George Whalley, Studies in Literature and the Humanities: Innocence of Intent

Michael DiSanto (Algoma University 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 1985

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Essay Collection

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Brian Crick and John Ferns edited this collection of essays at a time when respect for and admiration of George Whalley as a “prominent and persuasive spokesman for the humanities” reached its zenith in Canada (Rae 1985, 312). Whalley is a master of prose style with a distinct critical voice, and many of his contemporaries thought his “mode of suasion is so elegant that all his essays provide an attractive alternative to structuralism, semiotics, and deconstructionism by refusing to follow sensational trends or disguise confusion with mind-boggling jargon” (Garebian 1986, 45).

The book is comprised of eleven essays. Two are early works. “The Mariner and the Albatross”, which offers a powerful reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, examines

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

958 words

Citation: DiSanto, Michael. "Studies in Literature and the Humanities: Innocence of Intent". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 November 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33211, accessed 05 May 2024.]

Save this article