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* Contents derived from the St Lucia,Indooroopilly - St Lucia area,Brisbane - North West,Brisbane,Queensland,:University of Queensland Press,1976 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Perkins considers the status of Kendall and Gordon as minor poets and determines the best way to read their work. Concludes that it is best to acknowledge their faults and read them together as a sociological complex to reveal the literary attitudes of Australia in the nineteenth century.
Cantrell explores the myths that have been constructed around the Bulletin and A. G. Stephens' role in the development of Australian literature. Cantrell argues that the Bulletin's status as a nationalist publication is destabilized by an unacknowledged "bourgeois vision" and a tendency towards xenophobia that produced a "selfcontained world". But, in the "Red Page", A. G. Stephens' subdued assessment of Australian literature in relation to European literature produced a voice far removed from the "xenophobic nationalism" promulgated by the Bulletin.
Barnes examines the role of the reader in Such is Life, arguing that Furphy intended the reader would assume part of the responsibility normally carried by the narrator. By discovering the inadequacies of the narrator as interpreter, the reader experiences directly the problem of making sense of what happens in life.
Matthews finds a unity in the arrangement of stories in While the Billy Boils. The chronological nature of the stories, the use of rumour and the consistent use of time and distance are all elements that support the structure of the collection. Matthews concludes that the world of While the Billy Boils is "various and crowded", but it is a world "in which the whole undeniably loose undertaking can be regarded as hanging together".