Watson Kirkconnell, OC FRSC (16 May 1895 – 26 February 1977) was a Canadian literary scholar, poet, playwright, linguist, satirist, and translator.
Kirkconnell became a nationally known and enormously influential public intellectual, who publicized and denounced human rights abuses under Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism.[1] He was also, paradoxically, a life-long adherent to varying degrees of scientific racism. Even more paradoxically, with the exception of his early adulthood, Kirkconnell also a life-long anti-Semite who regularly made and published literary translations of verse he admired by Jewish poets[2][3] and who eulogized the victims of the Holocaust in his 1943 poem "Agony of Israel".[4]
At the same time, due to his arguments against what he came to see as the excessive Anglocentrism of his country and its culture[5][6] and his use of a tapestry metaphor in favor of embracing a multiethnic and multilingual Canadian culture, Kirkconnell has been credited by his Ukrainian Canadian friend and colleague C.H. Andrusyshen with almost singlehandedly ending social discrimination against Canadians of White ethnic (meaning non-British) ancestry.[7] He has accordingly been dubbed the father of multiculturalism in Canada by his successor at Acadia University, J.R.C. Perkin.[8]
For his original poetry, verse dramas, and light operas, Kirkconnell drew upon both Canadian and world history and also emulated other poets and playwrights from throughout World Literature. He was also a highly skilled satirist, as may be seen in his verse parodies of Robert Burns[9] and T.S. Eliot.[10]
For his many many translations of their national poetry and by White Ethnic Canadian poets who composed in immigrant languages, Kirkconnell remains very well known in Iceland, Eastern and Central Europe.[11][12] One of his most popular translations is of János Arany's The Bards of Wales, an 1864 ballad covertly denouncing Emperor Franz Joseph for the defeat of the Hungarian revolution of 1848 and which Kirkconnell translated into the same idiom as the Child ballads. Furthermore, Watson Kirkconnell's 1933 translation of World War I soldier-poet Géza Gyóni's iconic anti-war poem, which was composed and flown out by aeroplane for publication in Budapest during the Siege of Przemyśl in 1915, Csak egy éjszakára ("For Just One Night"),[13] in which he renders Gyóni's poem into the same idiom as English war poets Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Isaac Rosenberg,[14] remains just as popular.[15][16]
^Watson Kirkconnell’s Covert War against Communism, By Gordon L. Heath, Canadian Baptist Historical Society, August 15, 2019.
^Meister, Daniel R (2021). The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-History of Canadian Multiculturalism. McGill-Queen's University Press.
^Meister, Daniel R (2020). "" 'Anglo-Canadian Futurities': Watson Kirkconnell, scientific racism, and cultural pluralism in interwar Canada"". Settler Colonial Studies. 10 (2): 234–56. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2020.1726148. S2CID 213470837.
^Watson Kirkconnell (1966), Centennial Tales and Selected Poems, University of Toronto Press, for Acadia University. Pages 144-147.
^Watson Kirkconnell’s Covert War against Communism, By Gordon L. Heath, Canadian Baptist Historical Society, August 15, 2019.
^Meister, Daniel (16 December 2013). "Watson Kirkconnell". The Canadian Encyclopedia (online ed.). Historica Canada.
^Edited by J.R.C. Perkin (1975), The Undoing of Babel: Watson Kirkconnell - The Man and His Work, Acadia University. Pages 31-49.
^Edited by J.R.C. Perkin (1975), The Undoing of Babel: Watson Kirkconnell - The Man and His Work, Acadia University. Pages 7-16.
^Watson Kirkconnell (1966), Centennial Tales and Selected Poems, University of Toronto Press, for Acadia University. Pages 151-156.
^Watson Kirkconnell (1966), Centennial Tales and Selected Poems, University of Toronto Press, for Acadia University. Pages 135-136.
^Meister, Daniel (16 December 2013). "Watson Kirkconnell". The Canadian Encyclopedia (online ed.). Historica Canada.
^Woodsworth, Judith (April 2000). "Watson Kirkconnell and the "Undoing of Babel": a Little-Known Case in Canadian Translation History" (PDF). Meta. 45 (1): 13–28. doi:10.7202/004618ar – via Érudit.
^Erika Papp Faber (2012), A Sampler of Hungarian Poetry, Romanika Kiadó, Budapest. p. 120.
