Issue Details: First known date: 1851... 1851 Moyarra : An Australian Legend in Two Cantos
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (1994) describes this work as 'an account of two Aboriginal lovers who die because they transgress Aboriginal tribal law.'

Notes

  • Epigraph: Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto.(t.p.)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

      Maitland, Maitland area, Hunter Valley, Newcastle - Hunter Valley area, New South Wales,: 1851 .
      Printed by R. Jones
      Extent: 52p.
      Note/s:
      • Author's note: ...No one has, so far as I know, attempted to depict the simple lives of that race which is now so fast melting away before the ardour of the white man's progress in the Australian bush:-soon, none of the natural heirs of the soil will remain, and even now, their primitive mode of life is comparatively unknown to the majority of their invaders....For the truthful air of the poem I ought easily to be able to vouch: it was written (or, rather, composed, and jotted down subsequently at intervals) when I was in daily communication with the unfortunate race of which it treats; and I now present it as originally written, rather than interfere with it in a manner which might prejudice its faithfulness as a representation....(iii-v).
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Petherick and Co. ,
      1891 .
      Extent: 96, [1]p. of platesp.
      Description: illus. (b & w)
      Note/s:
      • Author's note: Written with the forgoing heading, more than half a century ago, and intended for publication in England at that time, the following Legend is now printed in order that the writer may present copies to friends. Few changes are needed in the prefatory words which were prepared for it in the early half of the nineteenth century. Most of them are as applicable now as they were then; and, written under impressions fresh and youthful, they may still fitly introduce my rhymes.'(p.5)

Works about this Work

'The Life, the Loves, of that Dark Race' : The Ethnographic Verse of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Australia John O'Leary , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 23 no. 1 2007; (p. 3-17)
Defining 'ethnographic verse' as 'a loose, heterogeneous sug-genre that mixed poetry with anthropology, or ethnology as Victorians called it' O'Leary considers examples within the context of similar works from the Unites States and New Zealand, arguing that these poetic epics have literary and historical significance.
The Literature of Contact J. J. Healy , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature and the Aborigine in Australia 1770- 1975 1989; (p. 26-48)
This chapter examines the earliest works of fiction produced in Australia representing Aboriginal people as fictional characters. Healy traces a trajectory of works which seek to attribute meaning to Aboriginal Australians by white authors, beginning with the 1830 work Alfred Dudley by Sarah Porter. Nineteenth century representations by G. W. Rusden and James Tucker are also analysed.
Untitled 1851 single work review
— Appears in: The Illustrated Australian Magazine , December 1851; (p. 376-377)

— Review of Moyarra : An Australian Legend in Two Cantos Yittadairn , 1851 single work poetry
Untitled 1851 single work review
— Appears in: The Illustrated Australian Magazine , December 1851; (p. 376-377)

— Review of Moyarra : An Australian Legend in Two Cantos Yittadairn , 1851 single work poetry
'The Life, the Loves, of that Dark Race' : The Ethnographic Verse of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Australia John O'Leary , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 23 no. 1 2007; (p. 3-17)
Defining 'ethnographic verse' as 'a loose, heterogeneous sug-genre that mixed poetry with anthropology, or ethnology as Victorians called it' O'Leary considers examples within the context of similar works from the Unites States and New Zealand, arguing that these poetic epics have literary and historical significance.
The Literature of Contact J. J. Healy , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature and the Aborigine in Australia 1770- 1975 1989; (p. 26-48)
This chapter examines the earliest works of fiction produced in Australia representing Aboriginal people as fictional characters. Healy traces a trajectory of works which seek to attribute meaning to Aboriginal Australians by white authors, beginning with the 1830 work Alfred Dudley by Sarah Porter. Nineteenth century representations by G. W. Rusden and James Tucker are also analysed.
Last amended 22 Aug 2007 15:41:14
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