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'In his "Terra Australis" (1949), Douglas Stewart problematises the notion of an "Australia" when imagining a conversation between Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queiros (1563-1614) and William Lane (1861-1917), a utopian who founded the Australian Labour Movement before relocating to set up a "New Australia" (in Paraguay). When writing that " [t]he wind from Heaven blew both ways at once / And west went Captain Quiros [sic], east went Lane" (section 4, lines 23-4), Stewart asks us to consider by which means might we come to define a "country"? His poem asserts the awkward possibility that there is no Terra firma to the Terra nullius and, if looking to locate a place, Australia remains unlocatable. Country as epistemological state? Country as existential crisis.'
(Introduction)
Notes
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Epigraph: The Australian poet is, at last, taking nationality for granted. —Tom Shapcott and Rodney Hall
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Last amended 14 Sep 2023 08:35:07
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