Fiona Morrison is an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts and Media at UNSW Sydney, where she has taught and supervised in the areas of postcolonial and world literatures, Australian literature and women鈥檚 writing. Her most recent book,听Christina Stead and the Matter of America听(2019), won the Walter McRae Russell Award in 2021 (ASAL). She is currently working on a book-length study of Henry Handel Richardson.

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Congratulations Fiona and Brigid on the publication of your book, Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark鈥檚 Fiction! What first drew you both to the work of Eleanor Dark?

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F&B:听Our first collaboration as editors was in 2016 on a special issue of Australian Literary Studies devoted to Christina Stead. Stead also features in Drusilla Modjeska鈥檚 seminal work Exiles at 快猫视频 (1981) which drew attention to a group of women writers who (unlike Stead) stayed at home in Australia between the wars yet were international or cosmopolitan in their outlook. Modjeska was the first scholar to suggest that while Stead was an experimental and political writer working in the world, Eleanor Dark was an experimental and political writer working at home in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. While Dark and Stead are quite different writers, both adopt innovative, modernist uses of language, themes and locations and both are engaged with social and political issues of their time and place.

There is a specific Sydney connection that drew us into this project. Both Stead鈥檚 Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934) and Dark鈥檚 Waterway (1938) present intellectually rich and strikingly memorable representations of interwar Sydney. Both adopt distinctly modernist styles of narration. Waterway vividly conjures Sydney Harbour as a modern place layered by time and the past. Unfolding through a single, eventful day, Waterway follows multiple characters as they move between their village-like suburban cove and the city. Waterway stands as a kind of hinge text in Dark鈥檚 career. It continues some of the modernist techniques of Dark鈥檚 earlier fictions about interwar Australian life while pointing towards the historical trilogy that she would write next. The relation between these two phases 鈥� between modernist interwar and later historical fiction 鈥� fascinated us. We wanted to draw in colleagues to help us think about the shape of her writing and its development over time.

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Time, Tide and History features contributions from a number of scholars and experts. Tell us a bit about how this project came together.

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F&B:听With this connection to Stead in the background, and some work accomplished on Dark either through essay writing or supervision in the foreground, we had an eye out for the ways in which the field was becoming more and more interested in modernist Australian women鈥檚 writing. There seemed to be a groundswell of interest from early career scholars working on Dark, and through conferences and correspondence, we thought the time was right and the tide of scholarly interest turning in her direction. Our project started life as a one-day symposium on Dark that aimed to bring scholars and writers together. We worked on symposium plans together with our colleagues Meg Brayshaw and Melinda Cooper, both experts on Dark and interwar fiction generally. Melinda鈥檚 thesis on Dark gave rise to her excellent, multi-award-winning book, Middlebrow Modernism: Eleanor Dark鈥檚 Interwar Fiction (SUP, 2022). Meg had featured Dark鈥檚 Waterway as a focal text in her wonderful study, Sydney and its Waterway in Australian Literary Modernism (2021).

Our call for papers for the symposium met with a healthy response. We were just preparing to negotiate with Varuna 鈥� formerly the Blue Mountains home of Eleanor and Eric Dark, and now The National Writers鈥� House 鈥� as a possible venue for an event in May 2020, when the Covid19 pandemic struck. With little prospect of an in-person event, we decided to cut to the chase and begin working on an edited collection. We reached out to our initial symposium contributors, and to others in the field 鈥� early career researchers and more experienced hands 鈥� that we thought might be interested in, or already working on, Dark. The book formed around two main hubs: Dark鈥檚 interwar modernism and her mid-century and postwar historical fiction (the Timeless Land trilogy). We wanted to know more about Dark鈥檚 influence on the writing of Australian history, so we ventured to invite two eminent public historians 鈥� Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens 鈥� into the project. They agreed, generously contributing a brilliant dialogue exploring Dark鈥檚 legacy for Australian history.

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In the book you note that Dark鈥檚 work was held in great esteem during her lifetime, yet there has long been a deficit of critical interest in her work. Why do you think that is? And what do you make of the more recent revival of this interest?

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F&B:听It鈥檚 important to note that this isn鈥檛 Eleanor Dark鈥檚 situation alone. There is much work to do in Australian literary studies on writers of significance, past and present. The gaps are partly to do with the marginalisation of literary studies in universities and public culture, which also affects Aust lit as a smaller, more highly specialised field. There are too few scholars for the work waiting to be done.

