AustLit logo

AustLit

Bridget Grogan Bridget Grogan i(A144031 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 2 y separately published work icon Reading Corporeality in Patrick White’s Fiction : An Abject Dictatorship of the Flesh Bridget Grogan , Leiden : Brill , 2019 15911959 2019 multi chapter work criticism

'In Reading Corporeality in Patrick White's Fiction: An Abject Dictatorship of the Flesh, Bridget Grogan combines theoretical explication, textual comparison, and close reading to argue that corporeality is central to Patrick White's fiction, shaping the characterization, style, narrative trajectories, and implicit philosophy of his novels and short stories. Critics have often identified a radical disgust at play in White's writing, claiming that it arises from a defining dualism that posits the 'purity' of the disembodied 'spirit' in relation to the 'pollution' of the material world. Grogan argues convincingly, however, that White's fiction is far more complex in its approach to the body. Modeling ways in which Kristevan theory may be applied to modern fiction, her close attention to White's recurring interest in physicality and abjection draws attention to his complex questioning of metaphysics and subjectivity, thereby providing a fresh and compelling reading of this important world author.'
1 Homo Ferus : The Unification of the Human and the Environmental in David Malouf's An Imaginary Life Bridget Grogan , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Scrutiny2 , vol. 19 no. 2 2014; (p. 8-29) 'This essay presents a postcolonial, ecocritical reading of Australian author David Malouf's celebrated novel, An imaginary life (1978). By now an important name in contemporary postcolonial literature, Malouf has yet to be discussed as an author who attempts to explode both colonial and human-centred myths and tropes in a manner that promotes a linguistically sensitive, body- and nature-centred vision. As this essay will argue, Malouf's writing, in its critique of Enlightenment values that have led to the racial classification of humans and modernity's dismissal of the importance of the environment, advances a unique postcolonial and ecological aesthetic. One way in which An imaginary life interrogates Enlightenment values is through its interest in the figure of the “feral child”, a “discovery” or construction of the Enlightenment era itself. The term “feral child” derives from Linnaeus's category “Homo ferus”, appearing in the tenth edition of his Systema naturae (The system of nature). Classified alongside Linnaeus's racial human categories (like Homo Afer and Homo Europaeus), Homo ferus emerges concurrently with the colonial obsession with racial “otherness”. For Malouf, however, the feral human eludes the categorisation of taxonomy specifically and language in general: blurring the “human” and “nature”, it undermines the scientific classification of humankind, and without language, it embodies the possibility of human being-in-nature beyond the influence of symbolic enculturation. In An imaginary life, the wordless immersion of the feral child in the environment allegorises the novel's intention – to produce another form of language, a poetic, allusive language transcending classification and chronology, and enacting the unification of the “human” and the “natural”.' (Publication abstract)
1 The Cycle of Love and Loss : Melancholic Masculinity in The Turning Bridget Grogan , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Tim Winton : Critical Essays 2014; (p. 199-220)