^Watson Kirkconnell (1933), The Magyar Muse: An Anthology of Hungarian Poetry, 1400-1932, Foreword by Mr. Francis Herczeg, Winnipeg. Pages 184-185.
^Tim Cross (1988), The Lost Voices of World War I, pp. 349–350.
^Géza Gyóni, translated by Watson Kirkconnell, "For Just One Night", St Austin Review, March/April 2014, World War One: Hell, Heroism, and Holiness, page 18.
and 25 Related for: Watson Kirkconnell information
WatsonKirkconnell, OC FRSC (16 May 1895 – 26 February 1977) was a Canadian literary scholar, poet, playwright, linguist, satirist, and translator. Kirkconnell...
Scotland Kirkconnell Correctional Centre, a prison in New South Wales, Australia Moses Kirkconnell, Caymanian politician WatsonKirkconnell (1895–1977)...
"Master Thaddeus" 1917 George Rapall Noyes, prose translation 1962 WatsonKirkconnell, under the title "Sir Thaddeus" 1986 Kenneth R. Mackenzie (ISBN 9780781800334)...
gc.ca. WatsonKirkconnell (1967), A Slice of Canada: Memoirs, published for Acadia University by University of Toronto Press. Page 99-102. Watson Kirkconnell...
According to WatsonKirkconnell, the Christiad, "was one of the most famous poems of the Early Renaissance". Furthermore, according to Kirkconnell, Vida's...
According to WatsonKirkconnell, the Christiad, "was one of the most famous poems of the Early Renaissance". Furthermore, according to Kirkconnell, Vida's...
According to WatsonKirkconnell, the Christiad, "was one of the most famous poems of the Early Renaissance". Furthermore, according to Kirkconnell, Vida's...
Arany's ballad was made and published by the Canadian literary scholar WatsonKirkconnell in his 1933 volume The Magyar Muse. In September 2007 an English manuscript...
Nyerges) Toldi: cantos 1–7 and cantos 8–12 (verse translation by WatsonKirkconnell in collaboration with Tivadar Edl). In: Canadian–American Review of...
show many Ukrainophile tendencies, owing in part to the legacy of WatsonKirkconnell and to the presence of a large Ukrainian diaspora. In the 1990s many...
and is an important historical source for the central Highlands. WatsonKirkconnell (1895 -1977), a Canadian poet and public intellectual of proudly Highland...
and individualize marriage Chadwick, Owen p. 242. Hastings, p. 309. WatsonKirkconnell (1952), The Celestial Cycle: The Theme of Paradise Lost in World Literature...
2009. Retrieved 22 April 2015. The Bards of Wales, translated by WatsonKirkconnell Plant. "Battle of Montgomery". BCW Project. Retrieved 25 March 2021...
the anthology Ukrainian Poets 1189–1962, by C. H. Andrusyshen and WatsonKirkconnell. However, the first full English translation of Kotliarevsky's magnum...
indicates the poem was written by former president of Acadian University WatsonKirkconnell. Secondary sources Joan Dawson. Captain William Bishop's sword. A...
work. According to WatsonKirkconnell, Edmundson merely demonstrated, "scores of parallels." However, writing in 1952, Kirkconnell laid out his case that...
Bovey, FRSC 1940: E. J. Pratt, FRSC 1941: Léon Gérin, MSRC 1942: WatsonKirkconnell, FRSC 1943: George H. Clarke, FRSC 1944: Audrey Alexandra Brown 1945:...
– Actor from Classical Hollywood cinema including Superman (1978) WatsonKirkconnell - Canadian poet, literary translator, and father of multiculturalism...
William Moore Benidickson Dr. John Mackay 1930 9 Vivian M. Rogers Prof. WatsonKirkconnell 1931 10 Mervyn Sprung Magistrate R. B. Graham 1932 11 Donald Ross...
Literature Erik Lindegren 1969, 1970 László Mécs [hu] Literature WatsonKirkconnell 1970, 1971 Sándor Weöres Literature Áron Kibédi Varga [hu] 1911, 1928...
Tibor emléke. In: Népszabadság. 3 April 1998. p. 13. They’ve Walled up Every Window ... - One of his poems in English, translated by WatsonKirkconnell...
The Mòd at Grand Pré: A Nova Scotian Light Opera in Two Acts, Libretto by WatsonKirkconnell, music by E.A. Collins. Wolfville, Nova Scotia. [1] [2] [3]...
Global Information