As we emphasise in our introduction, Eleanor Dark holds a firm place in Australia鈥檚 literary heritage. But critical responses to her works have fluctuated. There has been ebb and flow in the type and scale of scholarly and critical interest. If you compare the bodies of criticism on Dark to, say, Henry Handel Richardson, Patrick White, Martin Boyd and Christina Stead it is not insignificant. But neither is it full-bodied and well-tethered. A sustained and capacious engagement with her fiction is genuinely overdue.

In Dark鈥檚 case, Modjeska鈥檚 Exiles at 快猫视频 was an important milestone, drawing the attention of feminist critics to the interwar fiction. Biographies appearing after Dark鈥檚 death in 1985 built this momentum further. As essays in this collection show, Dark鈥檚 interwar fiction continues to inspire innovative work by a new generation of scholars. Across the same period, however, and despite its remarkable public success and visibility, The Timeless Land and its sequels have been far less frequently examined. It was our hunch the moment had arrived to think about the historical trilogy in relation to both its own time and ours.

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A key theme in Time, Tide and History is how Eleanor Dark represents and 鈥榶et simultaneously erases鈥� Indigenous presence in Australia. Can you expand upon this briefly?

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F&B: We鈥檇 like to adjust the wording of your question a little, to shift focus from the person of the author (鈥淓leanor Dark鈥�) to her fiction. But yes, we do feel that her Timeless Land trilogy represents and at the same time erases the presence of Australia鈥檚 First Peoples. Founded on Dark鈥檚 meticulous research into the colonial archive, The Timeless Land broke entirely new ground in Australian fiction and in the writing of Australian history. It was the first such work to reimagine the events of 1788 from both British invader and Indigenous perspectives. In this endeavour Dark was radically progressive. Her Timeless Land trilogy, especially volume one, cuts right across the triumphalist official narrative of settlement that prevailed at the time of her writing. Her book seized the imagination of, among others, the influential Australian historian, Manning Clark. As the dialogue between Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens attests, although it was a work of fiction, The Timeless Land galvanised historical approaches to colonisation and helped reshape the way Australians imagined the past. 听

How then, you ask, does her writing also erase Indigenous presence? Unsurprisingly, Dark鈥檚 imagining of Indigenous culture was necessarily limited by her own lack of deeper contact or personal connection with First Nations peoples of her own time. Her novel takes certain liberties in imagining the culture of Sydney鈥檚 First Peoples (Gadigal, Gamaragal, Bidjigal, Darug and many groups), drawing on anthropological studies of First Nations cultures that were quite distant in time, space and language from the Sydney people of 1788. Her narrative is also conditioned by prevailing ideas about First Peoples at the time of her writing. One of these is the idea that they belonged to a dying race. Essays in our book that examine the trilogy consider this problem from different vantage points. All recognise how Dark鈥檚 writing confronts the brutality of invasion and the injustice of dispossession yet, at the same time, identify narrative assumptions that Aboriginal people were 鈥渢imeless鈥�, unmodern and bound for extinction. Although Dark鈥檚 portraits of Indigenous characters are based on historical figures, like Wularawaray Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, according them the humanity and dignity of inner lives, her narrative also positions them as doomed, tragic figures. Her narrative sees their culture as in many respects morally, ethically and even environmentally superior to 鈥� more noble than 鈥� that of the British invaders. Yet they are also seen as inherently unable to survive the modern world of the colonisers. Awareness of the survival and resistance of Aboriginal Australians 鈥� arising in the very same period 鈥� does not penetrate the narrative, or not apparently. Essays in our book recognise and tackle these complex contradictions. In so doing, they also engage with questions that continue to shape Australia as both society and nation today.

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In your opinion, what is Eleanor Dark鈥檚 greatest contribution to Australia literary culture?

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F&B: Eleanor Dark contributed immensely to Australian literary culture, in ways that continue into the present. Her writing and spirit are intimately connected to Varuna, in the Blue Mountains, her home with her husband Eric Payten Dark. Their far-sighted son, the late Mick Dark, gifted Varuna to Australian literary culture. It is now known as the National Writer鈥檚 House, and provides writers with a retreat, a place of beauty, inspiration and support for their efforts.

