Literary Links: Celebrating the Literary Relationship Between Australia and Britain

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Allen & Unwin, 1997 - Business & Economics - 249 pages
This text explores and celebrates the literary relationship between Australia and Britain which has evolved over the last 200 years from one of total dependence to one of independence and equal partnership in the creation of literature in English.
 

Contents

Mythical Australia
1
Dreaming spires
109
Australians abroad
123
Prophetic insight?
138
Australian by choice
153
Causing a stir
166
Keeping Australia in mind
176
Prizewinners
188
Literary visitors
194
Appendix
207
Copyright

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Page 17 - From distant climes o'er wide-spread seas we come, Though not with much éclat or beat of drum, True patriots all; for be it understood, We left our country for our country's good; No private views disgrac'd our generous zeal, What urged our travels was our country's weal; And none will doubt but that our emigration Has
Page 46 - My dear F—When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a correspondence at
Page 35 - When thou, no longer freest of the free To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee;— May all thy glories in another sphere Relume, and shine more brightly still than here; May this, thy last-born infant—then arise, To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes; And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, A new Britannia in another world.
Page 33 - her snowy hand, High-waving wood, and sea-encircled strand. ‘Hear me,' she cried, ‘ye rising Realms! record ‘Time's opening scenes, and Truth's unerring word.— ‘There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, ‘The circus widen, and the crescent bend; ‘There, ray'd from cities o'er the cultur'd land, ‘Shall bright canals, and solid roads expand.— ‘There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride
Page 46 - distance. The weary world of waters between us oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption to expect that one's thoughts should live so far
Page 10 - That none shall with impunity neglect, In baser souls unnumber'd evils meet, To thwart its influence, and its end defeat. While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved, See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!
Page 34 - the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride Yon glittering streams, and bound the chafing tide; Embellish'd villas crown the landscape-scene. Farms wave with gold. and orchards blush between.— There shall tall spires. and dome.capt towers ascend. And piers and quays their
Page 76 - how each totemic ancestor, while travelling through the country, was thought to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along the line of his footprints, and how these “Dreamingtracks” lay over the land as “ways” of communication between the most far-flung tribes'. Chatwin
Page 46 - I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous windows, in pump-famed Hare Court in the Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet corner?—Why did
Page 65 - seaman—the ghostly pencil Wavers and fades, the purple drips, The breath of the wet season has washed their inscriptions As blue as drowned men's lips, Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall, Whether as enemies they fought, Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together, Enlisted on the other front.

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About the author (1997)

Roslyn Russell was born in London and emigrated to Australia in the same year. In 1982, after a period of teaching English in Sydney schools, she went to Canberra as research assistant to Professor Manning Clark on Volume Six of A History of Australia and other publications, including his two volumes of autobiography. She currently works with Stephen Foster at Australian Heritage Projects, and is a highly experienced historical researcher, editor and writer.

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