Duncan Campbell Scott Biography

Canadian poet, born in Ottawa. With Charles G. D. Roberts, Archibald Lampman, and Bliss Carman, he is usually grouped as one of the ‘Confederation Poets’. He collaborated with Lampman on ‘At the Mermaid Inn’, a column published in the Toronto Globe in 1892 and 1893. His occupation as a civil servant in the Department of Indian Affairs led to his travelling in remote parts of Canada, which gave him contact with Native peoples and provided the impetus for his particular brand of reflective topographical poetry, which responded directly to local nature. Though fascinated by the wilderness, Scott remained a Victorian in his desire to bring civilization to ‘primitive’ Canada. His life-long interest in music can be seen in the lyric sensibility that informs his poetry and in its stress on the aural. After retiring in 1932 he travelled to Europe, where he found new subjects for his verse. Among his volumes of poetry are The Magic House (1893), Labor and the Angel (1898), New World Lyrics and Ballads (1905), Lundy's Lane (1916), The Green Cloister (1935), and The Circle of Affection (1947). He also published the short-story collections In the Village of Viger (1896) and The Witching of Elspie (1923).