The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
The connections between memory and poetry have long been asserted and are present, for example, in the mythology and writings of the ancient Greeks. The nature of memory has been discussed by numerous ancient and modern writers, including Sigmund Freud. While Freud acknowledged that memories were sometimes fantasies, he nevertheless frequently likened the retrieval of autobiographical memory through analysis to an archaeologist's work in digging up objects from the past - as if in memory the past might remain intact and unchanged. Yet autobiographical memory is increasingly being understood as unreliable, as constituted of 'temporary mental representations' and as configuring present understandings rather than simply detailing past events. While many contemporary lyric poems are based on autobiographical memory, these poems often use material from the past to construct new narratives of the self. Thus the past is in front of, rather than behind the poet who makes use of autobiographical material (Author's abstract).
