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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'This book introduces in a lively and succinct way the major writers, literary movements, styles and genres that, at the beginning of a new century, are seen as constituting the field of Australian literature. The book consciously takes a perspective that sees literary works not as aesthetic objects created in isolation by unique individuals, but as cultural products influenced and constrained by the social, political and economic circumstances of their times. It will be an indispensable reference for both national and international readers. It covers Indigenous texts, colonial writing and reading, poetry, fiction and theater throughout two centuries, biography and autobiography, and literary criticism in Australia.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Includes a chronology providing a basic framework of dates in Australian history, together with major literary and cultural events, and selected publications of particular historical or literary significance (xi-xxi).
Contents
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The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature : Introduction,
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criticism
'In 1898, Henry Gyles Turner, a banker and litterateur, and Alexander Sutherland, a schoolteacher and journalist, both from Melbourne, published The Development of Australian Literature. This opened with the first of many attempts to provide "A General Sketch of Australian Literature", which devoted forty-seven pages to poetry, about thirty to fiction and eighteen to "general literature": mainly history, biography, and works of travel and exploration. The bulk of Turner and Sutherland's book, however, consisted of biographies of the three Australian writers whom they thought were of greatest significance: poets Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall and novelist Marcus Clarke.' (Introduction)
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Indigenous Texts and Narratives,
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criticism
'The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia have been telling stories since time immemorial. Although Indigenous oral cultures were once believed to be dying out, it is clear today, in Australia and elsewhere, that many aspects of these ancient cultures have survived in Indigenous communities, and are now thriving as a living, evolving part of contemporary life. Oral songs and narratives are traditionally an embodied and emplaced form of knowledge. Information is stored in people's minds in various narrative forms which, at the appropriate time, are transmitted from the mouths of the older generation to the ears of the young. Many narratives are connected to specific sites, and are transmitted in the course of people's movements through their country. Certain songs and stories are only transmitted in specific ceremonial contexts, while others circulate in the informal settings of everyday life. For oral traditions to survive, then, "the learning generation" must be in direct physical proximity to "the teaching generation". People must also have access to significant sites in their country, and be free to perform their ceremonies, speak their languages, and carry out their everyday cultural activities.' (Introduction)
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Colonial Writers and Readers,
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criticism
Contains the following sections: Representing a New World; Australian Readers: Books, Magazines and Newspapers; Some Early Poets; Charles Harpur; Later Poets; Historical and Adventure Fiction; Henry Lawson and the Short Story; Writing for Children; Fiction by Women.
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Poetry from the 1890s to 1970,
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criticism
Contains the following sections: Poets of the 1890s; J.S. Neilson and Christopher Brennan; Early Twentieth-Century Verse; Kenneth Slessor and Modernism; Poets of the 1930s and 1940s; Poets of the 1950s; James McAuley and Harold Stewart; Judith Wright; Women Poets of the 1960s.
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Fiction from 1900 to 1970,
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criticism
Contains the following sections: Around Federation; Historical Fictions; Writing the Wars; Women and Fiction; Realisms; Aboriginal Representations; Patrick White; Other Voices.
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Theatre from 1788 to the 1960s,
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Contains the following sections: The Theatre of Authority; Mapping Australian Theatre; The English Theatre in Australia; Towards an Australian Drama.
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Contemporary Poetry : Across Party Lines,
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Contains the following sections: '68 - '79 - '99; Material Changes; Developments; Conclusions.
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New Narrations : Contemporary Fiction,
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Contains the following sections: Established Writing; Early Experimentation / New Directions; Later Contemporaneity and Diversity; Regional Publishing / Writing; White Anglo-Celtic Male No More; Feminism and "Women's Writing"; New Realism; Fictionalising Asia; Genre Fiction; The New Professionals.
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New Stages : Contemporary Theatre,
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Contains the following sections: The Shaping of a Theatre; Changes in Infrastructure: Institutions, Theatre Companies; Putting a Country on the Stage; The Second Surge; Towards the Bicentenary: Multicultural Theatre, Aboriginal Theatre, Classics, Translations; Towards the Millennium; Conclusion.
