. The term was coined by Canadian professor and literary critic Malcolm Ross, who applied it to four poets Charles G.D...
.
Scott was also a Canadian lifetime civil servant who served as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932, and is "best known" today for "advocating the assimilation of Canada’s First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
peoples" in that capacity.
Life
Scott was born in Ottawa, OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, the son of Rev. William Scott and Janet MacCallum. He was educated at Stanstead
Stanstead, Quebec
Stanstead is a town of about 3,000 people, part of the Memphrémagog Regional County Municipality in the Estrie region of Québec. Stanstead is located on the Canada-United States border across from Derby Line, Vermont....
Wesleyan Academy.
Early in life, he became an accomplished pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
Scott wanted to be a doctor, but family finances were precarious, so in 1879 he joined the federal civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
. As the story goes, "William Scott might not have money [but] he had connections in high places. Among his acquaintances was the prime minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
, Sir John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...
, who agreed to meet with Duncan. As chance would have it, when Duncan arrived for his interview, the prime minister had a memo on his desk from the Indian Branch of the Department of the Interior asking for a temporary copying clerk. Making a quick decision while the serious young applicant waited in front of him, Macdonald wrote across the request: 'Approved. Employ Mr. Scott at $1.50.'"
Scott "spent his entire career in the same branch of government, working his way up to the position of deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1923, the highest non-elected position possible in his department. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1932."
Scott's father also subsequently found work in Indian Affairs, and the entire family moved into a newly built house on 108 Lisgar St., where Duncan Campbell Scott would live for the rest of his life.
In 1883 Scott met fellow civil servant, Archibald Lampman. "It was the beginning of an instant friendship that would continue unbroken until Lampman’s death sixteen years later.... It was Scott who initiated wilderness camping trips, a recreation that became Lampman’s favourite escape from daily drudgery and family problems. In turn, Lampman’s dedication to the art of poetry would inspire Scott’s first experiments in verse." By the late 1880s Scott was publishing poetry in the presitigious American magazine, Scribner's. In 1889 his poems "At the Cedars" and "Ottawa" were included in the pioneering anthology, Songs of the Great Dominion
Songs of the Great Dominion
Songs of the Great Dominion was a pioneering anthology of Canadian poetry published in 1889. The book's full title was Songs of the Great Dominion: Voices from the Forests and Waters, the Settlements and Cities of Canada. The collection was selected and edited by William Douw Lighthall of Montreal...
.
Scott and Lampman "shared a love of poetry and the Canadian wilderness. During the 1890s the two made a number of canoe trips together in the area north of Ottawa."
In 1892 and 1893, Scott, Lampman, and William Wilfred Campbell
William Wilfred Campbell
William Wilfred Campbell was a Canadian poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets, a group that included fellow Canadians Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott; he was a colleague of Lampman and Scott...
wrote a literary column, "At the Mermaid Inn," for the Toronto Globe. "Scott ... came up with the title for it. His intention was to conjure up a vision of The Mermaid Inn Tavern
Mermaid Tavern
The Mermaid Tavern was a tavern on Cheapside in London during the Elizabethan era, located east of St. Paul's Cathedral on the corner of Friday Street and Bread Street. It was the site of the so-called Friday Street Club...
in old London where Sir Walter Raleigh
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....
founded the famous club whose members included Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
, and other literary lights.
In 1893 Scott published his first book of poetry, The Magic House and Other Poems. It would be followed by seven more volumes of verse:
Labor and the Angel (1898), New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905), Via Borealis (1906), Lundy's Lane and Other Poems (1916), Beauty and Life (1921), The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1926) and The Green Cloister (1935).
In 1894, Scott married Belle Botsford, a concert violinist, whom he had met at a recital in Ottawa. They had one child, Elizabeth, who died at 12. Before she was born, Scott asked his mother and sisters to leave his home (his father had died in 1891), causing a long-time rift in the family.
