Pauline Johnson

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Standard Name: Johnson, Pauline
Birth Name: Emily Pauline Johnson
Self-constructed Name: Tekahionwake
Pseudonym: Margaret Rox
Pseudonym: Rollstone
Used Form: E. Pauline Johnson
PJ is best remembered for the poem The Song My Paddle Sings, published in 1892, which has been memorized by generations of Canadian school children, but she also wrote short stories and journalism, and recorded the legends of the Squamish people. Her writing struggles to bring together the two world views, British and Native, with which she was acquainted, and her literary persona straddles the figures of the New Woman and the emergent Canadian author. Poet Glenn Wilmott , citing critic Terry Goldie , advises anyone who wants to learn something about the history and historicity of literary value, go to this poet.
Wilmott, Glenn. “Paddled by Pauline”. Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, Vol.
spring/summer
, No. 46, University of Western Ontario, pp. 43-68.
44
Black and white photograph of Pauline Johnson, shown from the waist up. She wears a necklace of bear claws and a loose shirt with leather fringes and ermine tails. Her dark hair is curled in front and hangs loose down her back.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Sara Jeannette Duncan
SJD met Pauline Johnson at the Collegiate and there was very likely a close friendship between the two.
Fowler, Marian. Redney: A Life of Sara Jeannette Duncan. Anansi, 1983.
38-9
Education Ethel Wilson
At Crofton House she heard Pauline Johnson , the Mohawk poet from Ontario, orate, but she was too shy to speak to or visit her. Despite her shyness, Ethel excelled at Crofton House.
Stouck, David. Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography. University of Toronto Press, 2003.
27, 29
Friends, Associates Sara Jeannette Duncan
Friends from this period of SJD 's life included (besides, perhaps, Pauline Johnson ) Augusta Stowe and Alice McGillivray , who became the first and second women in Canada to receive medical degrees. Stowe's home...
Friends, Associates Sara Jeannette Duncan
In Washington, amid many social pleasures, SJD met Frances Hodgson Burnett and the columnist Abigail Dodge . She also developed a friendship with William Dean Howells and his family which continued sporadically for many years...
Friends, Associates Agnes Maule Machar
Her work brought her into contact with prominent Canadians, Pauline Johnson among them. AMM was one of those who supported the author Charles G. D. Roberts in his quest to become the Chair of English...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Augusta Ward
The repetition in the British title of Pauline Johnson 's 1903 collection of poems may be coincidental, or it may constitute an imperialist challenge to the hybrid version of Canadian identity offered by Johnson as...
Performance of text Margaret Atwood
The opera Pauline, with libretto by MA , music by Tobin Stokes, and story from the life of the poet Pauline Johnson , had its world premiere in Vancouver. Atwood wrote this...
Travel Mary Carpenter
She spent three weeks in Boston, visiting schools and prisons, and giving public speeches. After three weeks she travelled via Hartfort, Connecticut, to New York, then to the recently-founded Hampton College for coloured...

Timeline

19 June 1812
Following years of strained British-American relations, US president Madison declared war on Britain (including British Canada); this began the War of 1812.
26 March-2 July 1885
The North West Rebellion led by Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont (of the Métis), and Poundmaker and Big Bear (of the Cree tribe), was fought in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Texts

Johnson, Pauline. Canadian Born. George N. Morang, 1903.
Johnson, Pauline. Flint and Feather. Musson, 1912.
Johnson, Pauline. “Flint and Feather, 1912”. University of Toronto Libraries: Representative Poetry On-Line (RPO), edited by Ian Lancashire.
Johnson, Pauline. Legends of Vancouver. Privately printed, 1911.
Johnson, Pauline, Gilbert Parker, and Charles Mair. The Moccasin Maker. W. Briggs, 1913.
Johnson, Pauline, and Ernest Thompson Seton. The Shagganappi. W. Briggs, 1913.
Johnson, Pauline. The White Wampum. John Lane, 1895.