The Paradox of Exile single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 The Paradox of Exile
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Queensland-born novelist Rosa Praed's departure for London in 1876 at the age of 24 is usually regarded as a liberating move. She was exchanging life as a squatter's wife on an isolated station for the established comfort and social standing of her husband's English upper middle class family. It also opened up the prospect of finding a market for the stories that were swirling in her head. For nearly sixty years until her death in 1935 she lived in England or Europe making only one brief visit to Australia in the first months of 1895. Exile is not a concept usually associated with such a move.

'This paper [explores] indications in her writing that point to "the unhealable rift" that followed this separation from her physical and spiritual home. The most important is her constant, almost obsessive, return over a period of more than thirty-five years to the sites of her childhood and young adulthood as settings for close to twenty books. The explanation that she was exploiting a demand for colonial colour and adventure among English readers is inadequate in the face of this recurrent, compulsive dredging of memories. [This paper argues] that her frequent return to early memories of the Australian landscape, Aboriginal/white frontier wars, political events and colonial social mores indicates a loss that was never assuaged. Her memories were reinforced by material she received from her Australian relatives, often actively sought.'

Source: Landscapes of Exile conference website, http://www.scu.edu.au/research/cpsj/landscapesofexiles/abstracts1.html#PatriciaClarke
Sighted: 02/04/2008

Notes

  • First presented at the 'Landscapes of Exile' symposia, Byron Bay, 26-28 July 2006.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Landscapes of Exile: Once Perilous, Now Safe Anna Haebich (editor), Baden Offord (editor), Berne : Peter Lang , 2008 Z1486522 2008 anthology criticism essay 'Inspired by the international conference 'Landscapes of Exile: Once Perilous, Now Safe' held in Australia in 2006, this book examines the experience and nature of exile - one of the most powerful and recurrent themes of the human condition. In response to the central question posed of how the experience of exile has impacted on society and culture, this book offers a rich collection of essays. Through a kaleidoscope of views on the metaphorical, spatial, imaginative, reflective and experiential nature of exile, it investigates a diverse range of landscapes of belonging and exclusion - social, cultural, legal, poetic, literary, indigenous, political - that confront humanity. At the very heart of landscapes of exile is the irony of history, and therefore of identity and home. Who is now safe and who is not? What was perilous? Who now is in peril? What does it mean to belong? This book provides key examinations of these questions.' (Publisher's blurb) Berne : Peter Lang , 2008 pg. 19-30

Works about this Work

Itinerant Reading, Itinerant Writing : Teaching Australian Literature Contextually Ian Reid , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 16-30)
'Australian literature is like literature in general, only more so: what characterises all reading and writing is embodied with special intensity in this case. Why? Because when you read or write in an Australian context, your imagination is unavoidably and utterly itinerant.' (Author's introduction, 16)
Itinerant Reading, Itinerant Writing : Teaching Australian Literature Contextually Ian Reid , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 16-30)
'Australian literature is like literature in general, only more so: what characterises all reading and writing is embodied with special intensity in this case. Why? Because when you read or write in an Australian context, your imagination is unavoidably and utterly itinerant.' (Author's introduction, 16)
Last amended 2 Apr 2008 11:13:58
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