One of the most important agents in the development of a modern critical spirit in Canada between the wars was the Canadian Forum. Because it provided the only forum for critical discussion of modernism in general, and Canadian art and poetry in particular, its pages provide the intellectual context for much of contemporary Canadian poetry and criticism, with the inclusion of writers such as Dorothy Livesay, E. J. Pratt, A. M. Klein, Northrop Frye, Earle Birney, Marshall McLuhan, P. K. Page, Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, Ralph Gustafson, and Miriam Waddington. The Forum's development of discussions concerning nationalism, continentalism, and internationalism helps us understand the historical intertwining of the national and international in Canadian poetry and criticism. It continues to remind us that a national literature can only develop in a supportive national context.
