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y separately published work icon Australian Essays single work  
  • Author:agent Francis Adams http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/adams-francis
Issue Details: First known date: 1886... 1886 Australian Essays
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Affiliation Notes

  • 19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

    Francis Adams (Francis William Lauderdale 1862-1893)—poet, novelist, commentator and radical—immigrated to Melbourne in 1884 due to illness. In Australia Adams wrote for the Brisbane Courier, for William Lane's Boomerang, and for the Bulletin, and tutored on up-country stations. A prolific writer, Adams' works include Leicester: An Autobiography (1885), republished as A Child of the Age (1894); Australian Essays (1886); Poetical Works (1887); The Australians (1893); and Essays in Modernity (1899). He is best-known for his poetry collection Songs of the Army of the Night (1888). Australian Essays presents fictionalised and personal commentaries of the Australian colonies, and is interspersed with Adams' poetry. The work provides an account of Melbourne, Sydney, and also focuses on culture and civilisation. Adams sets up a distinction between Sydney as a "British" city and Melbourne as a European or American-style metropolis. The final essay "Dawnwards" is especially novelistic, with Adams noting that one of the principal characters is fictional.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:W. Inglis , 1886 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Poetry of Adam Lindsay Gordon, Francis Adams , single work criticism (p. 11-26)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

East–West Turnings : Australian and American Poetry in Light of Asia Paul Kane , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 107-118)

'I want to suggest in this essay something unremarkable, in the sense that it has already been remarked upon quite a lot: that both American and Australian poetry engages with the East in significant ways...With the rise of postcolonial studies, we have learned a good deal about the intersections of history, culture, power and perception. This has become not so much a field of study as a veritable Outback of study, except it isn't Outback at all: it's front and centre. But perhaps because the point is so obvious to us now we might gain something by looking at it afresh, or at least again.

My interest here, however, is not primarily in postcolonial perspectives or orientalism or subaltern studies or other similar undertakings, which typically analyse structures of dominance and resistance and illuminate ideological implications and mystifications. Indeed, the superabundance of such studies is already in excess of anything I could add. Nor am I considering the wealth of literary works that constitute Asian-American or Asian-Australian literature. My perspective is more limited, and perhaps...unremarkable. I simply want to suggest that the East so-called has also functioned as generative force - whether as provocation or inspiration - for certain poets in Australia and America, beginning in the nineteenth century and especially recently, and that there are some unusual features to this phenomenon worthy of inspection. I am going to note several examples of such poets and then say something about possible conclusions we might draw as we look to the future.' (pp. 107-108)

Australian Essays 1886 single work review
— Appears in: The Queenslander , 22 May 1886; (p. 812)

— Review of Australian Essays Francis Adams , 1886 single work
Australian Essays 1886 single work review
— Appears in: The Queenslander , 22 May 1886; (p. 812)

— Review of Australian Essays Francis Adams , 1886 single work
East–West Turnings : Australian and American Poetry in Light of Asia Paul Kane , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 107-118)

'I want to suggest in this essay something unremarkable, in the sense that it has already been remarked upon quite a lot: that both American and Australian poetry engages with the East in significant ways...With the rise of postcolonial studies, we have learned a good deal about the intersections of history, culture, power and perception. This has become not so much a field of study as a veritable Outback of study, except it isn't Outback at all: it's front and centre. But perhaps because the point is so obvious to us now we might gain something by looking at it afresh, or at least again.

My interest here, however, is not primarily in postcolonial perspectives or orientalism or subaltern studies or other similar undertakings, which typically analyse structures of dominance and resistance and illuminate ideological implications and mystifications. Indeed, the superabundance of such studies is already in excess of anything I could add. Nor am I considering the wealth of literary works that constitute Asian-American or Asian-Australian literature. My perspective is more limited, and perhaps...unremarkable. I simply want to suggest that the East so-called has also functioned as generative force - whether as provocation or inspiration - for certain poets in Australia and America, beginning in the nineteenth century and especially recently, and that there are some unusual features to this phenomenon worthy of inspection. I am going to note several examples of such poets and then say something about possible conclusions we might draw as we look to the future.' (pp. 107-108)

Last amended 14 Mar 2022 12:55:16
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