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The self, language and history in judith wright poetry
Australian poetry and Judith Wright
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In what way is Judith Wright’s poetry a worthwhile study for Australian students? Judith Wright is a respected Australian poet is also known as a conservationist and protester. Her poetry has captured the most amazing imagery of Australian Culture. For Australian students to understand their own culture and history it is necessary to study the best poetry and Judith Wright’s poetry is definitely some of the best. Her achievement in translating the Australian experience into poetry led in her best work to a rich inheritance of lyricism and directness. Through stories told by older workers on the property she learnt of the pioneers' part in both the destruction of the land and the dispossession and murder of the aboriginal people. The sense of fear she felt at invasion enabled her to understand, at some level, how the Aborigines would have felt. Judith Wright wrote about many things in her poems, which are necessary for Australian students to be taught which apply to learning about Australia. Australian culture is something Judith wrote about very strongly and this shows through her poem Bora Ring. Bora Ring is about the Aborigine culture and how it has been lost by the invasion of Europeans. ‘The hunter is gone: the spear is splintered underground; the painted bodies a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot. The nomad feet are still.' This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry. Australian relationships are depicted perfectly by Judith in these poems, ‘Woman to Child’, ‘Woman to Man’, ‘Brother and sisters and then ‘Remembering an aunt’. All of these poems show Australian relationships through Judith Wright’s views. Brother and sisters is basically showing of how people get old. ‘..and now their orchards never would be planted’, ‘..John each night at ten wound the gilt clock that leaked the year away’. In the last paragraph this poem suddenly hits the reader because you are brought into the poem.
The notions of the Australian voice as multifaceted and diverse, is insightfully expressed in Tim Winton's short story anthology The turning and the Drover's wife by Henry Lawson. Australian voice in literature often explores the quality inherent to the Australian identity of overcoming hardships. The stories Fog, On her knees, and The Drover's wife explore these hardships through the notions of mateship,and the importance of family in facing these challenges.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
This quote describes how Louise Halfe uses all four common elements of native literature in her writings. I have chosen to discuss two of the elements she frequently uses, Spirituality and Orality in relation to three of her poems: My Ledders, She Told Me and The Heat of my Grandmothers.
Economically, the chief and immediate cause of the war was slavery. Southern states, including the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, depended on slavery to support their economy. The North used a factory system for their agriculture, which they hired cheap labor. Southerners used slave labor to produce crops, e...
Success in war may seem inevitable for the side with the most military might, the higher amount of resources, and the larger industry to support war efforts; however, this is not necessarily true. Victory is most often awarded to those who are best able to organize and utilize war resources and to those who have the “willpower which provides the direction and the moral strength to continue.” In the case of the Civil War, while the North had a clear advantage in resources and manpower, triumph was not imminent. It was through their employment of those resources and manpower, and their ability to change strategies, that the Union was victorious.
Anne Bradstreet is considered by many experts to be the first English-speaking/writing American poet. Although arguments can be made that Phyllis Wheatley is indebted that title, the complexity, breadth, depth and ingenuity found in Bradstreet’s poetry is of such magnitude that she ranks among the top five poets, male or female, in American history. However, as with most issues, there is contention on both sides. “The question of Anne Bradstreet’s value as a poet has often receded behind the more certain fact of her value as a pioneer. This means that, while generations of students have read Anne Bradstreet’s work on the basis that she was the first American poet, and a woman at that, many have emerged from the experience unconvinced of her poetry’s intrinsic worth” (Hall 1).
In 1951 Arthur visited Central Australia; here he saw the predicament of the Aborigines for the first time. He was astounded by the place these people called ‘home’. This trip moved him greatly and his critically renowned Bride Series he was to construct in years to follow was inspired by his experience with the Aborigines. (Insert pic of Aborigines the 1950’s)
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
Leonard, K. D. (2009). African American women poets and the power of the word. The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature, 168-187.
When looking at economic factors in the Civil War, we find that the war had a devastating effect on the South and a converse effect on the North. Because of the Northern blockade and the disconnection of Southern farmers from markets in the North, sales of cotton became nearly impossible. In the North, the war produced the same suffering as in the South, but "it also produced prosperity and economic growth by giving a major stimulus to both industry and agriculture," says Brinkley (Brinkley 384). Since all Southern products were out of reach for Northern Americans, the North enacted a completely natio...
Influenced by the style of “plainspoken English” utilized by Phillip Larkin (“Deborah Garrison”), Deborah Garrison writes what she knows, with seemingly simple language, and incorporating aspects of her life into her poetry. As a working mother, the narrator of Garrison’s, “Sestina for the Working Mother” provides insight for the readers regarding inner thoughts and emotions she experiences in her everyday life. Performing the daily circus act of balancing work and motherhood, she, daydreams of how life might be and struggles with guilt, before ultimately realizing her chosen path is what it right for her and her family.
Composers show how confronting and meaningful discoveries can be through how their characters and settings of their works are depicted. I agree with this statement, because the discoveries made within a text by the audience are there to piece together the picture of which is the texts underlying motive. Examples of this can be seen in the texts ‘Rainbow’s End’ a play by Jane Harrison and the children’s book ‘The Rabbits’ by John Marsden and Shaun Tan. ‘Rainbow’s End’ follows a family of three Aboriginal Australian females; Gladys - single mother trying to support her daughter and help her succeed in life, Nan Dear – Gladys’s mother and Dolly – Gladys’s teenage daughter, showing the struggles that they as an Aboriginal family face in a Anglo-dominant, 1950’s Australian society. ‘The Rabbits’ is an allegory, or retelling, of the British colonisation of Australia, with the British being represented by rabbits and the Indigenous Australians being represented by numbats, an endangered Australian native animal. Both of these texts display themes of discrimination and assimilation towards aboriginals, giving us the chance to discover and understand their struggles.
For the purpose of this chapter, these words by Stephen Vincent Benet in his foreword to Margaret Walker’s first volume of poetry, For My People (1942) are really important. They give an idea about the richness of the literary heritage from which Walker started to write and to which she later added. This chapter is up to explore those “anonymous voices” in Walker’s poetry, the cultural and literary heritages that influenced her writings. Margaret Walker’s cultural heritage, like her biological inheritance, extends back to her ancestors in Africa and the Caribbean. It is quite genetic, something she got by birth; which is quite there just by being African American. Echoes of ancient myths, lost history, mixed bloods, and complex identities are brought about along with the skin colour and the racial origins.
Regardless of whether Kendall or Lawson’s perspective resonates with you the most, their contrasting beliefs reflect a bipolar Australian identity. Just these two poems can induce us to question: is there really an elusive quality, the ‘national identity’, which connects us all as Australians? Personally, I think not. Rather, Australians may be a combination of Kendall and Lawson’s perceptions: harmonious and stoic, resourceful and modest, interdependent and independent. Amid the multitudes of ethnic, cultural, class, religious and ideological backgrounds, the definition of our nation may be as varied as our imagination.
In a regular basis, I have been with my three siblings which make us a group. When we’re a group, we go to the mall, theatre, or at the park. In addition, they have control my behavior through the use of socialization, conformity, compliance, obedience, formal, and informal social control.