Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Change and Renewal
- 1 Models of Poet and Nation
- 2 War, Crisis, and Identity in Australian Poetry
- 3 Cultivating Australian Poetry through Periodicals
- Part II Networks
- Part III Authors
- Part IV Embodied Poetics
- Part V Expanding Form
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
2 - War, Crisis, and Identity in Australian Poetry
from Part I - Change and Renewal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Change and Renewal
- 1 Models of Poet and Nation
- 2 War, Crisis, and Identity in Australian Poetry
- 3 Cultivating Australian Poetry through Periodicals
- Part II Networks
- Part III Authors
- Part IV Embodied Poetics
- Part V Expanding Form
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
Summary
This chapter contextualises Australia’s involvement in major conflicts in light of the European invasion of Australia and the settler-colonial imaginary. It considers how poetry shaped the ANZAC myth extended settler masculinities and portrayed the soldier as both ordinary and extraordinary. The chapter considers divergent trajectories in World War II poetry, including the work of Kenneth Slessor, J. S. Manifold, James McAuley, and Douglas Stewart. It also considers responses to the Vietnam War, such as Bruce Dawe’s “Homecoming.” While the chapter investigates the dismantling of the soldier myth in late twentieth-century poetry, it also notes colonial presumptions persisting in works like Les Murray’s “Visiting Anzac in the Year of Metrification.” It then outlines the emergence of Indigenous counter-narratives to the violence of settler colonialism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry , pp. 38 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024