Carman, Bliss

Carman, Bliss (1861 - 1929)

Biography

Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the Canadian Maritimes, and educated at the University of New Brunswick, Carman authored more than 50 volumes of poetry in his lifetime and became recognized, after his coast-to-coast tour in 1921 reading his poetry, as Canada's unofficial poet laureate. His career as a man of letters was never in doubt for this first cousin of the poet Charles G. D. Roberts. Carman studied at Harvard 1886-88 and stayed on in the United States afterwards, working as a literary journalist in New York. The verse in his first book, Low Tide on Grand Pré (1893), was characteristic of his entire output in its love of nature and of the Romantic tradition. In 1922, the year after his tour, he and Lorne Pierce published Our Canadian Literature: Representative Verse, English and French. Blance Hume transcribed and edited his Talks on Poetry and Life, delivered at the University of Toronto in December 1925 (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1926; PS 8455 A7A16 Robarts Library). Carman became a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Canada the year of these talks, although he lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, for most of his life after 1909. Odell Shepard published a bibliography of his works in Bliss Carman (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1923; PS 8455 A7Z765 Robarts Library). His letters have been edited by H. Pearson Gundy (Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1981; PS 8455 A7Z48 Robarts Library) and his correspondence with Margaret Lawrence from 1927 to 1929 by D. M. R. Bentley and Margaret Maciejewski (London, Ont.: Canadian Poetry Press, 1995; PS 8455 A7Z489 Robarts Library). Muriel Miller's Bliss Carman: Quest and Revolt (St. John's, Newfoundland: Jesperson Press, 1985; PS 8455 A7Z65 Robarts Library) is the standard biography.

Given Name
Bliss
Family Name
Carman
Birth Date
0, 1861
Death Date
0, 1929
Education
Religion
Honours
Occupations
Literary Period
Literary Movement
Illness