Partly because he recognized that he could not obtain the firsts in Classics his father expected, but The landscape and the political developments that eventually culminated in the Second World War. From the security of their home he soaked in impressions of

Germany most congenial, not only because he was studying German at Oxford, but also because heįound in Freiberg a welcoming family. Scotland, and on the Continent - to France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Germany. During his vacations, he travelled widely throughout the north of England, MacLennan slaved over the extremely rigorous course of studies called Honour Moderations and Not withoutĭifficulty nor without resentment, MacLennan contrived to fulfil these ambitions, graduating in 1928įrom Dalhousie with numerous athletic achievements, the Governor General's Gold Medal forĬlassics and a Rhodes Scholarship for Canada-at-large.Īt Oriel College, Oxford, a provincial among English men better trained in classical studies, University, a Rhodes Scholarship and attendance at Oxford University lay ahead. Subjected his son to extra study at home, making it clear that Honours Latin and Greek at Dalhousie Which his father had long cultivated as a hobby. Nova Scotia on 20 March 1907, he was expected to become a professional in the field of Classics Previously, both his education and his experience hadĬonspired to set him along a quite different track.īorn the only son of an austere Scots Presbyterian doctor and a musical, artistic mother in Glace Bay, Ironically, MacLennan's espousal of fictional nationalism began as an 'experiment' in his first Have enjoyed inside and outside Canada, the large number of languages into which his books haveīeen translated, and the direct and indirect tribute paid him by the many Canadian authors who haveĮither acknowledged or displayed his influence. The achievement of this aim can be measured by the wide sales his seven novels MacLennan's ideal reader, for by that time MacLennan's primary aim - as expressed in many an essayĪnd speech - was to set the local stage on which the nation's dramas might be enacted before an international audience. Has achieved a self-confident detachment in regard to the rest of the world.' Wilson proved himself

Things which had little in common with either the 'American' or the British colonial one and which

Surprisingly and agreeably different from anything else.in English., a Canadian way of looking at When Edmund Wilson first looked into MacLennan's essays in 1960, he encountered 'a point of view

Hugh maclennan barometer rising