On the other hand, it鈥檚 impossible to ignore the impact of the fiction itself, not least of The Timeless Land which so challenged and reshaped settler Australians鈥� historical imagination. Dark鈥檚 engagement with the experience of people in the past was studious, ethical, richly imaginative and important. The richness of her approach to history has been somewhat obscured by the idea that her historical novels were destined for the mass market in some way. It is time to reorient our understanding of this work

Dark鈥檚 other abiding contribution was the creation of experimental and responsive stories about the modern Australian experience in and beyond the interwar years, especially about women. Hers was not a textbook avant-garde writing: it was grounded in profound ways in place, and in the space of her characters and their relations. At the heart of her writing is a beautiful, idiosyncratic and expansive sense of Australian landscapes, regions and scenes that were significant to her. And the fascinating layering of philosophical and political interest in her fiction makes a distinctive contribution to both national and international writing of this period.

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For readers interested in exploring Australian modernist literature, what other authors and literary works might you suggest?

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F&B: As we know from scholarship informed by new modernist studies, Australia鈥檚 response to modernism has been incorrectly labelled derivative and belated. Patrick White was, for a time, held up as the first Australian modernist writer. Dark鈥檚 body of work, however, and the interwar work of her peers, confounds any such timeline. More importantly, if literary modernism extends well beyond any single period or style, and is understood as responding to modernity鈥檚 various phases, then Australian literature is still engaged with modernism.

That said, there are some outstanding texts from the interwar period that unambiguously exemplify breakthrough modernist styles, themes and approaches. At the top of our list are some obvious, and very significant candidates: Kenneth Slessor鈥檚 poetry, and 鈥� as mentioned earlier 鈥� Christina Stead鈥檚 first novel, Seven Poor Men of Sydney. And yet we would also recommend Henry Handel Richardson鈥檚 wonderful trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony which blends realism with a distinctly modernist sensibility. Many writers of our own time 鈥� before, during and beyond the so-called postmodernist period 鈥� engage modernism as a dynamic living legacy and as resource for their stories. Considered this way, there many books to recommend 鈥� not only the brilliant works of Patrick White, but also (to name only a few) fiction by Randolph Stow, Elizabeth Jolley, Thea Astley, Brian Castro and Gail Jones. Most recently there is Alexis Wright whose novels are not only profoundly shaped by her First Nations heritage but also Joycean in their play with language.

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Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark's Fiction is available now. Order your copy听here.

Paul Eggert FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Loyola University Chicago and the University of New South Wales. He is a scholarly editor, book historian and editorial theorist.

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Tell us a bit about how your interest in the poetry and life of Charles Harpur began.听

Paul Eggert (PE): I became immersed in colonial and later prose, poetry and plays when serving as general editor of the Academy Editions of Australian Literature project. This project encompassed ten fat volumes published by the University of Queensland 快猫视频 from 1996 to 2007. We had hoped to include Harpur鈥檚 poetry but the problems involved in capturing and documenting it all were monumental and had to wait. As a preliminary step in 2019, we were able to encompass online the 2,700 versions of his 700 poems in the Charles Harpur Critical Archive (CHCA: charles-harpur.org). The editorial work of digesting the meanings of what has been documented (together with its seemingly endless textual variation) was required, we soon saw, before we could get on with an edition of the poetry and of the letters that we had discovered along the way. Only thus would there be a reliable biographical backbone on which to plot not just Harpur鈥檚 life in detail but his poetry and prose as it emerged and was revised, year by year, from the 1830s when he began to write until his death in 1868.听

Chris Vening (CV):听 My interest came via the CHCA and Trove. Some years back I joined the people who trawl through the pages of the newspapers digitised on the National Library鈥檚 Trove website, correcting the often-garbled machine-readable text that makes it possible to search millions of pages. I was drawn to the colonial newspaper verse 鈥� not just the greats like Harpur and Kendall, but also the oddities and eccentrics, and Trove has a wealth of them, usually hiding behind pseudonyms. I wrote papers on a couple of the more obscure ones; Paul saw these and invited me to help out with CHCA. We live a few doors apart in Canberra, so liaison was no problem day to day, though most of our work 鈥� including with Desmond Schmidt in Brisbane 鈥� was via email, which as it turned out was a boon during COVID. I started by helping with transcription of the letters and chasing biographical material, mainly at the Mitchell Library and NSW State Archives. My main interest was in Harpur鈥檚 life and the colonial cultural context, so the next step was to build the Harpur biographical timeline on CHCA, which is annotated with hundreds of live links to newspapers, manuscripts and websites like the Australian Dictionary of Biography. From there it was a short step to the much more extensive footnotes needed for The Letters of Charles Harpur and his Circle and the forthcoming Supplementary Letters.听听听听听

