Preview

Australian Lterature

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1815 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Australian Lterature
The Spirit of Nationalism in Australian Literature with Special Reference to A.B.Paterson’s poem, 'A Man from Snowy River' Anjay.P.Kumar 14-PEL-24
Abstract: Australia is a very heterogeneous demographical society due to colonisation and further immigration of people from different parts of the world who later chose to remain and intermingle with the aboriginal population of the country and this very fact has given her literature an eclectic quality which is a mosaic of European and indigenous art forms. For modern Aboriginals, written literature has been a way of both claiming a voice and articulating a sense of cohesion as a people faced with real threats to the continuance of their culture and traditional culture, story, song, and legend served to define allegiances and relationships both to others and to the land that nurtured them. Bush poetry has always been at the heart of Australian literature and its charm remains amaranthine with writers like Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson having contributed much to tell the world of their nationalistic identity with remained obscure till then. In this paper, the researcher tries to bring out the spirit of nationalism in Australian bush poetry, with special reference to Banjo Paterson’s poem ‘A Man from Snowy River’.
The study of literature takes its place somewhere between history and philosophy and history is about events and the people who make them, about the long process by which the human race adapted the earth to its purpose and about the tools and, institutions and societies it created. Literature, however, is a branch of cultural studies, a study of the patterns shaped by society which in turn shape our ways of seeing the world and the ideas we have about it.
During the years between the wars, Australia as a nation promoted the notion of a young clean, white nation free from the vice and disease

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Donald Bruce Dawe was born in 1930 in Geelong, Victoria, Melbourne, he is one of the most successful and prolific contemporary poets of Australia. He struggled with his studies, leaving school when he was sixteen, working as a gardener and postman. In 1954 he entered the University of Melbourne. He grew up in a household where his father, a farm labourer, was often unemployed and absent from home. The poem ‘Drifters’ by Bruce Dawe should be selected for the prestigious honour of ‘Best Contemporary Australian Poem’ as it is a realism poem, describes Australian lifestyle felicitously, which lead the Australian contemporary audiences easily fall in the poem and deeply engraved in their mind. Bruce Dawe drifted through his early years showing promise as a writer but finding little direction, which characterises his poetry and gives a voice to so-called ordinary Australians. Bruce Dawe has published 12 books of poetry. His poetries are described about life and how people deal with everyday obstacles. The poem that I am nominating is ‘Drifters’ by Bruce Dawe.…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This examination will focus on topics such as the poetic techniques used, how Australian identity is portrayed, the effect the text has on the reader and my opinions.…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Brotherhood was never like it; friendship is not the word; but deep in that body of marching men the soul of a nation stirred" so wrote Banjo Paterson in his poem "Australia Today 1916". Australia had only been a commonwealth for one hundred and five years, yet already a strong nationalism had emerged. An Identity. The words larrikin, mateship, accent, sporting, culture and independence come to mind.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Demographic transformations in the Australian populace guaranteed that, for the first time, Australians born in Australia outstripped persons born abroad. Satisfactorily than condescending the colonist scene and existence, as had the migrant generation as “relocated Englishmen”20, the endeavor was sort out throughout the 1890s to institute a exclusively Australian national identity, demonstrating Australian qualities without turning in a “servile imitation of England”21. Contradictory action to the national recoil earlier, the originators were mainly authors and illustrators aware of their place in the crusade. Their philosophical anxieties distorted into props of an Australian spirit: patriotism and race predisposition. Evidently resulting from the working-class and distinctive understandings of the Australian wilderness, this macho fabricated character of fairness, collectivism, and mateship offered the bushman as the perfect character signifying Australia and its morals, which categorically comprised a ‘White Australia’.…

    • 1859 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The mood of the poem is a constant degrading string of misery and horror that pitches the audience to see the ‘true colours’ of our country, this is especially evident in many negative tone words and phrases like; “pollute all the rivers”, “litter every road” and “your hate and tyranny”. The strong use of adjectives draws a strong image of a bare wasteland full of destructive inhabitants and corrupt leaders. The poet’s attitude towards the country is strong and evidently negative towards Australia as a nation.…

