t had been created by the interaction of environment and people and the concept of evolutionary growth"(Rashley 98). Archibald Lampman was a key note in the beginnings of a national literary movement. Before Lampman and the other Confederation poets there seemed to be a mere repetition of European ideas in literature in Canada. Even though Lampman was influenced by the great Romanticists in Britain, such as Keats and Wordsworth, he is still one of the most integral writers in Canadian poetry and literature in general. Lampman signaled the move from the ‘Immigrant' authors like Moodie and her counterparts toward a true and distinct Canadian literary movement. It is important to note that in order to appreciate the quality of 19th Century Canadian literature, an effort of sympathy and a leap of imagination are both needed because it is here in the 19th Century that our nations true poetic history begins. In early Canadian poetry the most influential and universal poet is undoubtedly Archibald Lampman. While his career, like his life, were short-lived his poetry remains as a reminder to the origins of Canadian literary thought. Lampman was one of our first major literary figures to try and identify a "national" literature. He realized the importance of having a specifically Canadian literary tradition. An important stepping point in Lampman's career came after he read the work Orion by Charles G.D. Roberts. Lampman describes his over powering emotion when as a youth he came across this published work(in the quote on the title page). The importance of having this distinct literary "school" was a driving inspiration in his art. Lampman is regarded "as the most talented of The Confederation Poets"( W.J. Keith 18). It is amazing that this unspectacular man could have such a profound effect on the evolution of Canadian literary tradition. His upbringing was in a very conservative environment as Lampman descended from Loyalists on both sid...