The Letters of Charles Harpur and his Circle is the first collection of Harpur鈥檚 letters to be published, including correspondence from his peers. What do the letters from Harpur鈥檚 contemporaries contribute to this portrait of the poet鈥檚 life?听

PE: There has been only one biography of Harpur, by J. Normington Rawling in 1962. Much editorial and then online archival work of the last 60 years has gradually opened up his manifold contributions, both poetic and political, to colonial culture, especially of the 1830s to the 1860s. The moment to reassess the long-held celebratory view that he was the most important nature poet of the period has arrived. The letters show a much more various and intriguing figure than had been guessed, often revealed at his best in correspondence with fellow colonial poets, Henry Kendall first among them. Harpur was also a deeply committed practitioner-poet, endlessly revising his poems as they proceeded to publication in various forms in colonial newspapers (at least 900 appearances) and towards their anticipated collection in book form, one that would never come during his lifetime. The posthumously-edited collection of 1883 called Poems, which abridged and altered the texts of his poems at will to suit emerging tastes 鈥� a process captured in detail in the edition of The Letters of Charles Harpur and his Circle 鈥� is a fascinating indicator of how distinctive and potentially disturbing Harpur鈥檚 style and thinking actually were.听

CV: Much of the correspondence between Harpur and Kendall deals with technical verse-making, with Kendall鈥檚 labours to publish Harpur in Sydney, and with his admiration (or otherwise) for English contemporaries like Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne. Kendall was an unqualified admirer of Harpur, describing the older man as the national poet to the rising generation and often expressing his belief in Harpur鈥檚 greatness. But in Kendall鈥檚 comments and responses we read Harpur鈥檚 own doubts and fears about his future reputation, his 鈥渒een discontent鈥� with his isolation 鈥� personal and cultural 鈥� in the goldfields, his contempt for the newspapers and newspaper people he relied on to publish his verse, his resentment of injury by those he considered his intellectual inferiors, and the growing frustration and melancholy that would affect his last years.听听

From Harpur鈥檚 widow Mary, whose letters describe her struggles to realise his ambition to publish his verse, we glimpse the poet鈥檚 anger and frustration at the marring of his work by careless printers (鈥淚 have so often seen poor Chas stamping mad at such calamities鈥�) and, even worse, with those like newspaper editor W.A. Duncan who dared interfere with a Harpur poem 鈥� a fate which, ironically, would befall his own posthumous Poems of 1883. From Mary, too, we get hints of Harpur鈥檚 hopes of lasting recognition (he 鈥渒new not all and expected too much鈥�), as well as his private opinion (never articulated in his own letters) that Kendall was not the 鈥済reat poet鈥� he would come to be considered in Kendall鈥檚 own lifetime. Henry Parkes reveals his doubts about Harpur鈥檚 character earlier in their friendship than we might expect; Joseph Jehoshaphat Harpur, despite their estrangement, emphasises his brother鈥檚 generous disposition (his 鈥渇aults were faults of temper鈥�); while Harpur鈥檚 daughter Mary Araluen defends her father from the charge of intemperance, and describes his long-lasting admiration and affection for his wife.听

In the book, you describe Harpur as 鈥渨itheringly satirical鈥� and 鈥渁lways witty鈥�. Are there any particular poems or letter excerpts that, to your mind, best embody these traits?听

PE: 鈥淭he 鈥楴evers鈥� of Poetry鈥� is the outstanding example, one of many poems. It grew and grew as the years went by and as Harpur settled scores with his political and other opponents. Newspaper poetry was the principal vehicle for poetry in the colonial period when local book publication had otherwise to be paid for in advance. Such poems sat cheek-by-jowl with news reports on the very figures Harpur was attacking. Readers held poetry in high cultural esteem, so this phenomenon gave poetry a special edge and advantage. Harpur could wield the knife of satire to great effect even though most readers today think of him on the basis of his anthology appearances as solely a nature poet.听

