John Lent, Frieze

Craig McLuckie (Okanagan College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1984

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

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Frieze

, Lent charts the development of a consciousness as the narrator tries to capture the landscapes of Toronto, Regina and finally Vernon. These extended lyrical narrations are probably the catalyst for Lent's later experiments with fiction and the long poem in

The Face in the Garden

Frieze is divided into three sections: Toronto (4 poems), Regina (6 poems), and Vernon (13 poems). Three epigraphs announce the structural/thematic concerns of the volume. The first, from Lawrence Durrell's Justine, signals the inter-relatedness of human desire and landscape: “I am bound to see landscape as a field dominated by the human wish ... Now, however, I am beginning to believe that the wish is inherited from the site”(8). The second, from William Kotzwinkle's Elephant Graveyard, functions

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1943 words

Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "Frieze". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11944, accessed 24 April 2024.]

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