In this volume a baker's dozen of creative Canadians make personal responses to the state of the arts in Canada: Northrop Frye and Guy Rocher write on general cultural trends; Hugh MacLennan and Gérard Bessette on fiction; Ralph Gustafson and Michèle Lalonde on poetry; Robertson Davies and Gratien Gélinas on drama; George Woodcock and Jacques Allard on non-fiction prose; Godfrey Ridout on music, and Aba Bayefsky and Humphrey N. Milnes on art.

The essays were written to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Toronto Quarterly. The contributors were invited to discuss the changes, problems, challenges, and achievements in the arts in the last fifty years. Since all the authors had personal experience of at least a large section of the period surveyed, the editors welcomed personal reminiscence as well as description and assessment. The result is a varied group of essays in each of which the character of the individual artist is clearly evident; together, they provide a complex, many-faceted, lively, and living discussion of the cultural development of Canada.

This anniversary collection of essays is a valuable and provocative source for courses in Canadian studies and for anyone interested in the development of the arts and humanities in Canada.

William Keith is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of the award-winning Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement and coauthor of two highly regarded textbooks, The Essential Guide to Rhetoric and Public Speaking: Choices and Responsibility.

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Ben-Z. Shek (1927-2011) was a professor emeritus of French at University College, University of Toronto.

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