CV: The editor of the posthumous Poems deliberately avoided Harpur鈥檚 satirical and comedic material 鈥� whether from the loss of topicality or the risk of offending the still-powerful is not clear. For this we go to manuscripts and newspapers. 鈥淭he Temple of Infamy鈥� (whose designated ID in the CHCA is听 h580c) was Harpur鈥檚 Dunciad, 鈥渢he first step鈥�, he called it, 鈥渋n an attempt to expose, and root up if possible, the 鈥榯housand and one鈥� Infamies that are everywhere depraving the morals and debasing the intellects of the rising generation of this Colonial Public.鈥� His anonymous 鈥淪quatter Songs鈥� in Duncan鈥檚 newspaper are full of indignation beneath the ironic humour 鈥� for example 鈥淭he Beautiful Squatter鈥� (h560a). His diatribes against W.C. Wentworth in verse (like h713c) and prose; his letters of outraged indignation against critics like Hastings Elwin (Letters 10 and 11 in The Letters of Charles Harpur and his Circle); his bitter recriminations against editor Samuel Bennett (Letter 126) who had brushed aside Harpur鈥檚 offer to contribute articles, all gave play to his sardonic wit, whether impelled by rage or humour or both. As an example, read this passage from Letter 37 to The Empire of 1853, blasting the nominee NSW Legislative Council and proposing various tests Governor FitzRoy might apply in selecting his nominees to it:听

But the final test 鈥� is a much mightier thing, I can tell you, than it looks to be, and is by no means to be sneezed at. In short, it is a thumping great nose! a round, robustious, broad-backed, elephantine, Wellingtonian, dodolike upper mandible! Be this your test, Sir Charles. Pack our Nominee Chamber with noses of such amplitude, and consequently of such a roaring sternutational power, that one-and-twenty of them, well provided with 笔谤颈苍肠别鈥檚 mixture, might even discharge (if need were) on the anniversary of a coronation, or what not, a very satisfactory and right royal salute, to the public saving of much excellent gunpowder. Yes, Sir Charles, stick to this nose test. It will not only give us the shadow, but something of the substance, such as it is, of a genuine House of Lords. For a nose of the size and fashion here meant, when surmounted with a forehead so far recedent as to be incapable of the corrective of deep thinking, is indicative of intense sensualism, selfishness extreme, and a brute obstinacy; and constitutes (thus surmounted) the upper facial type of the great mass of the British aristocracy. And if it be right for us to copy this same aristocracy in its legislative functions, it can hardly be wrong, even for the look of the thing, to copy it also as far as we can in this, the most marked, of its featural idiosyncracies.听

What insights into 19th century Australian society and literature have you gleaned from Harpur鈥檚 letters and/or poetry?听

PE: Our work on the letters gave colonial culture a density and presence neither of us had experienced in quite this way before. Its idealism, especially of the 1840s and early 1850s, comes fully into focus in The Letters edition as the forms that representative government would take were battled out in the public arena. The idealism needs further study as it acts as a counterweight to accounts that stress the (undeniable) violence towards Aboriginal peoples on the shifting colonial frontier. How did idealists such as Harpur ride the seeming contradiction? The Letters edition makes its contribution to that urgently needed debate.听听

The other principal insight for me was recognising the contemporaneity of colonial culture, its surprising up-to-dateness with what was happening in the literary world centred in London. Focussing on the letters of a single poet and those of his circle has brought alive, by forcing us to understand, the relevant facts of book history that allowed this to happen.听听

Harpur was the son of two former convicts who went on to become pillars of their local community. How did his family background inform his writing and political views?听

PE: Harpur grew up in a family where his ex-convict father was also the local school teacher at Windsor, NSW, where his brother would also become a poet, even if only a minor one, and where Harpur himself seems to have had access to some good private library, perhaps that of the Reverend Samuel Marsden. Cheap reprinted literature was also readily available in the colony, and Harpur took full advantage of it, even though a poor man for most of his life. Of Emancipist (ex-convict) stock, Harpur was the natural enemy of the Exclusivists who separated themselves from those with the convict taint. Harpur took particular delight in skewering the pretensions of the large landholding squatters as well as his political opponents, especially in the 1850s.听听

CV: Harpur was indeed a 鈥渘atural enemy of the Exclusivists鈥�, and delighted in skewering the pretensions of the great squatter landholders and politicians. That said, his convict connections don鈥檛 figure prominently in his verse or letters. He opposed the re-introduction of transportation, but so did most other progressives of the day. His obituary lines for his emancipist father (h297c) make only brief and discreet reference (鈥淚 stand in thought beside my Father鈥檚 Grave: / The grave of one who, in his old age, died / Too late, perhaps, since he endured so much / Of corporal anguish, sweating bloody sweat鈥︹��); and even his play The Bushrangers makes very slight reference to convict origins of the protagonists. Harpur鈥檚 consciousness of a convict heritage was overlaid by a passionate belief in the destiny of his generation of Australians to create a new society 鈥� egalitarian, democratic 鈥� out of the stuff of the old, and this informed his radicalism of the 1840s鈥�1850s.听

