Gwen Pharis Ringwood

Moira Day (University of Saskatchewan)

Ed. by Glen Nichols, Mount Allison University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Sean Seeger (University of Essex), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

Born 13 Aug 1910
Died 25 May 1984
Activity 1930-1984

Places

Born in United States
Active in Canada

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist

Other

Novelist
Poet

Resources

RUTH (at his side) You'd feel the same about another place after a little while.

BRUCE. I don't know. When I saw the wind last spring blowing the dirt away, the dirt I'd plowed and harrowed and sowed to grain, I felt as though a part of myself was blowing away in the dust. Even now with the land three feet under snow I can look out and feel it waiting for the seed I've saved for it. (Still Stands the House)

Gwen Pharis Ringwood was one of the first Canadian writers to define a distinctive voice of prairie regionalism in the theatre. Her one-act folk tragedy, Still Stands the House (1938), established her reputation as one of the most significant Canadian playwrights of the first half of the 20th century, and it still...

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1999 words

Citation: Day, Moira. "Gwen Pharis Ringwood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3796, accessed 15 December 2025.]

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