Finding the Right Words

"John Moss has been a major force in shaping Canadian literary criticism and in advancing the understanding of Canada's literary culture."

- Citation when elected to the Royal Society of Canada, 2006

"Finding the right words is a challenge. Over five decades I've tried to illuminate our struggle as Canadians to find ourselves in words we could feel were our own, from colonial doggerel to postmodern discourse. Many of the essays here were originally published from lectures abroad and are difficult to access. Taken together they trace the evolution of English Canadian language, literature, and culture to the beginnings of the present century. An ongoing fascination with structural differences between writing by men and by women vies with my interest in language throughout, centred on such radically engaged writers as Robert Kroetsch, George Bowering, and, inevitably, Margaret Atwood. Critical analyses give way to what may be described as critical fiction, which in turn leads to fiction as fiction, before veering back to the personal. I have concluded with two pieces which examine aspects of my writing from other perspectives, before a few last words of my own." JM