AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
Contents
* Contents derived from the
Melbourne,
Victoria,:Melbourne University Press
, 1954 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
- The Legend, single work criticism (p. 1-20)
- The People, single work criticism (p. 21-40)
- Myth-making, single work criticism (p. 41-58)
- The Utopians, single work criticism (p. 59-74)
- The Bushman's Bible, single work criticism (p. 88-108)
- Literature Emerges, single work criticism (p. 93-112)
- Conflict, single work criticism (p. 113-134)
- Compromise, single work criticism (p. 135-146)
- A Lost Tradition?, single work criticism (p. 147-150)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille.
Works about this Work
-
National Literatures, Scale and the Problem of the World
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 15 no. 3 2015; Text, Translation, Transnationalism: World Literature in 21st Century Australia 2016; (p. 173-195) 'One of the leading figures in world literature today is the Harvard scholar David Damrosch. His 2003 book What is World Literature? has been widely influential, and might be said to have established the new, US-centred field of study known as world literature. In a 2010 review of three later books edited or co-edited by Damrosch—How to Read World Literature (2009), Teaching World Literature (2009) and The Longman Anthology of World Literature (2009)—John M. Kopper describes them as Damrosch’s aleph. The reference, which I take to be ironic, is to the title story of Jorge Luis Borges’s collection, The Aleph (1949). The aleph is a mysterious gadget that apparently allows the narrator, who is also named ‘Borges,’ briefly to experience an all-encompassing vision of the universe. It is a parable about the madness of desiring a total or ‘encyclopedic vision’ (Echevarria 125). To describe world literature as Damrosch’s aleph is to imply that it is fundamentally misguided to seek a total vision of literature or to read books at the scale of the world. ‘If the aleph stands for the totality of literature,’ Kopper writes, then today’s rich and expanding bibliography of works about that immensity, along with the increasingly massive anthologies that seek to encircle it, show that we have lost our fear of the unbounded object that we study’ (408). ' (Author's introduction) -
Country and Lives : Australian Biography and Its History
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cercles , no. 35 2015; 'There have been attempts to relate national characteristics “by reference to climate, habitat and soil and investing the collective subject with psychological attributes” for over two millennia. More recently historians of modern nationalism developed elaborate typologies often citing Martin Heidegger’s arguments that “the being of the human finds its essence in the being of place — the belonging together of being and topos” [MALPAS 2012 : 5-6]. And yet the challenge to the ontological connection between self and place, what Jeff Malpas describes as the “topological analysis of self and identity”, has a long philosophical tradition, too. This debate over experience, biography and nation has implications for historians who have raised empirical questions about the development of collective sensibilities over time among recent emigrant peoples, their physical peculiarities, behaviourial quirks and emergent national character. In this paper I consider the role that biography writing played in the construction of an Australian national identity geared to what Pierre Nora famously termed as the “roman national”, or the collective discourse on the history of the nation and its place in the world. I argue that Australian historians played a significant role in the history of biograpy writing and, related to it, the debate over collective Australian identity.' (Introduction) -
Relationships to the Bush in Nan Chauncy’s Early Novels for Children
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 3 2014; 'In the 1950s, bush settings were strong favourites for children’s novels, which often took the form of a generic mix of adventure story and bildungsroman, novel of individual development. In using bush settings to take up the environmental concerns of the period, the early novels of Wrightson and Chauncy added a new dimension to traditional settler images of rural life as central to Australian national identity. The bush is loved for its beauty and revered as a source of knowledge and character building, rather than being represented as an antagonist which must be overcome or domesticated. In this respect, Chauncy in particular anticipates later ecological concerns in writing for children.' (Publication abstract) -
The Federation of Letters : A Faild Partnership in Australian Literary and Political History
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Tapestry of the Creative Word in Anglophone Literatures 2013; (p. 265-272) -
Legendary Australians
The Legend and the Legacy
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Writing Across the Continent 2008;
-
The Gay Nineties Seem Just a Day-Dream
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 15 May 1954; (p. 2)
— Review of The Legend of the Nineties 1954 multi chapter work criticism -
The Nineties
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Daily Mercury , 26 June 1954; (p. 2)
— Review of The Legend of the Nineties 1954 multi chapter work criticism -
A Patriotic Book
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 1 1954; (p. 13)
— Review of The Legend of the Nineties 1954 multi chapter work criticism -
Myth Australia or the Nostalgic Lovers
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 1 September vol. 75 no. 3890 1954; (p. 2,30)
— Review of The Legend of the Nineties 1954 multi chapter work criticism -
Legend of our 1890s
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 19 June no. 36347 1954; (p. 11)
— Review of The Legend of the Nineties 1954 multi chapter work criticism -
Palmer and Ward on the Gold Rush
1988
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Women and the Bush : Forces of Desire in the Australian Cultural Tradition 1988; (p. 95-98) -
Legendary Australians
The Legend and the Legacy
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Writing Across the Continent 2008; -
Australian National Identity : Rectifying an All-Male Perspective
1980
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Second Women and Labour Conference : Papers 1980; (p. 518-531) -
The Time Was Never Ripe : Some Reflections on Literary Nationalism
1979
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 24 no. 4 1979; (p. 35-44) -
Forms of Australian Literary History
1988
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 13 no. 4 1988; (p. 77-90)
Last amended 31 Jan 2022 14:06:25