The Strange Case of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen has been a published and critically regarded poet for over fifty years, and a prolific recorded songwriter for over forty years (ca twelve poetry collections and sixteen albums). Despite his multifarious artistic endeavours, he has remained either a contentious figure for critical consideration or a neglected one. Cohen has continually evaded clear-cut classification by not fitting easily ‘into the categories of post-modern or the post-colonial; his obstinate Romanticism is seen as reactionary; and his treatment of women has been…an outright offence to feminist critics.’ [1] In the figure of Leonard Cohen, we see an artist remake his role and redirect the scope of his influence to the point of exhaustion, if not oblivion; an introspective artist who is at war with himself, with his work, and with the collective tradition he remains attached to, if only by an invisible thread. Cohen’s self-effacing attitude towards himself as a writer was unlikely to