AustLit

'In the beginning of South Australia, Literature and Science were not forgotten, as on the 29th August, 1834, exactly a fortnight after the King had assented to the measure erecting South Australia into a British Province, well over two years before the Colony was proclaimed, a few 'gentlemen intending to emigrate' met in London and formed 'The South Australian Literary Association', having for its objects 'the cultivation and diffusion of knowledge throughout the Colony'. This was planning with a vengeance, yet if we reflect upon it, quite in keeping with the character of the Colonists and the peculiar form of colonization they were they were supporting.' (Author's introduction)

'When I was asked to write this article, I was at once confronted with the difficulty which ultimately must assail every critic in a contribution such as this, not whether to be merely categorical, but to say whether or not there exists in South Australia a body of representative work in which may be found evidence of true poetry. Whether there has been in the verse that exists imagination, creativeness, a tradition, a culture, a direct living note, an expression in words of the beauty of nature, or the things that affect man's spirit and his life. I do not think there has. Such verse as has been written is largely ephemeral, external, and fugitive. It does not constitute, taken as a whole, a permanent and consolidated body of work, through which one might see the national spirit or ethos as one does in English, Irish, German, and French poetry.' (From author's introduction)