Carman, Bliss - Desmond Pacey (essay date 1950)

Desmond Pacey (essay date 1950)

SOURCE: “Bliss Carman: A Reappraisal,” in Northern Review, Vol. 3, No. 3, February-March, 1950, pp. 2-10.

[In the following essay, Pacey asserts that, while Carman's body of poetry is mostly unoriginal and of negligible quality, several of his early poems exhibit a fine mastery of mood and atmosphere. Pacey concludes that, while Carman was no great poet, he deserves recognition for such exceptional early poems as “Low Tide on Grand Pré.”]

An interesting study could be made of the curve of Bliss Carman's reputation. At the height of his fame, in the first two decades of this century, he enjoyed a status higher than that ever accorded another Canadian poet. All the leading magazines, on both sides of the Atlantic, were eager to print his verse; he was generously represented in “The Oxford Book of English Verse” and acted as editor of “The Oxford Book of American Verse”; his poems were brought...

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