The position Watson Kirkconnell occupies in Canadian literary history is especially subject to changes in political attitude. A conservative in the left-leaning 1930s, he was often attacked then, and for a decade or so after, for his political utterances. At the same time he was a singularly successful academic and cultural administrator who was widely praised for his erudition, wit, and understanding; many of the administrative systems he set up are still functioning in the 1980s, affecting research and publication in Canada far beyond the borders of the campuses with which he was affiliated. Kirkconnell resisted more trends than political ones. Multilingual in dominantly unilingual environments, he was also a rhyming poet in an age of free verse, a member of the Canadian Authors' Association (from 1922 on) in years when many leading writers (such as F. R. Scott) dismissed it for literary boosterism, and a committed Christian at...