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Queensland Literature: the Making of an Idea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Patrick Buckridge
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Extract

The idea of ‘Queensland Literature’ has a history, but a rather discontinuous one. During the present century, it has emerged sporadically at particular historical moments, rather than as a constant preoccupation, which is how the idea of an Australian literature has figured during this period. An explanation of the different profiles of national and state literary histories in the post-Federation era might begin by asking what is at stake in each case? The cultural beneficiaries of one ‘construction’ of Australian literature are different from those of other, competing constructions of Australian literature. Nationally, there are social and political identities at stake. But at the state level, for most of this century, literature seems to have been much less involved in identity politics of that kind, considerably less than one might have expected, given the ferocity of interstate rivalry in sporting and other areas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 30 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

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References

Endnotes

1 Buckridge, Patrick (1988), ‘Intellectual Authority and Critical Traditions in Australian Literature, 1940–1975’, in Head, Brian and Walter, James eds. (1988), Intellectual Movements in Australian Society (Melbourne: Oxford University Press), pp.Google Scholar

2 Astley, Thea (1976), ‘Being a Queenslander: A Form of Literary and Geographical Conceit’, Southerly, 36, p. 263.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Clem Christesen (1943), ‘The Meanjin “School”’, Meanjin, 2, no. 2, pp. 49–53; P.R. Stephensen (1942), ‘Queensland Culture’, Meanjin, 1, no. 6, pp. 7–8. See also Gillian Whitlock (1984), ‘Queensland – the state of the art in “the last frontier”’, Westerly, 2, pp. 85–90.Google Scholar

4 Stable, J.J. and Kirwood, A.E.M., eds. (1924), A Book of Queensland Verse (Brisbane: Queensland Book Depot), xi.Google Scholar

5 Evans, Raymond (1988), The Red Flag Riots: A Study of Intolerance (St. Lucia: UQP), pp. 22, 30–31.Google Scholar

6 Cecil Hadgraft (1959), Queensland and Its Writers (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press), pp. 114–115.Google Scholar

7 Interview with Professor A.K. Thomson, Brisbane 1987.Google Scholar

8 Clinch, Toby A. (1982), The History of the Rockhampton Boys Grammar School, Centenary 1881–1980. (Rockhampton, Q'ld: Rockhampton Grammar School), pp. 59–75.Google Scholar

9 Kellow, Henry Arthur (1930), Queensland Poets (London: George Harrap), p. 12.Google Scholar

10 Wilde, William, Hooton, Joy and Andrews, Barry, The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985), p.78.Google Scholar

11 Woolf, Virginia (1971), ‘Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown’, in Collected Essays. Vol. One (London: Hogarth Press). p. 320.Google Scholar

12 Byrnes, R.S. and Vallis, Val, eds. (1959), The Queensland Centenary Anthology (London: Longmans), n.p.Google Scholar

13 Docker, John (1989), In a Critical Condition: Reading Australian Literature (Ringwood: Penguin), pp. 64–109. See also, Susan McKernan (1989), A Question of Commitment: Australian Literature in the Twenty Years After the War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin).Google Scholar

14 In treating of poetry rather than ‘literature’ or ‘writing’, Stable and Kellow were not so much dividing as epitomising the field: to all intents and purposes poetry was literature, ‘for poetry reveals much of life that in the various forms of prose remains unexpressed’. (Stable xi)Google Scholar