Jay Macpherson

Jean Jay Macpherson (June 13, 1931 – March 21, 2012) was a Canadian lyric poet and scholar. The Encyclopædia Britannica calls her "a member of 'the mythopoeic school of poetry,' who expressed serious religious and philosophical themes in symbolic verse that was often lyrical or comic."

Life

Jay Macpherson was born in London, England, in 1931. She was brought to Newfoundland in 1940 as a 'war guest'. She took high school at Bishop Spencer College, St. John's, and Glebe Collegiate, Ottawa.

In 1951 Macpherson received a BA from Carleton College (now Carleton University) in 1951, followed by a year at University College in London. She received a BLS from McGill University, and then completed her MA and PhD at Victoria University in the University of Toronto, both supervised by professor and critic Northrop Frye.

Macpherson's two earlier volumes were incorporated into The Boatman (1957), a book which "gained her a considerable reputation. Dedicated to Northrop Frye and his wife, the collection reflects Frye's emphasis on the mythic and archetypal properties of poetry." The Boatman won the Governor General's Award in 1958.

The Boatman of the title "is Noah, but both Noah and the ark itself form an allegory for the artist and the artistic experience, the ark representing Jung's collective unconscious."

"Welcoming Disaster, has the critics baffled. They cannot agree on its proper interpretation - is it a darker, more tragic vision or is the possibility of redemption there?" 1957:The Boatman. Toronto: Oxford University Press 1959:A Dry Light & The Dark Air. Toronto: Hawkshead Press 1968:The Boatman and Other Poems. Toronto: Oxford UP 1974:Welcoming Disaster: Poems, 1970-74. Toronto: Saannes Publications 1981:Poems Twice Told: The Boatman & Welcoming Disaster. Toronto: Oxford University Press

Fiction 1962:The Four Ages of Man: The Classical Myths. Toronto: Macmillan

Non-fiction 1972:Pratt’s Romantic Mythology: The Witches’ Brew. St. John's Nfld.: Memorial University 1974:"Beauty and the Beast" and Some Relatives. Toronto: Toronto Public Library 1982:The Spirit of Solitude: Conventions and Continuities in Late Romance. New Haven: Yale University Press

Except where otherwise noted, bibliographic information courtesy Brock University.