Briget Grogan examines the complexities in Tim Winton's interrelated and thematically interwoven short story collection The Turning.
1 The Decorative Voice of Hidden, Secret Flesh: Corporeal Dynamics in Patrick White’s Fiction Bridget Grogan , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Literary Studies , vol. 30 no. 2 2014; (p. 1-19) 'With reference to Roland Barthes’s and Julia Kristeva’s observations on the bodily origins of language, this article argues that physicality is an important aspect, both thematically and stylistically, of the fiction of Australian Nobel prizewinner, Patrick White. Kristeva’s theory of the “symbolic” and “semiotic” aspects of signification, developed in her book Revolution in Poetic Language (1984), informs the argument that White’s writing emphasises a dualism of rationality and physicality at work within language and literature. Taking Kristeva’s observation that the “semiotic” or bodily aspect of language – evident in asymbolic poetic effects such as rhythm and rhyme – is comparable to music, the article explores White’s interest in music as expressed within his fiction. It argues, accordingly, that White’s frequent descriptions of music function as metatextual elements within his writing that draw attention to the materiality of language, the poetic dimension of his prose, and his association of representation with corporeality. Finally, in a reading of the short story “Five-Twenty”, from the collection The Cockatoos ([1974]1979), White’s interest in corporeal markings – which emphasise signification as bodily and corporeality as a language – is explored.' (Publication summary)
1 Incorporating the Physical Corporeality, Abjection and the Role of Laura Trevelyan in Voss Bridget Grogan , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Patrick White Centenary : The Legacy of a Prodigal Son 2014; (p. 63-81) ‘This essay argues that corporeality forms the focus of a close narrative attention and is ultimately granted a redemptive significance in Patrick White's fiction. The argument therefore opposes the opinions of critics who, at the height of critical interest in White's writing during the 1970s and 1980s, identified White's attention to the body as a sign of radical disgust and thus of a defining dualism that posits the 'purity' of the disembodied spirit in relation to the 'pollution' of the material world. Brian Kiernan, for example, read White's writing as presenting "the soul imprisoned in the corrupting flesh." (1976, 462) For Ron Shepherd, White's novels suggested that the "physical world and bodily existence" is a "facade which must be pierced by the deeper mind in order to arrive at a better understanding." (1978, 29) A.P. Riemer claimed that White's writing is "dedicated to the notion that the body, the flesh and the senses are utterly worthless." (1980, 26) ’ (Introduction)
1 Ladies and Gentlemen? Language, Body and Identity in The Aunt's Story and The Twyborn Affair Bridget Grogan , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 28 no. 3 2013; (p. 59-71)
1 Resuscitating the Body : Corporeality in the Fiction of Patrick White Bridget Grogan , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 3 2012; 'This essay argues that Patrick White's commitment to transcendentalism does not involve a dismissal or rejection of corporeality as critics in the past have maintained, but rather focuses on the dissolution of discursive subjectivity. It contends that White's writing in fact advances the ontological, ethical and metaphysical imperative of accepting the body, prioritizing moments of 'transcendence' that may be viewed productively as characters' engulfment within the material world. In its focus on physicality, White's fiction emphasizes dualism in order to problematize it, and even at times to subvert it. Crucial to this aspect of his fiction is his tendency to create characters exhibiting opposing attitudes towards the flesh. This essay explores the manifestation of these opposing attitudes within White's writing. Ultimately, it argues for a reading of White that is sensitive to the strong theme of corporeality in evidence throughout the oeuvre. It suggests that White's attention to the body assists in his rejection of hubris, repudiation, repression and abjection and promotes a human possibility defined by humility, simplicity, compassion and love.' (Author's abstract)
1 Abjection and Compassion : Affective Corporeality in Patrick White's Fiction Bridget Grogan , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Literary Studies , September vol. 28 no. 3 2012; (p. 93-115) This article argues that the seemingly disparate affective and corporeal sensations of abjection and compassion significantly inform the fiction of Australian modernist, Patrick White. Focusing in particular on White's early novel The Living and the Dead ([1941]1977), a work often sidelined in critical discussions of his writing, it maintains that the dialectical tension between abjection and compassion that fascinates White informs his representations (and troubling) of subjectivity from the beginning of his oeuvre. Accordingly, the article identifies the importance of corporeality within White's fiction, an aspect of his work that has often been occluded within critical readings committed to his transcendentalism. With particular reference to Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection and various recent theoretical conceptions of affect, it suggests that White's characters' sublime, recurring and transient forfeitures of identity may be profoundly imbricated with their surrender to - as opposed to their transcendence of - embodiment. Finally, the article argues that White's persistent elaboration of affect as corporeal suggests a physicality of literature that evokes the reader's own embodied sense of compassion. Altogether, the article explores the ways in which White's fiction reclaims a focus on corporeality that he perceived as lost to an inherently narcissistic modern consciousness (Author's abstract).
1 The Ayers Rock Experience : Reading to Recuperate the Lost in David Malouf's 'Mrs Porter and the Rock' Bridget Grogan , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 26 no. 1 2011; (p. 69-82)
X