In 1896 Scott published his first collection of stories, In the Village of Viger, "a collection of delicate sketches of French Canadian life. Two later collections, The Witching of Elspie (1923) and The Circle of Affection (1947), contained many fine short stories." Scott also wrote a novel, although it was not published until after his death (as The Untitled Novel, in 1979).
After Lampman died in 1899, Scott helped publish a number of editions of Lampman's poetry.
Scott "was a prime mover in the establishment of the Ottawa Little Theatre and the Dominion Drama Festival." In 1923 the Little Theatre performed his one-act play, Pierre; it was later published in Canadian Plays from Hart House Theatre (1926).
His wife died in 1929. In 1931 he married poet Elise Aylen, more than 30 years his junior. After he retired the next year, "he and Elise spent much of the 1930s and 1940s travelling in Europe, Canada and the United States."
He died in December 1947 in Ottawa at the age of 85 and is buried in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery
Beechwood Cemetery
Beechwood Cemetery is the National Cemetery of Canada. Because it is located in Ottawa, Ontario, the nation's capital, it is the burial site for a number of statesmen as well as a large number of mayors of the city. A woodland cemetery founded in 1873, it is 160 acres and is the largest cemetery...
.
Indian Affairs
Aside from his poetry, Scott made his mark in Canadian history as the head of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932.Even before Confederation, the Canadian government had adopted a policy of assimilation
Gradual Civilization Act
The Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of Indian Tribes in this Province, and to Amend the Laws Relating to Indians was a bill passed by the 5th Parliament of the Province of Canada in 1857....
. "The Canadian government’s Indian policy had already been set before Scott was in a position to influence it, but he never saw any reason to question its assumption that the 'red' man ought to become just like the 'white' man. Shortly after he became Deputy Superintendent, he wrote approvingly: 'The happiest future for the Indian race is absorption into the general population, and this is the object and policy of our government.'... Assimilation, so the reasoning went, would solve the 'Indian problem,' and wrenching children away from their parents to 'civilize' them in residential schools until they were eighteen was believed to be a sure way of achieving the government’s goal. Scott ... would later pat himself on the back: 'I was never unsympathetic to aboriginal ideals, but there was the law which I did not originate and which I never tried to amend in the direction of severity.'"
In 1920, under Scott's direction, it became mandatory for all native children between the ages of seven and fifteen to attend one of Canada's Residential Schools
Canadian residential school system
-History:Founded in the 19th century, the Canadian Indian residential school system was intended to assimilate the children of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada into European-Canadian society...
. The children were taken away from their homes, their families, and their culture, with or without their parents' consent.
"In all, about 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools." Many of the children who attended these schools lived in terrible conditions; in some cases the mortality rate exceeded fifty percent due to the spread of infectious disease. Students were punished for speaking their native languages. In some cases they were physically, mentally, and sexually abused, actions either covered up or tolerated in the drive to achieve the objective quoted above.
When Scott retired, his "policy of assimilating the Indians had been so much in keeping with the thinking of the time that he was widely praised for his capable administration."
Writing
Scott's "literary reputation has never been in doubt. He has been well represented in virtually all major anthologies of Canadian poetry published since 1900."In Poets of the Younger Generation (1901), Scottish literary critic William Archer
William Archer (critic)
William Archer , Scottish critic, was born in Perth, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M.A. in 1876. He was the son of Thomas Archer....
wrote of Scott:
- He is above everything a poet of climate and atmosphere, employing with a nimble, graphic touch the clear, pure, transparent colours of a richly-furnished palette.... Though it must not be understood that his talent is merely descriptive. There is a philosophic and also a romantic strain in it..... There is scarcely a poem of Mr. Scott's from which one could not cull some memorable descriptive passage.... As a rule Mr. Scott's workmanship is careful and highly finished. He is before everything a colourist. He paints in lines of a peculiar and vivid translucency. But he is also a metrist of no mean skill, and an imaginative thinker of no common capacity.
