t impact that urbanization has had upon our lives. At the time of Lampman and ‘The Confederation Poets' Canada was young. It had "no antiquity, no legends, no impressive monuments, no places hallowed by the memory of heroic achievement, no noble architecture past or present. Everything [seemed] new and raw"(Marshall 36). With the writings of Archibald Lampman, Canadian poetry started to reach for consciousness. The significance of life was in its meanings in terms of the environment and Nature. The recognition of the identity man has with Nature brings with it a feeling of spiritual release. The recognition that we as Canadians can identify with our land, its vastness, its extreme brings us closer to identifying with a national literature. In "Let Us Much Be With Nature" Lampman expresses just that: "I feel the tumult of new birth;/Waken with the wakening earth"(qtd. in Rashley 77). For Lampman the proper approach to our nations poetry was "self-critical Canadianism" that is still very much relevant to the poets succeeding him. There is an appreciation of the poetry's individuality combined with judgement informed by the highest standards. According to L.R. Early Lampman "felt he was in a literary void and was deeply interested in the prospects of Canadian poetry"(137). Lampman contributed to the Canadian sense of national literature through many instruments. His depictions of the seasons and their extremes and his use of Canadian flora and fauna eased Canadians into poetry that the nation could relate to and be familiar with. Lampman encouraged a Canadian sense of place that we can still relate to today. He wrote to a Canadian audience about Canadian images; the previous writers tended to write for European audiences that were "back home" whereas Canada was home to Lampman. Lampman felt that the "Canadian poet should make himself its sensitive recorder and thus reflect the nation without tarnishing his poetry"(Brown 95). The Cana...