What other resources would you recommend for readers interested in learning more about early colonial literary culture in Australia?听

Online resources:听

The Charles Harpur Critical Archive. ed. Paul Eggert (Sydney: 快猫视频, 2019): online archival resource at charles-harpur.org听

AustLit database: online bibliographical resource at austlit.edu.au听

Trove: online colonial-era newspapers in facsimile and transcription: trove.nla.gov.au听

J. Normington-Rawling. Charles Harpur: An Australian (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1962) (the only biography of Harpur).听

Literary-historical works:听

Jennifer Alison, Doing Something for Australia: George Robertson and the Early Years of Angus & Robertson, Publishers 1888鈥�1900 (Melbourne: BSANZ, 2009)听听

Katherine Bode, Reading by Numbers: Recalibrating the Literary Field (London: Anthem, 2012)听听

The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel, ed. David Carter (Cambridge: Cambridge University 快猫视频, 2023)听

The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry, ed. Philip Mead and Ann Vickery (Cambridge: Cambridge University 快猫视频, 2024听

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How influential was White鈥檚 work on Australian theatre? Would Australian theatrical modernism have looked different without White?听

From the early 1960s and pre-dating the New Wave of Australian theatre that took hold a decade later, White鈥檚 plays took an anti-realist approach to plot and character, and featured non-naturalist staging in heightened, often satirical, representations of Australian place, language, and social class. He was a singular playwright ahead of his time and place, driven by a fascination with and deep love of theatre. He was modernist but also eclectic, weaving vaudeville and gothic humour into his works.

By the 1970s and 80s, when the early plays were revived by a new generation of theatre directors (Jim Sharman, Neil Armfield), the plays were presented as a challenge to public tastes and the atmosphere was more receptive.

Australian theatrical modernism might have been far more earnest and humourless without White鈥檚 satirical wit and playful theatricality.

Was it difficult to analyse White鈥檚 theatre without assigning too much importance to his personal life and beliefs?

Not at all. The book includes biographical references and considerations of White鈥檚 beliefs, but these are considered formative but not determinants of the works. The approach I took was to analyse the words on the page and the theatre on the stage. Theatre is a collaborative art form. Even the published play text, which might be considered a literary work, was often written after the first performances and so was guided by performers, directors and designers by the time it reached the page. Once the works entered the theatre then there is the director, the performers, the designers, the audience, the press. There鈥檚 a whole system and many people who influence works of theatre. So the book would accord for example more importance to Jim Sharman鈥檚 directorial style then to Patrick White鈥檚 personal life and beliefs. Besides, he wasn鈥檛 always a reliable narrator.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first performance of The Ham Funeral by the University of Adelaide in 1961. Do you think the rejection of the play by the Adelaide Festival of the Arts the following year continues to affect his reputation as a playwright today?

No, I don鈥檛 think it does affect his reputation as a playwright today. This is because most people don鈥檛 realise and can鈥檛 imagine that the plays would be rejected by a festival that has now established a reputation as a promoter of innovative and experimental theatre as well as other media. But people are interested when they hear about the story of how a well-known literary figure was rejected by a group of powerful men because the play did not conform to their, let鈥檚 face it, colonial view of taste and propriety. But it is also a warning to us that we should not take liberal cultures for granted, that there are always those who will try to shut down the creative arts and curtail artistic experimentation.

Fortunately we are not facing such censorship now. But it was a struggle to achieve the freedoms we have today. Patrick White gave up writing plays in 1964 and returned to writing novels, where he had more artistic control and an international reputation. He only returned to writing plays in the late 1970s after Jim Sharman revived the early plays and reminded him of how much he enjoyed the theatre.

If White鈥檚 theatre was meant to reflect the zeitgeist of the time or incite change, how does his work remain relevant or influential in today鈥檚 climate?听

Patrick White鈥檚 plays remain relevant today because they represent outsider figures who continue to be marginalised today. While I was working on the 1963 play A Cheery Soul, featuring the annoying do-gooder Miss Docker, I was struck by how she represented the epidemic of loneliness that we find in the Western world today. We also see in the female characters the terrible waste of women鈥檚 lives in the pre-feminist era and even into the 1980s. In plays like Netherwood from the 1980s, we see gender fluidity and diversity听in conflict with repressive sections of society.