The Government of Canada biography of him says that: "Although the quality of Scott's work is uneven, he is at his best when describing the Canadian wilderness and Indigenous peoples. Although they constitute a small portion of his total output, Scott's widely recognized and valued 'Indian poems' cemented his literary reputation. In these poems, the reader senses the conflict that Scott felt between his role as an administrator committed to an assimilation policy for Canada's Native peoples and his feelings as a poet, saddened by the encroachment of European civilization on the Indian way of life."
"There is not a really bad poem in the book,” literary critic Desmond Pacey said of Scott's first book, The Magic House and Other Poems, “and there are a number of extremely good ones." The 'extremely good ones' include the strange, dream-like sonnets of "In the House of Dreams." "Probably the best known poem from the collection is 'At the Cedars,' a grim narrative about the death of a young man and his sweetheart during a log-jam on the Ottawa River. It is crudely melodramatic,... but its style — stark understatement, irregular lines, and abrupt rhymes — makes it the most experimental poem in the book."
His next book, Labour and the Angel, "is a slighter volume than The Magic House in size and content. The lengthy title poem makes dreary reading.... Of greater interest is his growing willingness to experiment with stanza form, variations in line length, use of partial rhyme, and lack of rhyme." Notable new poems included "The Cup" and the sonnet "The Onandaga Madonna." But arguably "the most memorable poem in the new collection" was the fantasy, "The Piper of Arll." One person who long remembered that poem was future British Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
John Masefield
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
, who read "The Piper of Arll" as a teenager and years later wrote to Scott:
- I had never (till that time) cared very much for poetry, but your poem impressed me deeply, and set me on fire. Since then poetry has been the one deep influence in my life, and to my love of poetry I owe all my friends, and the position I now hold.
New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905) revealed "a voice that is sounding ever more different from the other Confederation Poets ... his dramatic power is increasingly apparent in his response to the wilderness and the lives of the people who lived there." The poetry included "On the Way to the Mission" and the much-anthologized "The Forsaken," two of Scott's best-known "Indian poems."
Lundy's Lane
Battle of Lundy's Lane
The Battle of Lundy's Lane was a battle of the Anglo-American War of 1812, which took place on 25 July 1814, in present-day Niagara Falls, Ontario...
and Other Poems (1916) seemed "to have been cobbled together at the insistence of his publishers, who wanted a collection of his work that had not been published in any previous volume.". The title poem was one that had won Scott, "in the Christmas Globe
The Globe (Toronto newspaper)
The Globe was a newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1844 by George Brown as a Reform voice. It merged with The Mail and Empire in 1936 to form The Globe and Mail.-History:...
contest of 1908,... the prize of one hundred dollars, offered for the best poem on a Canadian historical theme.". Other notable poems in the volume include the pretty lyric "A Love Song," the long meditation, "The Height of Land,"
and the even longer "Lines Written in Memory of Edmund Morris." Anthologist John Garvin called the last "so original, tender and beautiful that it is destined to live among the best in Canadian literature."
"In his old age, Scott would look back upon Beauty and Life (1921) as his favourite among his volumes of verse," E.K. Brown tells us, adding: "In it most of the poetic kinds he cared about are represented." There is a great diversity, from the moving war elegy "To a Canadian Aviator Who Died For His Country in France," to the strange, apocalyptic "A Vision."
The Green Cloister, published after Scott's retirement, "is a travelogue of the sites he visited in Europe with Elise: Lake Como, Ravelllo, Kensington Gardens, East Gloucester, etc. — descriptive and contemplative poems by an observant tourist. Those with a Canadian setting include two Indian poems of near-melodrama — 'A Scene at Lake Manitou' and 'At Gull Lake, August 1810' —that are in stark contrast to the overall serenity of the volume." More typical is the title poem, "Chiostro Verde."
The Circle of Affection (1947) contains 26 poems Scott had written since Cloister, and several prose pieces, including his Royal Society address on "Poetry and Progress." It includes "At Delos," which brings to mind the poet's approaching death:
-
-
- There is no grieving in the world
- As beauty fades throughout the years:
- The pilgrim with the weary heart
- Brings to the grave his tears.
