Book chapter
Experiment and Adaptation: Modernist Poetry in Australia
The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry, pp.101-118
Cambridge Companions to Literature, Cambridge University Press
2024
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
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Abstract
This chapter outlines how Christopher Brennan ushered in an experimental strand of Australian poetry through his engagement with French Symbolism, which was followed by John Shaw Nielson’s celebration of intuition and the more-than-human. It considers Nietzschean vitalism in Kenneth Slessor’s representation of urban Sydney and analyses the beauty and nihilism of his “Five Bells.” The chapter also argues that Lesbia Harford’s poetry was modernist in its radical openness about female sexuality and the female body, its minimalist representation of the working life of modern women, and lack of Romantic assumptions in her treatment of the natural world. It further considers the rhetorical force and frankness of queer desire in the work of Anna Wickham, before addressing the hoax poet Ern Malley.
Details
- Title
- Experiment and Adaptation
- Creators
- Aidan Coleman - Southern Cross University
- Contributors
- Ann Vickery (Editor) - Deakin University
- Publication Details
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry, pp.101-118
- Series
- Cambridge Companions to Literature
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press; Australia
- Identifiers
- 991013233312502368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter