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Rebecca McNeer Rebecca McNeer i(A77249 works by)
Gender: Female
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1 Introduction Nicholas Birns , Rebecca McNeer , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900 2007; (p. 1-13)
1 8 y separately published work icon A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900 Nicholas Birns (editor), Rebecca McNeer (editor), Rochester : Camden House , 2007 Z1433939 2007 anthology criticism 'Australian literature is one of the world's richest, dealing not only with "local" Australian themes and issues but with those at the forefront of global literary discussion. This book offers a fresh look at Australian literature, taking a broad view of what literature is and viewing it with Australian cultural and societal concerns in mind. Especially relevant is the heightened role of indigenous people and issues following the landmark 1992 Mabo decision on Aboriginal land rights. But attention to other multicultural connections and the competing pull of Australia's continued connection to Great Britain are also enlightening. Chapters are devoted to internationally prominent writers such as Patrick White, Peter Carey, David Malouf, and Christina Stead; fast-rising authors such as Gerald Murnane and Tim Winton; less-publicized writers such as Xavier Herbert and Dorothy Hewett; and on prose fiction, poetry, and drama, women's and gay and lesbian writing, children's literature, and science fiction. The Companion goes beyond Eurocentric ideas of national literary history to reveal the full, resplendent variety of Australian writing.' Source: www.boydell.co.uk (Sighted 08/10/2007).
1 'What Might Be True': The Diverse Relationships of Australian Novels to Fact Rebecca McNeer , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 18 no. 1 2004; (p. 68-71) McNeer examines some of the 'true lives' that have inspired Australian novels. Included in the list are William Bligh, bushrangers, pastoralists and entrepreneurs. McNeer concludes that 'Impatient for a sense of the past and tired of waiting for stories to arrive from the outside, Australian writers turned inward to historical characters and nonfiction techniques to invent their own.'
1 Happily Ever After: William Shakespeare's The Tempest and Murray Bail's Eucalyptus Rebecca McNeer , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 16 no. 2 2002; (p. 171-176)

McNeer compares elements of similarity in Murray Bail's Eucalyptus and William Shakespeare's The Tempest. McNeer particularly examines fables, fairy tales and mythic stories that may have been available to Shakespeare and, derivatively, influenced Bail. The characters of Miranda in The Tempest and Ellen in Eucalyptus are compared as are their respective fathers, Prospero and Holland.

McNeer concludes with a quotation from G. Wilson Knight's The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare's Final Plays (1965): 'It is, perhaps, inevitable that Shakespeare, so saturated with the spirit of his land, should, in such a summation of that work in The Tempest, have outlined, among much else, a myth of the national soul' (p.255). This parting comment, says McNeer, 'may provide the most profound connection of all between William Shakespeare and Murray Bail'.
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