- There is no grieving in the world
-
Reputation
Scott was honored for his writing during and after his lifetime. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of CanadaRoyal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
in 1899 and served as its president from 1921 to 1922. The Society awarded him the second-ever Lorne Pierce Medal
Lorne Pierce Medal
The Lorne Pierce Medal is awarded every two years by the Royal Society of Canada to recognize achievement of special significance and conspicuous merit in imaginative or critical literature written in either English or French...
in 1927 for his contributions to Canadian literature
Canadian literature
Canadian literature is literature originating from Canada. Collectively it is often called CanLit. Some criticism of Canadian literature has focused on nationalistic and regional themes, although this is only a small portion of Canadian Literary criticism...
.
In 1934 he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.
He also received honorary degrees from the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
(Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
in 1922) and Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
(Doctor of Laws in 1939).
In 1948, the year after his death, he was designated a Person of National Historic Significance.
However, as the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
points out, Scott is "best known at the end of the 20th century," not for his writing, but "for advocating the assimilation of Canada’s First Nations peoples."
As part of their Worst Canadian poll, a panel of experts commissioned by Canada's National History Society named Scott one of the Worst Canadians in the August 2007 issue of The Beaver.
Arc Poetry Magazine renamed the annual "Archibald Lampman Award" (given to a poet in the National Capital Region) to the Lampman-Scott Award in recognition of Scott's enduring legacy in Canadian poetry, with the first award under the new name given out in 2007.
The 2008 winner of the award, Shane Rhodes
Shane Rhodes
-Life:He graduated from the University of New Brunswick.He lives in Ottawa, Canada.As the 2008 winner of the Lampman-Scott Award for Poetry, Shane Rhodes turned over half of the $1,500 prize money to the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, a First Nations health centre, according to a 2008 report...
, turned over half of the $1,500 prize money to the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, a First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
health centre. "Taking that money wouldn't have been right, with what I'm writing about," Rhodes said. The poet was researching First Nations history and found Scott's name repeatedly referenced. Rhodes felt "Scott's legacy as a civil servant overshadows his work as a pioneer of Canadian poetry", in the words of a CBC News report.
Anita Lahey, editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, responded with a statement that she thought Scott's actions as head of Indian Affairs were important to remember, but did not eclipse his role in the history of Canadian literature. "I think it matters that we're aware of it and that we think about and talk about these things," she said. "I don't think controversial or questionable activities in the life of any artist or writer is something that should necessarily discount the literary legacy that they leave behind."
Publications
Years of first publication link to corresponding "[year] in literature" articles (for prose) or "[year] in poetry" articles (for poetry):Poetry
- The Magic House and Other Poems Ottawa: Durie, 18931893 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Canada:* William Wilfred Campbell, The Dread Voyage Poems. Toronto: William Briggs.* Bliss Carman, Low Tide at Grand Pré...
. London: Methuen, 1893. Boston: Copeland & Day, 1895. - Labor and the Angel, (Boston: Copeland & Day, 18981898 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-The "Generation of '98" in Spain:...
. Ryerson, 1945. McClelland and StewartMcClelland and StewartMcClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is partially owned by Random House of Canada, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann....
, 1973. ISBN 0-7710-9192-3 - New World Lyrics and Ballads. 1905. Morang.
- Via Borealis. Toronto: W. Tyrell, 19061906 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Canada:* Jean Blewett, The Cornflower and Other Poems* Helena Coleman, Songs and Sonnets...
. - Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 19161916 in poetry-- Closing lines of "Easter 1916" by William Butler Yeats, first published this yearNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:...
. - To the Canadian Mothers and Three Other Poems. Toronto: Mortimer, 1917.
- Beauty and Life, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 19211921 in poetry— Wilfred Owen, concluding lines of Dulce et Decorum Est, published this yearNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:...
. - The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 19261926 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The remains of English war poet Isaac Rosenberg, killed in World War I at the age of 28 and originally buried in a mass grave, are re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St...
