AustLit

Dedication: I would like to dedicate 'Orpheus' to those few friends whose generosity and appreciation alone made its creation possible. It is only a partial repayment for so large a debt of gratitude, but my only means of expressing my thanks, especially to Dr and Mrs Alfred Conlon, Mr Russell Sinclair, and my mother, Mrs L. Langley, for the necessities of life; to Professor A. D. Hope and Mr J. P. McAuley for their encouragement and critical suggestions; and to Mr George Coulson, Professor Julius Stone, and Mr John Thompson for their efforts to have it published.

The more recent poems have been written partly under the patronage of a group of ladies of Wangaratta, Victoria; notably Mrs Jean Marks, who conceived the idea, and Mrs Helen Just, who carried it out; and to them I again express my gratitude, hoping that the results will prove some recompense.

Epigraph: Greek quotation from Themistius.

Michael Ackland comments: 'The collection opens with a twenty-seven-poem sequence reinterpreting the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to show, according to Stewart, the error of descending into the underworld beloved of psychoanalysis and the need for a superrational principle. Next come five poems grouped under the subheading 'The Myths', followed by five scenes from 'Landscape Roll'. 'Prelude: The Myths' offers a synoptic statement of contemporary attitudes toward myths, likened to 'cities that have lain/Buried beneath the conscious plain' awaiting resurrection by 'archaeologists of mind', or Apollo's guild: Myths are a never-empty urn Of meaning: the poets thence in turn Pour out the symbols that presage The rise or ruin of their age. The subjects of the remaining poems -- drawn from Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism -- are a testimony to Stewart's restless questing and to Traditionalist eclecticism, although much later he saw the poems as reflections of his engagement with the overarching tradition of Mahayana Buddhism.'