Does a particular staging of White鈥檚 plays stand out for you as most memorable?

Benedict Andrews鈥� production of The Season at Sarsaparilla for the Sydney Theatre Company in 2007 was brilliant. It was a stunning revelation of the potential of White鈥檚 theatre to capture modern Australian suburbia. The co-location of the three iconic suburban houses in the one brick veneer on a revolving stage with webcams inside the house projected onto a screen for audiences to see was brilliant. It was a wonderful example of the importance of returning to classic works and remaking them for the contemporary era.

Sadly, most Australian plays only ever have one production. I should also note Kip Williams鈥� revival of A Cheery Soul in 2018 for the STC,听which made panoramic use of contemporary stage design and technology. I also really liked Michael Kantor鈥檚 2000 and 2005 productions of The Ham Funeral, which drew out the psychological aspects of the play as well as heightening its theatrical potential.

You can read an extract from听Patrick White鈥檚 Theatre听.听

I must admit that before I started interning at 快猫视频, I had never heard of Eliza Hamilton Dunlop. Even being someone who majored in literature, I had no idea who she was or what she鈥檇 written.

When I finally did read Dunlop鈥檚 poetry and a little about her, I was incredibly moved. Her voice is clear: she reads as unashamed to relay her emotions and her choices, unafraid to delve deep into her grief and her discomfort. Importantly, she chose to use the public space she had carved for her poetry in order to protest against injustices she refused to turn away from. More than one of her poems brought me to tears.

As I learnt from dipping into Eliza Hamilton Dunlop: Writing from the Colonial Frontier, Dunlop was an Irish-Australian writer who lived between 1796 and 1880. She was born in Ireland and experienced tragedy at a young age; she was raised by her grandmother after her mother died and her father moved to India for work. When Dunlop later visited India to see her father, she found he had died while she was travelling.

After marrying her second husband, David Dunlop, she moved with him to Australia. Dunlop had published several poems in Ireland and India, and this continued in her new home: she published work in the Australian, the Maitland Mercury, the Empire and the Australian Town and Country Journal, among other newspapers. Some of her poems were set to music by Isaac Nathan.

Since Eliza Dunlop was rediscovered by Elizabeth Webby in the 1960s, much of the conversation around her has focused on how she engaged with Indigenous culture in the Wollombi region, learning from the Darkinyung, Awabakal and Wonnarua peoples. This is for good reason 鈥� Dunlop transcribed and translated Indigenous songs, and her efforts have since been used for the reclamation of Indigenous languages.

Dunlop鈥檚 poetry is equal parts nostalgic and political. Much of her work describes grief: the loss of a child, loved ones, severed connections to place, and departure from friends. She speaks through an astoundingly empathetic lens, tapping into a level of feeling that is often disregarded, by those in her time and ours.

While the two poems 鈥楾he Aboriginal Mother鈥� and 鈥楾he Two Graves鈥� are likely the best known of her work, the poem of Dunlop鈥檚 that struck me the deepest was 鈥楾o My Friends / Inscribed to the dearest of any鈥�. It begins:

听

The poem goes on, with Dunlop alluding to memories and places she remembers fondly, and how difficult it is to be parted from her friends and her homeland. It concludes:

听

听

This particular poem expresses with clarity the emotion inherent in the experience of missing a friend or a place. More than that, it impressed upon me an earnest sense of dual gratitude and pained yearning, the core of what it鈥檚 like to have felt connection and chosen to give it up. The depth of Dunlop鈥檚 expression of feeling 鈥� in this and all her work 鈥� and the skill with which she translates it into lyrical poetry, can certainly still be felt even across the chasm of time.

Without a doubt, it鈥檚 both a shame that Dunlop鈥檚 work was forgotten for so long and a triumph that it has been rediscovered. Aside from her compelling sense of her own artistic voice and rhythm, Eliza Dunlop was a writer who received much criticism during her lifetime for acknowledging the cruelty she saw done to those around her 鈥� and she continued to do so in spite of it.

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop: Writing from the Colonial Frontier, edited by Anna Johnston and Elizabeth Webby, is available now.