. - The Green Cloister: Later Poems, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 19351935 in poetryLinks to nations or nationalities point to articles with information on that nation's poetry or literature. For example, United Kingdom links to English poetry and Indian links to Indian poetry.-Events:* Canada -- Charles G.D...
. - Selected Poems, E.K. Brown. ed. Toronto: Ryerson, 19511951 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Poet Cid Corman began Origin magazine in response to the failure of a magazine that Robert Creeley had planned. The magazine typically featured one writer per issue and ran, with breaks, until the...
. - Selected Poetry. Glenn Clever ed. Ottawa: Tecumseh, 1974.
- Powassan’s Drum: Selected Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott.Raymond SousterRaymond SousterRaymond Holmes Souster, OC is a Canadian poet whose writing career spans almost 70 years. He has published more than 50 volumes of his own verse, and edited or co-edited a dozen volumes of others' poetry...
and Douglas LochheadDouglas LochheadDouglas Lochhead, FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived in Sackville, New Brunswick, of which town he was the official poet laureate...
ed. Ottawa : Tecumseh, 19851985 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The term "New Formalism" was first used in the article "The Yuppie Poet" in the May 1985 issue of the AWP Newsletter in an attack on the poetry movement...
.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy of Canadian Poetry.
Fiction
- In the Village of Viger, sketches of French Canadian life; Boston: Copeland & Day, 1896.
- The Witching of Elspie: A Book of Stories, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart New York: Doran, 1923.
- The Circle of Affection and Other Pieces in Prose and Verse Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1947. mostly prose.
- Selected Stories of Duncan Campbell Scott, edited by Glenn Clever. -- Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1972.
- The Untitled Novel. Moonbeam, ON: Penumbra, 19791979 in literatureThe year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*V.C...
. ISBN 0-920806-04-X (written about 1905; posthumously published)
Non-Fiction
- John Graves Simcoe Morang, 1905. Biography, in the "Makers of Canada" series.
- The Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1931.
- Walter J. Phillips Toronto: Ryerson, 1947.
- More Letters of Duncan Campbell Scott. Arthur S. Bourinot ed. Ottawa: Bourinot, 1960.
- At the Mermaid Inn: Wilfred Campbell, Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott in the Globe 1892–3, Barrie Davies ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.
- The Poet and the Critic: A Literary Correspondence Between Duncan Campbell Scott and E.K. Brown. Robert L. Macdougall ed. Ottawa: Carleton U P, 1983.
Edited
- Archibald Lampman, The Poems of Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott ed. (Toronto: Morang, 19001900 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* In February, Myōjō , a monthly literary magazine, begins publication in Japan. between February 1900 and November 1908...
) (General Books, 2009). ISBN 978-1150520181 - Archibald Lampman, Lyrics of Earth: Sonnets and Ballads, Duncan Campbell Scott ed. (Toronto: Musson, 19251925 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* T. S. Eliot joins the publishing house of Faber & Gwyer, leaves Lloyds bank....
). - Archibald Lampman, At the Long Sault and Other New Poems, Duncan Campbell Scott and E.K. Brown ed.. (Toronto: Ryerson, 19431943 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* September 12 – Abraham Sutzkever, a Polish Jew writing poetry in Yiddish, escapes the Vilna Ghetto with his wife and hides in the forests. Sutzkever and fellow Yiddish poet Shmerke...
). - Archibald Lampman, Selected Poems of Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott ed. (Toronto: Ryerson, 19471947 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Dorothy Parker divorces Alan Campbell for the first time....
).
Further reading
- Titley, E. Brian. A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986. ISBN 0774802618
External links
- Representative Poetry Online: Duncan Campbell Scott - Biography and 11 poems (At the Cedars, Enigma, The Forsaken, The Half-Breed Girl, The Height of Land, Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon, Ode for the Keats Centenary, The Onondaga Madonna, Permanence, Rapids at Night, To a Canadian Aviator Who Died for his Country in France)
- Collections Canada: Duncan Campbell Scott biography, relating to Treaty 9
- Keith Waddington, "Duncan Campbell Scott: Civil Servant and Poet"