Article

Robert Finch

Published Online October 30, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Robert Duer Claydon Finch, poet, scholar (b at Freeport, Long Island, NY 14 May 1900; d at Toronto 11 June 1995). Robert Finch was educated at University College, University of Toronto, and the Sorbonne, Paris. He was a professor of French at the University of Toronto for four decades, 1928-68.

Finch, Robert Duer Claydon

Robert Duer Claydon Finch, poet, scholar (b at Freeport, Long Island, NY 14 May 1900; d at Toronto 11 June 1995). Robert Finch was educated at University College, University of Toronto, and the Sorbonne, Paris. He was a professor of French at the University of Toronto for four decades, 1928-68. His scholarship is chiefly evident in The Sixth Sense: Individualism in French Poetry 1686-1760 (1966), as well as in several volumes of poetry, the first of which, Poems (1946), received the GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD. The same award was also bestowed upon Acis in Oxford and Other Poems (1961).

Robert Finch was one of Canada's modernists, initially anthologized in New Provinces. His work, deeply imbued with the classical tradition, is characterized by an intense care for form and graced by a rare subtlety and elegance. Among his later works are Twelve for Christmas (1982), The Grand Duke of Moscow's Favourite Solo (1983), Double Tuning (1984) and For the Back of a Likeness (1986). Robert Finch was the recipient of the Lorne Pierce Medal for literature and an LLD from U of T. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.