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Since the 1920s, Alfred Earle Birney has become a venerated literary figure. Throughout his career Birney has done more than most writers to legitimize and consolidate what is often considered a mésalliance between Canadian academic life and literary life, mainly because he has allowed his own academic and literary lives to complement each other and because he has prevented them from compromising one another. (New Voices: Canadian University Writing of 1956, edited by Birney and others, attests to his dedication to the academic tradition of Canadian literature.) Although his academic interests in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English and his scholarly articles on Chaucer may help to explain the at once antiquated, anachronistic, and avant-garde metrics of some of his poetry, they remain quite distinct from his poetic interests and his various and numerous collections of verse. Birney has consistently written poetry--as well as fiction, criticism, and drama--with a popular appeal, partly a result of his fascination with people and his interest in his own personality, and partly a result of his extensive travels and personal worldview.
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