F. R. Scott
Encyclopedia
Francis Reginald Scott, CC
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 commonly known as Frank Scott or F.R. Scott, (August 1, 1899 - January 30, 1985) was a Canadian poet
Canadian poetry
- Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

, intellectual and constitutional expert. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

, and its successor, the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

. He won Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

's top literary prize, the Governor General's Award, twice, once for poetry and once for non-fiction.

He was married to Marian Dale Scott
Marian Dale Scott
Marian Dale Scott was a Canadian painter.She was born Marian Dale in Montreal. She showed talent at an early age, her first works being exhibited in 1918. After study in Paris and London she returned to her home city, where in 1928 she married the poet and law professor F. R. Scott...

, an important modern
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

 painter in Canada.

Life and Work

Scott was born in Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, the sixth of seven children. His father was Frederick George Scott
Frederick George Scott
Frederick George Scott was a Canadian poet and author, known as the Poet of the Laurentians. He is sometimes associated with Canada's Confederation Poets, a group that included Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. Scott published 13 books of Christian...

, "an Anglican priest, minor poet and staunch advocate of the civilizing tradition of imperial Britain, who instilled in his son a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order." He witnessed the riots in the City during the Conscription Crisis of 1917
Conscription Crisis of 1917
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 was a political and military crisis in Canada during World War I.-Background:...

.

Completing his undergraduate studies at Bishop's University
Bishop's University
Bishop's University is a predominantly undergraduate university in Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Bishop's is one of three universities in the province of Quebec that teach primarily in the English language...

, in Lennoxville
Lennoxville, Quebec
Lennoxville is an arrondissement, or borough, of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Lennoxville is located at the confluence of the St. Francis and Massawippi Rivers approximately five kilometers south of downtown Sherbrooke....

, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Scott went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

 and was influenced by the Christian Socialist
Christian socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...

 ideas of R.H. Tawney and the Student Christian Movement
World Student Christian Federation
The World Student Christian Federation is a federation of autonomous national Student Christian Movements forming the youth and student arm of the global ecumenical movement...

.

Scott returned to Canada, settled in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 and studied law at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

, eventually joining the law faculty
McGill University Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Law is a constituent faculty of McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec. Its graduates obtain both a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Civil Law , concurrently, in three to four years, allowing them to practice in both the Canadian, U.S...

 as a professor.

While at McGill Scott became a member of the Montreal Group
Montreal Group
The Montreal Group was a circle of Canadian modernist writers formed in the mid-1920s at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, which included Leon Edel, John Glassco, A.M. Klein, Leo Kennedy, F.R. Scott, and A.J.M. Smith. Most of the group's members attended McGill as undergraduates. Due to this...

 of modernist poets, a circle that also included Leon Edel
Leon Edel
Joseph Leon Edel was a North American literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel....

, John Glassco
John Glassco
John Glassco was a Canadian poet, memoirist and novelist. "Glassco will be remembered for his brilliant autobiography, his elegant, classical poems, and for his translations." He is also remembered by some for his pornography.-Life:Born in Montreal to a well-off merchant family, John Glassco was...

, and A.J.M. Smith
A. J. M. Smith
Arthur James Marshall Smith was a Canadian poet and anthologist. He "was a prominent member of a group of Montreal poets" -- the Montreal Group, which included Leon Edel, Leo Kennedy, A.M. Klein, and F.R...

.
Scott and Smith became lifelong friends. Scott contributed to the McGill Daily Literary Supplement, which Smith edited; when that folded in 1925, he and Smith founded and edited the McGill Fortnightly Review. After the Review folded, Scott helped found and briefly co-edited The Canadian Mercury.

Scott (assisted by Smith and Leo Kennedy
Leo Kennedy
John Leo Kennedy was a Canadian poet and critic, who in the 1920s and 1930s was a member of the Montreal Group of modernist poets...

) also anonymously edited the modernist poetry anthology New Provinces
New Provinces (poetry anthology)
New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors was an anthology of Canadian poetry published in the 1930s, anonymously edited by F.R. Scott assisted by Leo Kennedy and A.J.M. Smith. The first anthology of Canadian modernist poetry, it has been hailed as a "landmark anthology" and a "milestone selection...

 (in which he published ten poems), which was published in 1936.

The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 greatly disturbed Scott; he and historian Frank Underhill
Frank Underhill
Frank Hawkins Underhill, was a Canadian historian, social critic and political thinker.Frank Underhill, born in Stouffville, Ontario, was educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford where he was a member of the Fabian Society...

 founded the League for Social Reconstruction
League for Social Reconstruction
The League for Social Reconstruction was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals officially formed in 1932, though it had its beginnings during a camping retreat in 1931. These academics were advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education. Industrialization,...

