a generation" ("Memoir" xxxvii). The struggle of his generation of writers was to bring Canadian poetry into the Twentieth Century. Like E.J. Pratt, W.W.E. Ross, Arthur Stringer (whose Open Water was the first book of modernist free verse by a Canadian), and others, Knister was a "Transitional modern" whose poetry, fiction, and criticism showed the effects of the many forces which were changing Canadian poetry and Canadian society. Writing Besides his four novels, Knister wrote roughly one hundred poems, almost as many short stories and sketches, and dozens of critical works, including essays, editorials, and book reviews. "To his own writing and criticism, Knister brought a mind attuned to new literary developments." Fiction After 1925 Knister devoted less time to poetry and more to fiction. Two of his novels, White Narcissus and My Star Predominant, were published in his lifetime. Although he was known and respected by writers such as Morley Callaghan, Mazo de la Roche, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, and A.J.M. Smith, Knister was never a popular success. "Farm work provided him with realistic details for his stories and his first novel, White Narcissus (1929)." Set in rural Ontario, "The novel concerns a writer, Richard Milne, who returns home in order to make a final attempt to convince his childhood sweetheart, Ada Lethen, to marry him. Ada feels it is her duty to stay at home because for years, as a consequence of a quarrel, her parents have communicated only through her.... While the novel is usually and justly considered a work of realism, it has also been suggested that it contains elements of romanticism, and that the lyricism of some passages approaches prose-poetry." Knister's fiction provides us with some important clues for a clearer understanding of his verse. In My Star Predominant Knister has Keats give voice to ideas about poetry which are really his own. The novel shows Keats going through a process of growth as an artist. He progresses from sentimentality to a desire for direct contact with life and from ignorance to self-knowledge. He says that "a man's knowledge of his faults, so they do not paralyse his endeavors, is a good thing" (p. 160) and he recalls that as a boy he would have granted artists exemption "from the common tribulations of mankind" (p. 267). Although Knister did not write poetry in the manner of Keats, it is plausible to assume that he went