Cirrus@Austlit

'At the turn of the last century, writers like Atha Westbury and Hume Cook were asking whether Australia had its own fairies, its own fairy tale lore. They attempted to fill the perceived lack of traditional fairy-tale narratives with their own published works of fairy tale. The titles authors chose for their collections – for instance, Olga Ernst’s Fairy tales from the land of the wattle and Annette Kellermann’s Fairy tales of the south seas and other stories – often revealed an overt wish to build a fairy-tale tradition that was distinctly and uniquely Australian. While some of these tales simply relocated existing European tales to the Australian context, most used classic fairy-tale tropes and themes to create new adventures. Other writers and collectors, like K Langloh-Parker, Sister Agnes and Andrew Lang, sought to present Indigenous tales as examples of local folk and fairy tales – a project of flawed good intentions grounded in colonial appropriation. These early Australian publications are largely forgotten and, in many ways, the erasure or forgetting of narratives that were often infused with colonial attitudes to gender, class, race, is far from regrettable. And yet there was a burgeoning local tradition of magical storytelling spearheaded by the delicate fairies of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite’s brush and the gumnut babies of May Gibbs that celebrated the Australian environment, its flora and fauna, populating and decorating new tales for the nation’s children.' (Introduction)

'Since its first collection and publication in 1891, the gothic fairy tale ‘The Hobyahs’ has inspired various incarnations in Australian literature and film. This paper explores the trajectory of ‘The Hobyahs’ from its proposed Scottish ori-genesis and adaptation within the context of Victorian (Australian) primary school education, to its revisioning in Australian director Ann Turner’s debut film Celia (1988). In so doing, the paper raises questions about what was misplaced, or lost, as this British tale evolved within Australia’s changing historical contexts and argues that re-visions of the tale made possible through the process of filmic re-contextualisation engaged more authentically with its original gendered undercurrents. Examining the evolution of ‘The Hobyahs’ from print to film also expands upon previous scholarship that has acknowledged the tale’s distinct Australianness and suggests a broader contention regarding the cyclical nature of Australia’s relationship to British fairy-tale traditions: that re-visions have the potential to destabilise earlier twentieth-century Australian adaptations and, in the process, critique the notion of Australian fairy-tale formation itself.'  (Publication abstract)

'The Australian fairy-tale tradition is as much about art as literature. This interview engages with how one artist physically draws upon the Australian landscape to retell iconic imagery from European fairy tale and folklore and how she sees her work in relation to contemporary writers. Australian fairy tale is in open negotiation with the history of the landscape and finding the stuff of fairy tale in the rocks, leaves, bones and debris of the landscape allows Carrington to craft work that engages with old European traditions while connecting to Australia’s material presence and looking forward to our innovative future in the genre.'  (Publication abstract)

'The outpouring of national sentiment as the colonies moved towards Federation heralded a quest for the ‘Australianising’ of children’s books: fairy tales were no exception. European fairy folk were placed in, or perhaps transported to, bush settings as authors re-imagined the ways in which the emigrant old-world creatures could claim a place in the Australian environment. This paper explores efforts of the early writers to locate an Australian fairyland in the ‘bush’ and contribute to the transmission of national identity.' (Publication abstract)

'This article explores Australian author Kate Forsyth’s obsession with ‘Rapunzel’, from the time she first read the fairy tale as a child in hospital through to her doctoral research into the history of the ‘Maiden in the Tower’ and her creative responses to the story as expressed in her novel Bitter greens and her poem ‘In the tower’.'  (Publication abstract)

'Fairy visitation has inspired Australia’s fairy-tale revival, through an abiding belief in Muses or Graces. This essay explores the plurality, plasticity and fecundity of classical iconography, through interpretations of fairies, and avouches that fairy tales cannot do without them. A fairy tale may entail rewards, vindications, riddles or quests, and may end happily, yet one of its most distinctive, vital ingredients is fated intervention. That is what ignites the magic. This paper explores this aspect of traditional fairy tales through a literary-historical discussion of the Fates, Graces and Muses, through intercultural, cross-era fertilisation, alongside the paradox of destiny and luck in wish fulfilment. In doing so, I’ll call upon my artistic experience and reading.'  (Publication abstract)

'The antagonism that exists between girls/women in fairy tales has been the subject of much discussion over recent decades. Significantly less attention, however, has been paid to the absence of collaborative female relationships in both traditional fairy tales and their retellings. This paper argues that the cognitive sciences, and schema theories in particular, may offer insights as to why these types of relationships receive such scant representation in contemporary re-visioned fairy tales, which commonly continue to replicate the common narrative dynamic of female acrimony. Following a brief overview of schemas and their operation, the paper examines how story schemas and person schemas might intersect in the unconscious of the creative writer to influence the intuitions that accompany story creation and development. Finally, it is suggested that the adoption of new frameworks through which to critically and reflexively interrogate our tacit storytelling knowledge can result in real cognitive change and subsequent advancements in our creative practice. A case study of the writing of ‘Burnt sugar’, a novelette the author produced as part of her ongoing PhD research, is presented as an ‘in practice’ demonstration of the possible effects of schemas upon narrative creation.'  (Publication abstract)

'Fairy tales were late to appear in the Australian context but they quickly reflected contemporary concerns over the treatment of the native flora and fauna. Writers of early Australian fairy tales promoted the conservation of the Australian environment, educated children in the realities of living in the harsh Australian landscape and warned of the dangers that humans posed to the native animal population. This article posits that this movement in fairy tales was due to contemporary changes in curriculum and attitudes towards children’s education, and a growing sense of nationalism post-Federation in 1901 that tied the Australian identity to the landscape.' (Publication abstract)

'While Canadian scholar Lisa M Fiander argues that fairy tales are ‘everywhere’ in Australian fiction, this paper questions that assertion. It considers what it means for a fairy tale to be ‘in’ a work of contemporary fiction, and posits a classificatory system based on the vocabulary of contemporary music scholarship where a distinction is made between intertextuality that is stylistic and that which is strategic. Stylistic intertextuality is the adoption of features of a style or genre without reference to specific examples, while strategic intertexuality references specific prior works. 

'Two distinct approaches to strategic fairy-tale revision have emerged in Australian writing in recent decades. One approach, exemplified in works by writers including Kate Forsyth, Margo Lanagan and Juliet Marillier, leans towards the retelling of European fairy tales. Examples include Forsyth’s The Beast’s garden (‘Beauty and the Beast’), Lanagan’s Tender morsels (‘Snow White and Rose Red’) and Marillier’s short story ‘By bone-light’ (‘Vasilisa the Beautiful’). The other, more fractured, approach is exemplified in works by writers including Carmel Bird and Murray Bail, which do not retell fairy tales but instead echo them and allude to them.

'This paper proposes that recent Australian works that retell fairy tales are less likely to be set in a recognisably Australian context than are works which take a more fractured approach to fairy tale. It also explores the notion that, presently, transporting European fairy tales, whole, into an Australian setting, seems to be a troubling proposition for writers in a post-colonial settler society that is highly sensitised to, but still largely in denial about, its colonial past.' (Publication abstract)

'‘Rapunzel’ is one of the most beloved fairy tales of all time. With themes of isolation, entrapment, and escape, it continues to resonate with audiences even into the twentyfirst century. As Kate Forsyth muses, the tale ‘tells the transformative journey from stasis and shadows to liberation and light’ (7). Forsyth’s personal fascination with this tale led her to write The rebirth of Rapunzel: A mythic biography of the maiden in the tower.' (Introduction)