 (LSR) to advocate socialist solutions in a Canadian context. Through the LSR, Scott became an influential figure in the Canadian socialist movement. He was a founding member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

 (CCF) and a contributor to that Party's Regina Manifesto
Regina Manifesto
The Regina Manifesto was the programme of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and was adopted at the first national convention of the CCF held in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1933. The primary goal of the "Regina Manifesto" was to eradicate the system of capitalism and replace it with a planned...

. He also wrote a book advocating Social Planning for Canada (1935)."

Scott was elected national chairman of the CCF in 1942, and would serve until 1950.

In March 1942 Scott co-founded a literary magazine, Preview, with Montreal poet Patrick Anderson. Like the earlier Montreal Group publications, "Preview's orientation was cosmopolitan; its members looked largely towards the English poets of the 1930s for inspiration."

In 1950-51 Scott cofounded Recherches sociales, a study group concerned with the French/English relationship. He began translating French-Canadian poetry.

In 1952 he was a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 technical assistant in Burma, helping to build a socialist state in that country.

During the 1950s, Scott was an active opponent of the Duplessis
Maurice Duplessis
Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis served as the 16th Premier of the Canadian province of Quebec from 1936 to 1939 and 1944 to 1959. A founder and leader of the highly conservative Union Nationale party, he rose to power after exposing the misconduct and patronage of Liberal Premier Louis-Alexandre...

 regime in Quebec and went to court to fight the Padlock Law
Padlock Law
The Padlock Law The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") (QcFr: "La loi du cadenas" / "Loi protégeant la province contre la propagande...

. He also represented Frank Roncarrelli, a Jehovah's Witness, in Roncarelli v. Duplessis
Roncarelli v. Duplessis
Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121, was a landmark constitutional decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court held that Maurice Duplessis, the premier of Quebec, had overstepped his authority by revoking the liquor licence of a Jehovah's Witness...

 all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...

 a battle that Maurice Duplessis lost.

Scott began translating French-Canadian poetry, publishing Anne Hébert
Anne Hébert
Anne Hébert, CC, OQ , was a Canadian author and poet. She is a descendant of famed French-Canadian historian Francois-Xavier Garneau, "and has carried on the family literary tradition spectacularly."...

 and Saint-Denys Garneau in 1962. He edited Poems of French Canada (1977), which won the Canada Council
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...

 prize for translation.

Scott served as dean of law at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 from 1961 to 1964 and served on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was a Canadian royal commission established on 19 July 1963, by the government of Prime Minister Lester B...

. In 1970 he was offered a seat in the Canadian Senate
Canadian Senate
The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...

 by Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...

 but declined the appointment. He did, however, support Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act
War Measures Act
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...

 during the October Crisis
October Crisis
The October Crisis was a series of events triggered by two kidnappings of government officials by members of the Front de libération du Québec during October 1970 in the province of Quebec, mainly in the Montreal metropolitan area.The circumstances ultimately culminated in the only peacetime use...

 that same year.

Scott opposed Quebec's Bill 22 and Bill 101 which established the province within its jurisdiction as an officially unilingual state within an officially bilingual country.

On his death in 1985, Frank Scott was interred in Mount Royal Cemetery
Mount Royal Cemetery
Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery -- Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges...

 in Montreal.

Recognition

F.R. Scott won the 1977 Governor General's Award for non-fiction
1977 Governor General's Awards
Each winner of the 1977 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-English Language:*Fiction: Timothy Findley, The Wars.*Poetry or Drama: D.G...

 for his Essays on the Constitution and the 1981 Governor General's Award for poetry
1981 Governor General's Awards
Each winner of the 1981 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-Poetry:Winner:*F.R. Scott, The Collected Poems of F.R...

 for his Collected Poems.

The Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 elected him a Fellow in 1947, and awarded him its Lorne Pierce Medal
Lorne Pierce Medal
The Lorne Pierce Medal is awarded every two years by the Royal Society of Canada to recognize achievement of special significance and conspicuous merit in imaginative or critical literature written in either English or French...

 in 1962.

He won the Molson Prize in 1967.

Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

 added music to Scott's villanelle
Villanelle
A villanelle is a poetic form that entered English-language poetry in the 19th century from the imitation of French models. The word derives from the Italian villanella from Latin villanus . A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds...

, "A Villanelle for Our Time", and recorded it on his album Dear Heather
Dear Heather
Dear Heather is Leonard Cohen's eleventh studio album, released in 2004.It shows a further departure from Ten New Songs, with more female lead singing and a marked increase in read poetry over sung lyrics, two of these being poems by other writers....

.

Scott is the subject of a number of critical works, as well as a major biography, The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F. R. Scott by Sandra Djwa.

Poetry

  • Overture. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1945
    1945 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, based on George Crabbe's The Borough...

    .
  • Events and Signals. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1954
    1954 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review...

    .
  • The Eye of the Needle: Satire, Sorties, Sundries. Montreal: Contact Press, 1957
    1957 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Howl obscenity trial in San Francisco brings significant attention to beat poetry, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg...