    • 274 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Is Hammurabi Wrong

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Hammurabi’s Code was harsh and quick in order to serve as a deterrent. The code’s harshness made people see what would happen to them if they broke the law. His code stopped people from breaking the law, so it protected the weak from the strong. The U.S does not have a harsh and quick system. In fact, it is very slow and does not have many major punishments. Many laws are broken in the U.S because our laws do not serve as a deterrent. If Hammurabi visited the U.S today I think he would not be pleased and he would not feel that his ideal was not being met. Hammurabi wanted to protect the weak from the strong, but the system of laws the United States has does not execute this. People rob, hurt, and even kill people on a day to day basis! Hammurabi…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem that I have chosen is ‘We’re all Australians Now’ by Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson in 1915. Paterson was a famous Australian born poet, solicitor, journalist, war correspondent and soldier that was born in Orange, New South Wales during 1864. His work mainly consisted of poems about rural and outback Australian life and what it was like.…

    • 267 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Together “Ballad of the Drover” by Henry Lawson and Judith Wright’s “South Of My Days” provide a compelling insight into outback life around the turn of the 20th Century. Both ballads capture the innate hardship of the Australian outback within its striking beauty. Wright and Lawson are two of Australia’s most noted poets and continue to resonate with audiences by engaging their audience through strong imagery and powerful use of figurative language to create an emotive tale.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Distinctive voices

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A number of distinctive voices are used in ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ by A.B. Paterson to paint an evocative picture of Australian society and to juxtapose images of the Australian bush against images of life in the city. The purpose of this poem is to highlight the unique characters of the Australian bush and to allow the reader to romanticise with the Australian bush. The pervading tone of the poem expressed by the clerk narrator is envy of the pleasures he imagines Clancy to experience living and working in the bush and derision of aspects of the city. The distinctive voices in the poem include the clerk narrator, the laconic character of Clancy, the ‘shearing mate’, the bush and finally the city.…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Distinctively Visual

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages

    By way of a varied use of descriptive language the short stories of Lawson and poetry of Mackellar show that it is true that distinctively visual texts allow the reader to vividly imagine and gain insights into the characters, relationships and settings. Lonely drover’s wives, Bushmen and fettlers, as well as the setting of a sunburnt Australian landscape are brought to life and into unique relationship, in the visual imagery of Henry Lawson and Dorothea Mackellar’s compositions. Henry Lawson created a strong image of the uniquely Australian bush and the hardships of the people who have lived and worked there. The two important stories which reveal Lawson’s vision are, ‘In a Dry Season’ and ‘The Drover’s Wife’. He draws on the tradition of oral storytelling to make the bush come alive through colloquial language and idiom. Lawson uses a dry, sardonic humor to entertain and provoke empathy for his characters. His descriptions of the various settings are blunt but precise with illustrative adjectives and nouns of a “horrible” land. Contrastingly, the related text, Dorothea Mackellar’s poem, ‘My Country’, expresses a vivid and memorable panorama of place, drawing on a kaleidoscope palette of nouns, rhyme and first person perspective to ingrain in the reader’s imagination her passionate vision of the land and “love for her country, Australia.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If we were to base Australia’s modern identity off these ideas of the beautiful, romanticised outback, and Chris Hemsworth-like bush rangers, it would be a hugely inaccurate reflection of who we truly are. So what ideas and text would reflect a diverse Australian voice? Henry Lawson and Les Murray are authors whose…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Australian Identity Speech

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Good morning teachers and students. Though our national identity is an evolving one, aspects of our identity are constant. Some of these aspects include the iconic sporting legend, mateship, the notion of the underdog and the Aussie battler. This is conveyed in a number of texts in a variety of ways. The texts we will be discussing today include “The Man from Snowy River” by Banjo Paterson and an episode from “My Place” by Nadia Wheatly. The two texts thoroughly present the evolution of the Australian identity from the time of the Bush culture to more recent times. The ideas are conveyed with the use of various poetic, cinematic and language techniques.…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The poem “The New True Anthem” by Kevin Gilbert acknowledges the fact that there is more then a single opinion of what has happened to the lives of people both English and native aboriginal, also what has happened to the beautiful land once home to many native aboriginal tribes all over the continent of Australia. It also says that people of English descendent say that they do love Australia while in fact they don’t and are treating it as a land of their own as if nothing was there before the time of their arrival, as they are treating the native Australians without respect and are not treating them as the original owners of the land but rather as slaves.…

    • 257 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Which placed privilege upon European identity and whiteness; demonstrating the influence which the western had on Australia’s culture. Prior to this, the “White Australian Policy” introduced in 1907 as a result of colonization, white Australians desired to preserve social and cultural superiority (Hampton,…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two poems that I have chosen to analyse are “I am Australian Written by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton and “My country” written by Dorothea Mackellar. Both poems portray the love for the country and the sense of belonging as both of these writers are Australian born bush poets.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics