Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House

Sue Sorensen (Canadian Mennonite University)
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Throughout her career, Margaret Atwood’s wry and spare poetic voice has been unmistakable. Winning Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Poetry with her first major book in 1964 (

The Circle Game

), she quickly established herself as a major player on the Canadian literary scene. Her laconic free verse was both accessible in style and challenging in substance, taking on subjects such as Canadian identity, the de-romanticizing of heterosexual unions, and what Shannon Henneberger has called “the concept of dual track, separate modes of consciousness” (277).

Morning in the Burned House

, published in 1995, was her first book of poetry in over ten years, and in the meantime her novels and short stories had eclipsed her poetry; in particular the 1985 novel

The Handmaid’s Tale

brought…

1206 words

Citation: Sorensen, Sue. "Morning in the Burned House". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 September 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3504, accessed 29 March 2024.]

3504 Morning in the Burned House 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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