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'William Blake’s articulation of the ‘bounding line’ as ‘the great and golden rule of art, as well as of life’ may seem a far-fetched place to start an examination of the poetics of the fence in Australian poetry. The line’s cosmic necessity and ethical force were being asserted by Blake in the context of a long-running dispute amongst art theorists as to whether outline or colour was the predominant element in the pictorial arts. But my mind reverts to this quotation when thinking about the cathected attitude to lines, boundaries, and fences that is emblematic of the settler-colonial establishment in this country in both its agrarian and suburban contexts.' (Introduction)
Notes
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Epigraph: What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery, but the hard and wirey line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and intentions? Leave out this line, and you leave out life itself; all is chaos again …
–William Blake, Outline in Art and Life
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 3 Aug 2021 06:53:16
http://cordite.org.au/essays/the-stakes-of-settlement/
The Stakes of Settlement : Fences in Ned Kelly and Michael Farrell
Cordite Poetry Review
Subjects:
- Rabbit-Proof Fence 2002 single work film/TV
- The Jerilderie Letter 1879 single work correspondence
- Writing Australian Unsettlement : Modes of Poetic Invention 1796-1945 2015 single work criticism
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