The first sign of experimentation in [Canadian poetry with respect to language and theme] came with the publication of Newfoundland Verse by E. J. Pratt, in 1923; and more markedly with his Titans, 1926…. The language was fresh, muscular, contemporary and often boisterously amusing. The metre was one that had been rarely practised by a Canadian poet: octosyllabic couplets with an anapaestic roll, "perched on a dead volcanic pile"; and the content was not too strenuous to tax the average man's ingenuity. It bore with it strong echoes of mock heroic epic and light satire. Like Pope or Dryden, Pratt did not distrust the world he mocked, nor did he wish to destroy it. He felt it could stand up to attack. The style of these early extravaganzas, accordingly, was marked by punch and zest, the metre moving at a run or a gallop by means of strong, monosyllabic verbs...