'Over a fifty-year period, from 1944 to 1994, Thea Astley published a number of critical writings, including essays, newspaper articles and reviews, and short reflections and meditations on her craft. Despite a renewed interest in Astley’s work, however, most critical interrogations of her oeuvre focus on her novels, and more recently her poetry. As a result, Astley’s critical writing has not been afforded the same breadth and depth of investigation as her fiction. This lacuna is troubling, since Astley’s critical works are important not only for their insight, but for what they reveal about Astley’s self-representation, and in particular the dual identity that she embodied as both a teacher and a satirist. This article argues that these dual roles emerge clearly in Astley’s essays and in fact are inextricable from many of her works. Further, the tensions between these two personae — Astley as teacher and Astley as satirist — reveal natural overlaps with her imaginative writing, and reflect her changing ideas about fiction writing, literature, and education.' (Publication abstract)
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 18 Dec 2019 08:33:59
218-231
Double Trouble : The Teacher/Satirist Duality in Thea Astley’s Critical Writings
Queensland Review
Subjects:
- Girl With a Monkey 1958 single work novel
- A Descant for Gossips 1960 single work novel
- The Well Dressed Explorer 1962 single work novel
- The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel
- A Boat Load of Home Folk 1968 single work novel
- The Monstrous Accent on Youth 1968 single work essay
- The Idiot Question 1970 single work autobiography
- The Acolyte 1972 single work novel
- The Higher Illiteracy 1975 single work essay
- Being a Queenslander : A Form of Literary and Geographical Conceit 1976 single work criticism
- Hunting the Wild Pineapple and Other Related Stories 1979 selected work short story
- Writing in North Queensland 1981 single work autobiography
- An Item from the Late News 1982 single work novel
- Beachmasters 1985 single work novel
- No Nostalgia in Brisbane, Only Changes 1986 single work column
- A Letter from Cambewarra 1989 single work autobiography
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