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'This essay argues that animal-human compassion, defined as human fellow-feeling with (and not for) animals, is most urgently articulated at points of crisis in human history, such as the terrible bushfires and drought of the Australian summer of 2019–20. Literary history, particularly of pastoral literature, reveals animal-human compassion as a long-contested structure of feeling. The pastoral template established in classical literature, and refined in early modern literature, sets conventions for proper human-animal emotional relations. These ideals are radically destabilised in Andrew Marvell’s ‘dark pastoral’ civil war poetry. This troubled legacy flows through Australian settler-colonial writing about animals, particularly the kangaroo; Barron Field, Charles Harpur and Ethel Pedley strive to intervene in the patriotic myth-making associated with colonial settlement and Federation.' (Publication abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- Dot and the Kangaroo 1899 single work children's fiction
- The Kangaroo Hunt or a Morning in the Mountains : A Descriptive Poem in Six Parts : Preface 1863 single work criticism
- The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt 2020 multi chapter work criticism