    .
  • Signature. Vancouver: Klanak Press, 1964
    1964 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Among the many books of poetry published this year, Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead is greeted with particular acclaim...

    .
  • Selected Poems. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1966
    1966 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Raymond Souster founds the League of Canadian Poets...

    .
  • Trouvailles: Poems from Prose. Montreal: Delta Canada, 1967
    1967 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*Cecil Day-Lewis is selected as the new Poet Laureate of the UK....

    .
  • The Dance is One. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973
    1973 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Canadian poet and author, Michael Ondaatje adapts his 1970 book of poetry, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, into a play which this year is first produced in Stratford, Ontario; it will appear in...

    .
  • The Collected Poems of F. R. Scott. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981
    1981 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Jane Greer launched Plains Poetry Journal, an advance guard of the New Formalism movement....

    .

Translations

  • St-Denys Garneau & Anne Hebert: Translations/Traductions. Translated by F. R. Scott. Vancouver: Klanak Press, 1962
    1962 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Writers in the Soviet Union this year were allowed to publish criticism of Joseph Stalin and were given more freedom generally, although many were severely criticized for doing so...

    .
  • Poems of French Canada. Translated by F. R. Scott. Burnaby, B.C.: Blackfish Press, 1977
    1977 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* January – James Dickey, composed a poem he read at new United States President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural gala although not at the inauguration itself.* British publication Gay News successfully...

    .


Except where indicated, bibliographical information on poetry courtesy of Canadian Poetry Online.

Non-Fiction

  • Social Reconstruction and the B.N.A. Act – 1934
  • Labour Conditions in the Men's Clothing Industry – 1935 (with H. M. Cassidy)
  • Social Planning for Canada – 1935.
  • Canada Today: A Study of Her National Interests and National Policy – 1938
  • Canada's Role in World Affairs – 1942
  • Make This Your Canada: A Review of C.C.F. History and Policy – 1943 (with David Lewis
    David Lewis (politician)
    David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...

    )
  • Cooperation for What? United States and British Commonwealth – 1944
  • The World War Against Poverty – 1953 (with R. A. MacKay and A. E. Ritchie)
  • What Does Labour Need in a Bill of Rights – 1959
  • The Canadian Constitution and Human Rights – 1959
  • Civil Liberties and Canadian Federalism – 1959
  • Dialogue sur la traduction – 1970 (with Anne Hebert
    Anne Hébert
    Anne Hébert, CC, OQ , was a Canadian author and poet. She is a descendant of famed French-Canadian historian Francois-Xavier Garneau, "and has carried on the family literary tradition spectacularly."...

    )
  • Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics – 1977

Edited

  • New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors
    New Provinces (poetry anthology)
    New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors was an anthology of Canadian poetry published in the 1930s, anonymously edited by F.R. Scott assisted by Leo Kennedy and A.J.M. Smith. The first anthology of Canadian modernist poetry, it has been hailed as a "landmark anthology" and a "milestone selection...

     (with A.J.M. Smith
    A. J. M. Smith
    Arthur James Marshall Smith was a Canadian poet and anthologist. He "was a prominent member of a group of Montreal poets" -- the Montreal Group, which included Leon Edel, Leo Kennedy, A.M. Klein, and F.R...

     and Leo Kennedy
    Leo Kennedy
    John Leo Kennedy was a Canadian poet and critic, who in the 1920s and 1930s was a member of the Montreal Group of modernist poets...

    ). Toronto: Macmillan, 1936.
  • The Blasted Pine: An Anthology of Satire, Invective and Disrespectful Verse – 1957 (with A. J. M. Smith
    A. J. M. Smith
    Arthur James Marshall Smith was a Canadian poet and anthologist. He "was a prominent member of a group of Montreal poets" -- the Montreal Group, which included Leon Edel, Leo Kennedy, A.M. Klein, and F.R...

    )

Discography

  • Six Montreal Poets. New York: Folkways Records, 1957. Includes A.J.M. Smith, Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, F.R. Scott, Louis Dudek, and A.M. Klein. (cassett, 60 mins)
  • Canadian Poets on Tape. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1969, 1971. (cassette, 30 mins)
  • A Poetry Reading. Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1982. (cassette, 60 mins)
  • Celebration: Famous Canadian Poets CD London, Ontario: Canadian Poetry Association
    Canadian Poetry Association
    The Canadian Poetry Association began as a grass-roots organization dedicated to promoting the reading, writing, publishing and preservation of poetry in Canada through the individual efforts of members; promoting communication among poets, publishers and the general public; encouraging leadership...

     — 1999 ISBN 1-55253-022-1 (CD#4) (with James Reaney
    James Reaney
    James Crerar Reaney was an influential Canadian poet, playwright, librettist, and professor, "whose works transform small-town Ontario life into the realm of dream and symbol."...

    )


Except where noted, discographical informtion courtesy Canadian Poetry Online.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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