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From Biography to Autobiography,
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criticism
Contains the following sections: Grand Portraits; Caution: Biographer at Work; Equatorial Zones: Where Louisa Meets Poppy and Rita; The Flawed Glass; Self-Portraits: "Opening My Heart".
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Critics, Writers, Intellectuals : Australian Literature and Its Criticism,
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David Carter 'describes the background to [the] "theoretical turn" in Australian literary studies: the struggle to establish Australian literature in the university: the institutionalisation of Australian literary studies... the emergence of counter currents: and the belated impact of post—structuralist theories—not least via the rapid impact of cultural studies since the early 1980s.' Source: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory (2010)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Feminism and Australian Literature
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory 2010; (p. 92-103) 'Susan Sheridan traces the influence and varieties of feminism and feminist critique in Australia, arguably the major influence in transforming Australian literary studies in the 1980s and 1990s.' Source: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory (2010) -
Untitled
2002
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review
— Appears in: Australian Folklore , November no. 17 2002; (p. 258-259)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Our Next Contestant
2001
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review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 61 no. 3 2001; (p. 170-179)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Entangled Worlds : Australia and its Contexts in Recent Non-fiction
2001
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review
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 46 no. 2001; (p. 17-32)
— Review of The Devil and James McAuley 1999 single work criticism ; Prosthetic Gods : Travel, Representation and Colonial Governance 2001 selected work criticism ; Damaged Men : The Precarious Lives of James McAuley and Harold Stewart 2001 single work criticism biography ; The Colonial Earth 2000 single work non-fiction ; Hearts and Minds : Creative Australians and the Environment 2000 single work criticism ; The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism ; The Oxford Literary History of Australia 1998 anthology criticism ; Investigations in Australian Literature 2000 selected work criticism ; Authority and Influence : Australian Literary Criticism 1950-2000 2001 anthology criticism extract ; Woman and Herself : A Critical Study of the Works of Barbara Hanrahan 1998 single work criticism ; Studies of Indeterminacy in the Australian Novel 1999 single work criticism ; The Shapes of Glory : The Writings of Peter Steele 2000 single work criticism ; Imagining Australian Space : Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry 1999 anthology criticism essay ; The Postcolonial Exotic : Marketing the Margins 2001 multi chapter work ; Forrest, 1847-1918. 1847-91, Apprenticeship to Premiership 1971 single work biography ; Anxious Nation : Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939 1999 single work ; Caged : The Landau Manuscript 1999 single work autobiography ; Finding Theodore and Brina 2001 single work novel ; Remarkable Occurrences : The National Library of Australia's First 100 Years 1901-2001 2001 anthology criticism ; The Boyer Collection : Highlights of the Boyer Lectures : 1959-2000 2001 anthology extract criticism ; Fairly Obsessive : Essays on the Works of John Kinsella 2000 anthology criticism -
Aesthetic as Well as Cultural
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 20 January 2001; (p. 19)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism ; The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel ; Real Relations : The Feminist Politics of Form in Australian Fiction 2000 selected work criticism
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Untitled
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Folklore , November no. 17 2002; (p. 258-259)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Slim Volume but Well-Weigthed
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 2-3 September 2000; (p. 11)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Paper Magicians
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 23 September 2000; (p. 6)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Who Can Speak for Whom?
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 5 January no. 5101 2001; (p. 11-12)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism'As editor of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, Elizabeth Webby has had to perform the delicate balancing act now required of any literary guide: how to familiarize the reader (both national and international) with certain historical details – she includes a welcome mini- history of Australia as part of her introduction – which also serve as co-ordinates for an increasing wealth of material on reception and production, and the history of critical evaluation. While her chosen emphasis differs from the Oxford Literary History of Australia (1998), the two books share a culturally materialistic approach. There is, however, an additional “contrapuntal” aspect to Webby’s book which encourages a wider, more layered reading of Australian literature than earlier accounts.' (Introduction)
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Untitled
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: Imago : New Writing , vol. 13 no. 1 2001; (p. 83-86)
— Review of The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000 anthology criticism -
Feminism and Australian Literature
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory 2010; (p. 92-103) 'Susan Sheridan traces the influence and varieties of feminism and feminist critique in Australia, arguably the major influence in transforming Australian literary studies in the 1980s and 1990s.' Source: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory (2010)