Eli Mandel (December 3, 1922 – September 3, 1992) was a Canadianpoet, editor of many Canadian anthologies,[1] and literary academic.
Biography
Eli Mandel died in relative obscurity. A series of strokes had left him unable to write and, as a result, Mandel had receded from public view long before his death.
He was born Elias Wolf Mandel in Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada to RussianJewish parents who had emigrated from Ukraine, and grew up the Canadian prairies during the Great Depression.[2] After a job working for a pharmacist who, landed him a position serving in Canada's Medical Corps during World War II,[3] it has been said Mandel returned a forever emotionally distraught man who was destined to live the rest of his life without a sense of belonging. This helps explain the alienation that is illustrated throughout his writings.
Besides his poetry, he wrote other critical works such as his 1969 essay on fellow poet Irving Layton.
He was married to his first wife, Miriam Mandel, for 18 years. The couple had two children, Evie and Charles. In 1967 they divorced and he married Ann Hardy. They had one child, Sara.[7]
Publishing poetry in the early 1950s,[8] Eli Mandel's first significant collection was entitled Minotaur poems (1954), and it appeared in the contact press anthology Trio (1954).
His works seem to have been deeply influenced by World War II, especially all the horrors of the Jewish concentration camps.[8] Despite the lack of direct references to the war until Stony Plain (1973), his work illustrates many grim and morbid images of despair, destruction written with a tone of inescapable pessimism.[8]
Mandel's style was contemplative and intellectual - "an ironic poet, rather than an angry one".[8] The lack of emotion heightens a hopeless outlook, a central feature in all of his writing.[8] His early works appear to have been written for "a scholarly rather than public audience" due to their literary complexity.[8] In his later work, however, starting with the poetry of Black and Secret Man (1964), Mandel simplifies the syntax and uses more colloquial language. While the thoughtful view remained as it was in his earlier work, a wittier tone replaced the previously somber one.
Eli Mandel's book, The Family Romance (1986), has been characterized by his quotations from essays on Hugh MacLennan and Northrop Frye’s The Great Code.[10] Both excerpts exemplify Mandel’s questioning of whatever is viewed as orthodoxy. He refuses to let pass what most people simply accept. In this essay collection, it has been recognized that the first piece, Auschwitz and Poetry, is the most powerful and significant and the last of this series of essays, The Border League: American ‘West’ and Canadian ‘Region’, seems to be the least successful.[11]
The compilation of Mandel’s work, The Other Harmony: the Collected Poetry of Eli Mandel, is a two volume collection, with the first including Mandel’s contributions to Trio, as well has his books Fuseli Poems, An Idiot Joy, Stony Plain, and others. It has been acknowledged as the more noteworthy of the two volumes in terms of its primary material.[12]
M. Casey, Diana. "Eli Mandel" Great Neck Publishing
Davey, Frank (2001). "Mandel, Eli". In Benson, Eugene; Toye, William (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-541167-6.
Hatch, Ronald B. (1996). "Mandel, Eli(as Wolf)". In Hamilton, Ian (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-280042-8.
Matthews, Lawrence. "The Martian of Estevan". ECW Press Ltd, 2001
Ravvin, Norman (Winter 1994). "Humanities -- Myth, Origins, Magic: A Study of Form in Eli Mandel's Writing by Andrew Stubbs". University of Toronto Quarterly. 64 (1): 211–213. ProQuest224049675.
Helwig, Maggie (23 May 1987). "'Romance' a record by which poet puts theory into practice". Toronto Star. p. M4. ProQuest435571429.
Fetherling, Douglas (February 1993). "Mandel remembered". Books in Canada. 22 (1): 56. ProQuest215191436.
Querengesser, Neil (Spring 2003). "Opening Words". Canadian Literature (176): 166–167, 205. ProQuest218820989.
Sacuta, Norm (13 September 1992). "Eli Mandel, 1922-1992". Edmonton Journal. p. D6.
Notes
^M. Casey, Diana. "Eli Mandel" Great Neck Publishing
^ abSharon Drache, "Mandel, Eli," Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton:Hurtig, 1988), 1290.
^ abcdefgDavey, Frank (2001). "Mandel, Eli". In Benson, Eugene; Toye, William (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-541167-6.
^ ab"Phyllis Webb," Canadian Women Poets, BrockU.ca, Web, Apr. 12, 2011
^Matthews, Lawrence (Spring 1989). "The Martian of Estevan". Essays on Canadian Writing. 37: 155–160.
^Fetherling, Douglas (February 1993). "Mandel remembered". Books in Canada. 22 (1): 56. ProQuest215191436.
^Querengesser, Neil (Spring 2003). "Opening Words". Canadian Literature (176): 166–167, 205. ProQuest218820989.
^ ab"Eli Mandel," Online Guide to Writing in Canada, track0.com, Web, May 1, 2011.
