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The Canadian Emigré writers in the Pre-Confederation period, are, then, to be appreciated by the literary historian as men and women who, first, drew attention to the fact that Canadian life and culture needed expression and, next, awoke in native-born sons and daughters of the Dominion the ambition to undertake this expression in verse and prose. We must, therefore, honor the earlier and later émigré poets and prose writers of Canada, not for the intrinsic merit of their work, but for the fact that they engendered in the native-born the ideal of expressing the consciousness of a Canadian homeland and spirit in literature which should possess originality in substance, and beauty in form and in technical artistry.

The quotations from Isabella Valancy Crawford’s work in this chapter are from The Collected Poems of Isabella Valancy Crawford, edited by John W. Garvin, B.A., (Ryerson Press: Toronto).

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THE NATIVISTIC LITERATURE OF CANADA—JOSEPH HOWE AS FOUNDER OF THE INDEPENDENT PROSE, CREATIVE JOURNALISM, POLITICAL LITERATURE, LITERARY AND FORENSIC ORATORY—AS PATRIOTIC, DESCRIPTIVE, AND HUMOROUS POET—AND AS THE DISCOVERER AND SPONSOR OF THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON.