E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake: Collected Poems and Selected Prose

By E. Pauline Johnson

Book Overview

E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) was a Native advocate of part-Mohawk ancestry, an independent woman during the period of first-wave feminism, a Canadian nationalist who also advocated strengthening the link to imperial England, a popular and versatile prose writer, and one of modern Canada's best-selling poets. Johnson longed to see the publication of a complete collection of her verse, but that wish remained unfulfilled during her life. Nine decades after her death, the first complete collection of all of Pauline Johnson's known poems, many painstakingly culled from newspapers, magazines, and archives, is now available.

In response to the current recognition of Johnson's historical position as an immensely popular and influential figure of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this volume also presents a representative selection of her prose, including fiction about native-settler relations, journalism about women and recreation, and discussions of gender roles and racial stereotypes.

Edited by Carole Gerson and Veronica Strong-Boag, authors of the enthusiastically received Paddling Her Own Canoe: Times and Texts of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), this collection exhibits the same impeccable scholarship and is essential to a full understanding of Johnson as a major Canadian writer and cultural figure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802084974
• ISBN13: 9780802084972
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

One of Canada's greatest poets

Pauline Johnson was one of Canada's greatest poets, whose works spanned from the 1880s to the 1910s. Just being a successful female poet at a time when women had few public roles would have been an achievement in itself. But, just as importantly, she was half Native American, on her father's side. (Her mother was English.)The book contains most of her poems. Many of these deal with her Native heritage. Written in perfect English. Historically important, because they form an articulate expression of a direct experience of being dispossessed of land and society. She was of a generation of Natives to which these events happened. The anguish tumbles out of the verses. The British-Canadian conquest of the land may not have been as bloody as the US experience, but it was scarcely done with the consent of the weaker.Also included in the book are several of her short stories. Again, these often have a Native theme and bring out a Native viewpoint. Not some idealised imaginings of a European writer.Wonderful that her works are made so easily available here, to new generations.