Charles Heavysege, a popular verse dramatist in his day, is now best known not for his poetry, but for the critical commentary about it. For the critic Northrop Frye, Heavysege's poem Jephthah's Daughter (1865) is the quintessence of whatever is "Canadian" in Canadian literature; for the novelist Robertson Davies, Heavysege is the quintessence of dullness in Canadian writing. In Davies's satire Leaven of Malice (1954), the protagonist "Saul" becomes representative of the Canadian scholarly industry, which Davies dubs "Amcan." The fact that both critic and satirist isolate Heavysege for comment is indicative of his importance in Canadian literature. Heavysege was one of the first of the Anglo-Canadian poets to achieve international recognition; he paved the way for later poets such as Charles Sangster and Charles G. D. Roberts. Heavysege is well worthy of study when compared with any of his North American contemporaries, or for that matter with the lesser...