The Poetry of Judith Wright and Ways of Rejoicing in the World single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 The Poetry of Judith Wright and Ways of Rejoicing in the World
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Poetry, as W. H. Auden said, 'makes nothing happen'. But it can alter our ways of seeing and thus of being in the world. The poetry of Judith Wright, for example, can 'persuade us to rejoice' in the world - another task of poetry as Auden sees it - thus helping us to fulfil the essential task of people in a relatively new settler society like Australia to learn to dwell in rather than merely build on the land. From the beginning of her career she set herself to this task, challenging the 'masculine' separation of self and world to explore a deeper 'feminine' relationship with it, setting the self within the larger life of the universe and celebrating its beauty and terror.

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    y separately published work icon The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers C. A. Cranston (editor), Robert Zeller (editor), Amsterdam : Rodopi , 2007 Z1422293 2007 anthology criticism

    'In this, the first collection of ecocritical essays devoted to Australian contexts and their writers, Australian and US scholars explore the transliteration of land and sea through the works of Australian authors and through their own experiences. The littoral zone is the starting point in this fresh approach to reading literature organised around the natural environment - rainforest, desert, mountains, coast, islands, Antarctica. There's the beach, where sexual and spiritual crises occur; the Western Australian wheatbelt; deserts, camel trekking, and the transformation of a salt flat into an inland island; New Age literature that 'appropriates' Aboriginal culture as the healing poultice for an ailing West; a re-examination of pastoralism; an inquiry into whether Judith Wright's work can "persuade us to rejoice" in the world; the Limestone Plains, home of the bush capital and the bogong moth; tropical North Queensland; national parks where "the mountains meet the sea"; temperate islands, with their history of sealing, Soldier Settlement, and sea country pastoral; and Antarctica, where a utopian vision gives way to an emphasis on its 'timeless' icescape as minimalist backdrop for human dramas. The author-terrain includes poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction writers across the range of contexts constituting the littoral zone of 'Australia'.'

    Source: Rodopi website, http://www.rodopi.nl
    Sighted: 28/08/2007

         Amsterdam : Rodopi , 2007     pg. 145-152
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Last amended 28 Feb 2008 09:29:45
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