'The Muses' Magazine aspires at being the accredited official organ of the intellectual life of Queensland. It will encourage native talent, cultivate an Australian sentiment, a love for and devotion to our beautiful and bounteous country. [...] A glance on the cover of this Magazine will disclose the fact that among all the Australian cities Brisbane has the largest number of societies devoted to the study of foreign languages and literatures. Through these societies, young Australians will be able to keep in touch with the intellectual life of other countries as well as of their own.' [From the editors introduction to the first issue, November 1927, p. 1]
In I Fiddled the Years Away, Luis Amadeo Pares claims that The Muses' Magazine was financed from the profits of the 'Thousand Violins' performance that he organised in Brisbane in August 1926 (p.95).As a researcher for AustLit, I have tried to identify and locate points of entry through which even a monolingual researcher might access and build awareness of Australia’s multilingual literatures. Community language newspapers, which have existed in Australian since the nineteenth century, and which continue with substantial circulations in the twenty-first century, are excellent resources if one is fluent in the respective language. Bilingual or multilingual magazines or newspapers are not as common, but can provide an English reading researcher with documentation of community literary activities that would otherwise remain inaccessible. These magazines are like islands – multilingual islands in the midst of the dominant monolingual literary culture. In the Australian literary context it may be appropriate to think of the production of literature in other languages as islands of literary activity where multiple languages are maintained amidst the surrounding English writing. In this essay I’ll discuss a number of literary journals that provide access to Australia’s multilingual literary activities. Two of these are indeed multilingual, carrying articles and creative writing in a number of languages. The third is bilingual, publishing content in English and Vietnamese only, but will be included it here as an indication of the breadth and significance of writing in Australia in languages other than English, writing that is diasporic and transnational as well as multilingual. (Author's abstract)
I Fiddled the Years Away
Brisbane
:
s.n.
,
1946
Z1680970
1946
single work
autobiography
I Fiddled the Years Away
Brisbane
:
s.n.
,
1946
Z1680970
1946
single work
autobiography
As a researcher for AustLit, I have tried to identify and locate points of entry through which even a monolingual researcher might access and build awareness of Australia’s multilingual literatures. Community language newspapers, which have existed in Australian since the nineteenth century, and which continue with substantial circulations in the twenty-first century, are excellent resources if one is fluent in the respective language. Bilingual or multilingual magazines or newspapers are not as common, but can provide an English reading researcher with documentation of community literary activities that would otherwise remain inaccessible. These magazines are like islands – multilingual islands in the midst of the dominant monolingual literary culture. In the Australian literary context it may be appropriate to think of the production of literature in other languages as islands of literary activity where multiple languages are maintained amidst the surrounding English writing. In this essay I’ll discuss a number of literary journals that provide access to Australia’s multilingual literary activities. Two of these are indeed multilingual, carrying articles and creative writing in a number of languages. The third is bilingual, publishing content in English and Vietnamese only, but will be included it here as an indication of the breadth and significance of writing in Australia in languages other than English, writing that is diasporic and transnational as well as multilingual. (Author's abstract)
