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'A Place of Ideals in Conflict': Images of Antarctica in Australian Literature

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posted on 2023-05-22, 11:41 authored by Elizabeth LeaneElizabeth Leane
This chapter examines Australian literature (poetry, fiction, and plays) dealing with Antarctica, focussing on each text's engagement with the Antarctic environment and the debates surrounding it. Beginning with two late nineteenth.century Antarctic utopias, the survey moves through the work of well-known writers such as Douglas Stewart and Thomas Keneally in the mid-century to more recent writing by Dorothy Porter, Les Murray, Caroline Caddy and others. Less familiar material, such as poetry by Antarctic expeditioners themselves, is also discussed. The essay traces a rough progression in Australian representation of the far southern environment, from an initial utopian approach to an emphasis on its stark, 'timeless' icescape as a minimalist backdrop for human dramas to an appreciation of its changeability, complexity, and fragility.

History

Publication title

The Littoral Zone: Australian Contexts and Their Writers

Editors

CA. Cranston and Robert Zeller

Pagination

261-289

ISBN

978-90-420-2218-8

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

Rodopi

Place of publication

Amsterdam

Extent

12

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Literature

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