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- Pratt, E.J.
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Description area
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History
Edwin John Dove Pratt was an academic and a poet. He was born in Western Bay, Newfoundland, the son of Reverend John Pratt and Fanny Pitts Knight. He married Viola Leone Whitney on August 20, 1918 and they had a daughter, Mildred Claire, born on March 18, 1921. He died in Toronto, Ontario on April 26, 1964.
Pratt was educated at St. John’s Methodist College (1888–1901) with a three-year interruption. He received a B.A. in 1911 at Victoria College, University of Toronto, a M.A. at the University of Toronto, and a B.D. at Victoria University, both in 1913. He was ordained as a minister in 1913, and received a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1917.
Pratt was an Assistant Minister at various churches in Streetsville, Ontario (1913–1920). He was Demonstrator-Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Toronto (1913–1920), joined the faculty of the Department of English at Victoria College in 1920, and was promoted to Professor (1930), Senior Professor (1938), and Professor Emeritus (1953). He was appointed Visiting Professor, summer sessions, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Queen’s University in Kingston, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He served as Literary Adviser to the Editorial Board of Acta Victoriana and was the founder and first editor (1936–1943) of The Canadian Poetry Magazine.
Pratt was a member of the Royal Society of Canada, the Editorial Board of Saturday Night, the Canadian Authors’ Association, the Empire Club of Canada and the Arts and Letters Club. He received several awards, including a Governor General’s Award in 1937, 1940 and 1952, the Canada Council Award in 1957, the Civic Award of Merit from the City of Toronto in 1959, and the Canada Council Medal for distinction in literature in 1961. In 1946, he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George by King George VI.
Pratt’s publications include: Rachel: A Sea Story of Newfoundland in Verse (1917), Newfoundland Verse (1923), The Witches’ Brew (1926), Titans (1926), The Iron Door: An Ode (1927), The Roosevelt and the Antinoe (1930), Many Moods (1932), The Titanic (1935), The Fable of the Goats and Other Poems (1937), Brébeuf and His Brethren (1940), Dunkirk (1941), Still Life and Other Verse (1943), They are Returning (1945), Behind the Log (1947), Ten Selected Poems (1947), Towards the Last Spike (1952), and Here the Tide Flows (1962).