Australian Postcolonial Literature

Question 1

Late Modern Period

Answer 1

Difficult to categorize

Ranges over all themes and styles

Moral/ metaphysical questions

Important: patrick white

Question 2

Early modern Period

Answer 2

Rejection of nationalism and bush realism after 1920s

Question 3

Typical Australian

Answer 3

Rough does not show emotions

Great improviser

Lazy, swears, drinks, gambles

Hates authority

Question 4

Nationalist Period

Answer 4

The Bulletin newspaper became medium for prose

Atmosphere of literature was sexist and racist

In an attempt to define Australia, authors turned to the bush

Question 5

Late colonial Period

Answer 5

Rapid change in Australia: discovery of gold

Start of multiculturalism

Marked the start of a national identity

Question 6

Bushranging

Answer 6

In many ways representing for freedom that opposes brutal and oppressive regime of police and colonial government

Question 7

Colonial Period

• time-
• themes-

Answer 7

1788- 1850
– straightforward narratives or official accounts of colonial/ convict life

– common themes: convict stories, bushranging, indigneous people

Question 8

ballads

-examples-

Answer 8

Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson

• Waltzing Matilda
• Man from Snowy River

Question 9

short stories

-examples-

Answer 9

Henry Lawson

-Drovers Wife

Question 10

Poetry

Answer 10

Australasia (William Wentworth)

Question 11

Travelogues (national writing)

Answer 11

Joseph Banks (The Endeavour Journal)

Question 12

Convict Diaries (national writing)

Answer 12

Henry Savery (Quintus Servinton)

Question 13

Novels (national writing)

Answer 13

novels of bushranging, novels of migration

Question 14

Waltzing Matilda
Man from Snowy River
-themes-

Answer 14

celebration of the bushman/ typical Australian
appropriation of the English Language

a ballad of mateship

tend to glorify bushlife and emphazise the heroism of his protagonists

Question 15

Henry Lawson ‘The Drovers Wife’

-themes-

Answer 15

focuses on isolation of protagonists and hardship of the outback

• failure of the bush dream
• low-key realism
• struggle with hostile nature
• pioneer women

Question 16

Barbara Baytons ‘The Chosen Vessel’

-themes-

Answer 16

she studied it in Bush studies (1902) as women as victims of patriarchal society

• Bayton invented the short story
• a version of Lawsons Drovers Wife
• shows extreme vulnerbility of woman NOT at the hands of nature, BUT at the hands of man
• husband is a bully, murderer sees the woman as a sexual object

Question 17

Rejection of nationalism and bush realism

Answer 17

after the 1920s

Question 18

A.D. Hope ‘Australia’

Answer 18

1939

• rejected showiness and nationalism
• he says country is without architecture, history and country
• though youngest country to be founded, oldest continent
• country taken from indigenous people
• negative image of Australia
• hope for country that has not developed yet

Question 19

Patrick White

-themes-

Answer 19

nobel Prize (1973)

• spiritial quest
• symbolism
• relationship between the individual and society

Question 20

Tree of Man (Patrick White)

-theme-

Answer 20

chronicles life of a pioneer couple, Stan and Amy Parker

• includes clichees of traditional pioneer saga (man against the wilderness)
• spiritual quest (bush assumes religious dimensions, like a cathedral for him)

Question 21

Voss (Patrick White)

Answer 21

best known novel
quest for self-knowledge
hero Voss modeled after Ludwig Leichhardt
ignorant and brutal, learns about the country and about himself during his travels

Question 22

Do you love me? (Peter Carry)

Answer 22

mapping the continent, taking possession of it
maybe country has been deliberately mispresented by cartographers
in order to create socially acceptable map (terra nullis)
maybe areas/people thaz you dont have emotional relationship towards dont really exist for you

Question 23

Illywracker

Answer 23

explains the adventures of a man who claims to be 139 years old (same age as Australian history)
illywtacker= slang for liar
Novel about art of lying (1. Man is a liar, 2. art as lie, 3. lie of terra nullis
–> cant trust the whole story

Question 24

Australasia

William Wentworth

Answer 24

dealt with Australian secnery in heroic terms
had great optimism for the land
example of a poem that aimed to replica England

Question 25

Sally Morgan

Answer 25

aboriginal ambassador
teaching people to be proud of their heritage rather shame
“my place”— indigenous perspective of history and identity

empowerment through narration

Question 26

Jack Maggs

Answer 26

Historical novel, revisits Charles Dickens

includes atrocities of convict system

Question 27

Oscar and Lucinda

Answer 27

Oscar travels as missionary
revision of imperial historiography
fragility and proposterousness of the colonial mission
— glass shatters, failure instead of success