A summary of the trial in which the editor of Angry Penguins was charged with having published fourteen 'indecent advertisements'. (Seven of the fourteen were from The Darkening Ecliptic; the others included the Peter Cowan short story, 'The Fence'.) The summary includes a transcript of a substantial part of the judgement handed down by the magistrate Mr L. E. Clarke.
This article largely combines two previous articles by Harris - 'From the Introduction to the 1961 Edition of Ern Malley's Poems 'and 'Forty Four Years on...' - both of which were published in The Poems of Ern Malley (1988).
The criticism tracks the origin and progress of the Ern Malley Hoax beginning with the letters sent to Harris by Malley's sister, 'Ethel Malley', through the media discovery of the deception, the trial on indecency charges and the response to the hoax from the United Kingdom and the USA.
Harris provides a summary of the trial in which he was charged with having published fourteen 'indecent advertisements'. (Seven of the fourteen were from The Darkening Ecliptic; the others included the Peter Cowan short story, 'The Fence'.)
In the final section of the criticism, Harris reflects on the uniqueness of literary and cultural developments in Australia in the years since the first publication of Ern Malley's poems in Angry Penguins no.[6] in 1944 and in particular emphasises the role of Modernism.
Garry Shead : The Apotheosis of Ern Malley
Collingwood
:
Australian Galleries
,
2008
Z1598278
2008
single work
non-fiction
Garry Shead interleaves the poetry of 'Ern Malley' with paintings interpreting each poem's theme.
'Ken Gelder’s notion of a ‘proximate reading’ provides a conceptual methodology for a side-by-side, transnational reading of James McAuley and Harold Stewart’s Ern Malley poetry collection The Darkening Ecliptic (1944) and Max Aub’s apocryphal biography Jusep Torres Campalans (1958). While often seen as representing a setback to Australian modernism – as ‘an Australian outcrop of literary fashion’ – here the poetry of Ern Malley is read in terms of its deconstructive potential. Jusep Torres Campalans is a little-known but fascinating text which represents a ‘provincial’ response to modernism from the margins. Writing in Mexico about an exiled Catalan artist, Aub’s novel challenges the conventional periodization of modernism through its suggestion of an alternative history of Cubism, its inclusion of a unique set of important events in an extended Annals listing, and Campalans’ scorn of theory as ‘pure nonsense’. Aub’s text ‘decomposes’ the art monograph, and playfully undermines the authority of a figure like Aub (as writer, intellectual) to capture the essence of a Catalan artist who has withdrawn from the world to live among the indigenous people of Chiapas. McAuley and Stewart similarly invent a reclusive poet whose work can be read as a poetic conversation with Anglo-American modernism. In reading the two apocryphal artists together, the intention is to recontextualise the reception of Ern Malley within a transnational frame, a ‘black swan of trespass on alien waters’, which resonates beyond Australian shores.' (Introduction)
The Sons of Clovis : Ern Malley, Adore Floupette and a Secret History of Australian Poetry
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
2011
Z1803817
2011
single work
criticism
'The Sons of Clovis ... begins with the Ern Malley affair, establishing previously unrecognised connections between the Australian scene and French symboliste poetry, before embarking on a fascinating journey through literature, culture, and poetics.' (Publisher's website)
A summary of the trial in which the editor of Angry Penguins was charged with having published fourteen 'indecent advertisements'. (Seven of the fourteen were from The Darkening Ecliptic; the others included the Peter Cowan short story, 'The Fence'.) The summary includes a transcript of a substantial part of the judgement handed down by the magistrate Mr L. E. Clarke.
