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This article describes various developments in the field of literature in Canada. Like the U.S. about a hundred years ago Canada today is very much concerned about becoming a nation with a literature, arts, a distinctive character. Perhaps it's too late for rising nationalities, in a world moving toward larger global organizations and even toward world perspectives in literature and the arts, but small ambitious nationalities are bound to ignore that kind of discouragement and Canada is not even small. The lack of recognition outside Canada only enforces the main crippling reflex that has long kept this country from standing up for itself.

Contemporary Canadian literature, using the ward in its broadest sense, reflects to a large extent the spirit of the country. That spirit is today frankly materialistic. It takes pride in the vast material resources of the Dominion, in the development of great industries, in the everwidening net of railways, in the growth of national wealth. Its idols are of the flesh. It worships the great god Success. It is too much preoccupied with the things that make for physical comfort or luxury to give much thought to those that are merely intellectual. This materialistic spirit is reflected to a large extent in the contemporary literature of all countries, but at present people are concerned with Canada alone.

There is talk in Canada of a literary coming-of-age. And after a past of false hopes and generally second-rate writing, few interested Canadians feel inclined to comment too harshly on the real, if definitely limited, achievements of the moment. Moreover, much recently published work does show a new and promising vitality and ambition, though it also has the air of uncertainty usually associated with a literature still struggling to establish itself. This recent progress will seem insignificant to most Americans unless they have some understanding of the special difficulties of Canadian writers.

The article focuses on the reasons of critics for not praising Canadian books. It argues that to be regarded as the best writer in Quebec means being put into jail. Author A. J. M. Smith has claimed that to adopt a special standard in judging Canadian books is the mark of immaturity. It cites the criticisms raised against the Church in Canada according to the book "Les Insolences du Frére Untel."

The article discusses about Canada and its culture and literature. It notes that Eastern Canada is undergoing a triple crisis such as industrial, financial and moral struggle with the U.S., a struggle among French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians and the notion of a reformed Catholic Church. Francis Parkman's book about the country provides a good history but was banned by the Catholic Church to prevent religious issues be known to the public. Canadian poetry is less interesting than the Canadian fiction.

The article presents information on several books. As the editors of "Canadian Poems, 1850-1952," point out, Canada was not yet a federated nation when the U.S. still maligned by European critics for its youth. In the bare one hundred year of its literary life, Canadian poetry has been but a recent and short branch of English poetry, paralleling the movement of British and American literature from Victorian moralism and sentimentality to the lyrical exhaustion which followed, the facile leftist optimism of the thirties and early forties, and the verbal ecstasies flavored with religion which characterizes the present.

The article offers information on new novels based on Canada including "Ellen Clayton: Or the Nomades of the West," by Douglass Huyghue and "The Footsteps of Montcalm."