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Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 The Function of Knowledge and Contingent Difficulty in the Poetry of John Forbes
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'The poet John Forbes (1950-1998) was famous for his erudition, but it is a feature of his work that has long been overlooked. Outlining how knowledge functions in Forbes’ poetics and compositional process, I argue for foregrounding this knowledge content in readings of his work, before modelling sustained readings of the erudition of two of Forbes’ best-known poems, ‘Stalin’s Holidays’ and ‘Ars Poetica’. These readings focus on the experience of contingent difficulty – that category of difficulty, according to George Steiner, that finds its source in a reader’s lack of knowledge – and the role that research, or ‘homework’ (26), plays in the reading process. While acknowledging that Steiner’s contingent difficulties are intertwined with – and sometimes created by – other categories of difficulty, this article argues for the productiveness of such ‘homework’ early in the interpretative process. Steiner likens contingent difficulties to ‘burrs on the fabric of the text’ (27). I extend this metaphor to propose that contingent difficulties, in their tactile, grip-like quality, enable a reader to engage with a difficult poem, and to proceed with exegesis, when the difficulties the poem otherwise presents seem insurmountable.' (Publication abstract)

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    y separately published work icon JASAL Dirt vol. 20 no. 1 2020 19774589 2020 periodical issue 'This issue brings together four different sections, each of which speaks to a different aspect of JASAL and its aims, both as an academic journal and as the main publication of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Although primarily a peer-reviewed journal, JASAL has always attempted to reach beyond a strictly academic audience. The journal is open access and so is available to anyone interested in Australian literature, whether or not they are associated with a university library. Similarly, ‘Notes & Furphies’ is a non peer-reviewed section that invites research notes and comments on Australian literature and literary culture from general readers. In this issue we have a fantastically detailed set of notes from independent scholar Alan Thompson on how we might go about mapping the setting of chapter 3 of Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life. Since its first issue in 1994 JASAL has also been the main location for the publication of papers from the ASAL annual conference and ASAL mini-conferences. This issue contains a Special Section, guest edited by Tony Hughes d’Aeth, with a selection of papers from the ASAL’s 2019 annual conference, DIRT, held at the University of Western Australia last July. Finally, JASAL has maintained a commitment to publishing extensive reviews of scholarly works on or related to Australian literature. In this issue we have five reviews of recent works of literary criticism.' (Ellen Smith and Tony Simoes Da Silva : Introduction) 2020
Last amended 30 Jul 2020 10:46:02
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/14257 The Function of Knowledge and Contingent Difficulty in the Poetry of John Forbessmall AustLit logo JASAL
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