George Benson Johnston

George Benson Johnston (October 7, 1913 – August 2004) was a Canadian poet, translator, and academic "best known for lyric poetry that delineates with good-humoured wisdom the pleasures and pains of suburban family life." He also had an international reputation as a scholar and translator of the Icelandic Sagas.

Life Johnston was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1913, the son of Margaret Black and Benson Johnston, an insurance agent.

He studied at the University of Toronto under Pelham Edgar and E. J. Pratt. There he "read T.S. Eliot, the early William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and added Alexander Pope as a personal favorite." In 1935 he published two poems, "Annabelle" and "The Life in August," in the college magazine, Acta Victoriana.

In 1950 Johnston joined the English department at Carleton College in Ottawa (now Carleton University),

Johnston's work features a recurring persona, Edward, forever on the verge of drowning.

A festschrift, The Old Enchanter: A Portrait of George Johnston, was published in 1999. Carl: Portrait of a Painter (1986)

Translated The Saga of Gisli the Outlaw (1963. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1999. The Faroe Islanders' Saga (1975) The Greenlanders' Saga (1976) Rocky Shores: An Anthology of Faroese Poetry. (Pastoral Investigation of Social Trends: Working Paper). Wilfion Books, 1981.

Edited The Collected Poems of George Whalley. Kingston, ON: Quarry P, 1986. ,

Except where noted, bibliographic information courtesy The Canadian Encyclopedia.