'This chapter explores the contradictions and fallacies inherent in popular literary representations of the metropolis and the bush. It examines the way the representation was constructed retrospectively, ignoring the range of perspectives and lack of a dominant popular portrayal of the bush in the nineteenth-century periodical press. The Bulletin encouraged the simplified representation to advance its agenda of ‘Australia for Australians’ and used the popular poetry of A.B. Paterson and Henry Lawson to support this agenda. This chapter uses examples of the writing of four nineteenth-century women to challenge this simplified representation of the ‘city or the bush’ with this underlying thesis that the true Australian character somehow derives from the strength of the lone bushman.'
Source: Abstract
'This chapter explores the contradictions and fallacies inherent in popular literary representations of the metropolis and the bush. It examines the way the representation was constructed retrospectively, ignoring the range of perspectives and lack of a dominant popular portrayal of the bush in the nineteenth-century periodical press. The Bulletin encouraged the simplified representation to advance its agenda of ‘Australia for Australians’ and used the popular poetry of A.B. Paterson and Henry Lawson to support this agenda. This chapter uses examples of the writing of four nineteenth-century women to challenge this simplified representation of the ‘city or the bush’ with this underlying thesis that the true Australian character somehow derives from the strength of the lone bushman.'
Source: Abstract
