Cirrus@Austlit

'William Blake’s articulation of the ‘bounding line’ as ‘the great and golden rule of art, as well as of life’ may seem a far-fetched place to start an examination of the poetics of the fence in Australian poetry. The line’s cosmic necessity and ethical force were being asserted by Blake in the context of a long-running dispute amongst art theorists as to whether outline or colour was the predominant element in the pictorial arts. But my mind reverts to this quotation when thinking about the cathected attitude to lines, boundaries, and fences that is emblematic of the settler-colonial establishment in this country in both its agrarian and suburban contexts.' (Introduction)