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John O'Leary John O'Leary i(A89223 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 y separately published work icon A Peculiar Gentleman : George Rusden - A Life John O'Leary , North Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2016 10249237 2016 single work biography

'One hundred and thirty years ago an important libel case was heard in the High Court of Justice in London.

'George Rusden, a former Melbourne civil servant and polemical historian, was being sued by John Bryce, a former Minister of Native Affairs in New Zealand. Rusden had claimed in his History of New Zealand that Bryce had taken part in a massacre of Maori women and children in Taranaki some years earlier.

'Feelings ran high on both sides, but this was more than just a personal quarrel. Rather, it was the culmination of a bitter, 50-year-long battle between those who deplored what colonization had done to Indigenous peoples and those who considered that it had been a blessing to settlers and natives alike.

'Who was Rusden? What was his social and intellectual background? And how had he got himself involved in such a dangerous law-suit? John O’Leary’s sparkling biography answers these and other questions, tracing the life of this peculiar, paradoxical man, one whose controversial histories of Australia and New Zealand anticipated modern revisionist accounts by almost a century.' (Publication summary)

1 1 y separately published work icon Savage Songs and Wild Romances : Settler Poetry and the Indigene John O'Leary , Amsterdam : Rodopi , 2011 Z1825358 2011 single work criticism 'Savage Songs & Wild Romances considers the various types of poetry - from short songs and laments to lengthy ethnographic epics - which nineteenth-century settlers wrote about indigenous peoples as they moved into new territories in North America, South Africa, and Australasia. Drawing on a variety of texts (some virtually unknown), the author demonstrates the range and depth of this verse, suggesting that it exhibited far more interest in, and sympathy for, indigenous peoples than has generally been acknowledged. In so doing, he challenges both the traditional view of this poetry as derivative and eccentric, and more recent postcolonial condemnations of it as racist and imperialist. Instead, he offers a new, more positive reading of this verse, whose openness towards the presence of the indigenous Other he sees as an early expression of the tolerance and cultural relativity characteristic of modern Western society. Writers treated include George Copway, Alfred Domett, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, George McCrae, Thomas Pringle, George Rusden, Lydia Sigourney, and Alfred Street.' Source: www.rodopi.nl/ (Sighted 18/11/2011).
1 1 'Unlocking the Fountains of the Heart' : Settler Verse and the Politics of Sympathy John O'Leary , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Studies , March vol. 13 no. 1 2010; (p. 55-70)
Nineteenth-century settler verse about indigenous peoples has received relatively little critical analysis; what there is has sometimes been negative, judging it as complicit in the evils of colonization. This essay sets out to show that settler poets were capable of producing powerful poems designed to enlist reader sympathy for the sufferings of indigenous peoples, as a prelude to political action aimed at ameliorating their condition. The essay considers three 'crying mother' poems from the 1830s, locating them in their period's contentious, highly-charged debates about race, morality and national destiny. (Only one of the poems is by an Australian writer, Eliza Dunlop.)
1 Speaking the Suffering Indigene : 'Native' Songs and Laments, 1820-1850 John O'Leary , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 31 no. 1 2009; (p. 47-59)
'This article considers the many short poems published by settlers in British colonies and the United States in the early decades of the nineteenth century in which settlers voiced their concern about the suffering of indigenous peoples in the face of colonisation. Though the indigenous peoples in question were very different from one another, and the nature of colonisation in the various colonies and states by no means identical, this verse shows a remarkable homogeneity of style and tone, being an expression of a common evangelical tradition and a shared fascination with the indigenous Other. The article argues that while these poems were certainly conditioned by an ideology of European superiority, and raise issues of paternalism and agency, they were sincere expressions of outrage and sorrow, and should therefore be accorded more weight than they are usually granted by postcolonial critics.' Source: The author.
1 'The Life, the Loves, of that Dark Race' : The Ethnographic Verse of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Australia John O'Leary , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 23 no. 1 2007; (p. 3-17)
Defining 'ethnographic verse' as 'a loose, heterogeneous sug-genre that mixed poetry with anthropology, or ethnology as Victorians called it' O'Leary considers examples within the context of similar works from the Unites States and New Zealand, arguing that these poetic epics have literary and historical significance.
1 1 Giving the Indigenous a Voice : Further Thoughts on the Poetry of Eliza Hamilton Dunlop John O'Leary , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 82 2004; (p. 85-93, notes 187-189)
'This article expands the existing critical discussion [of Dunlop's poetry], focusing on Dunlop's best known poem, "The Aboriginal Mother", and on the fragmentary but pioneering transliteration and translation work that Dunlop performed after she moved to the Hunter Valley in 1840. Dunlop's poetry will be explored, firstly, in relation to the contemporary newspaper debate about the humanity of Indigenous people and, secondly, in relation to the literary traditions of expressive women's poetry and romantic primitivism, both of which influenced her verse' (85).
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