Myth, Origins, Magic

Myth, Origins, Magic is an examination of Eli Mandel's work, from early poems to the Family Romance.Poet and critic Eli Mandel was a major figure in the development of Canadian--particularly prairie--literature, concerned always with the politics of language and of the creative act. Throughout his career, which spanned three decades, he interrogated the position of the poet, both trapped by and freed within the act of writing, and the dynamics of influence and of metaphor. Andrew Stubbs examins the texts and contexts of each of Mandel's poetry collections, tracing their development from the concrete closures of modernism to the full declarations of postmodernism.