AustLit

'During my last study stay in Australia in 1994 I got hold of two handsome newly published books of poems that caught my attention as a European scholar doing research "down under". These two books discussed here are: On the Move: Australian Poets in Europe (1992), edited by Geoff Page, and Changing Places: Australian Writers in Europe (1994), edited by Laurie Hergenhan and Irmtraud Petersson. They have attracted some criticism in Australia, but hardly so in Europe, where the poems are set. It seems to be our task, of us European literary critics, to amend this, which this paper sets out to do.' (Publication abstract)

'It is amazing to see just how much travel writing, writmg which does not exclusively belong to this sub-genre of "creative non-fiction", and also how many non-Australian settings with emphasis on European and Asian ones there are in recent contemporary writing. This fact certainly speaks about a certain preoccupation or downright trait in the Australian national character. Perhaps, it is a reflection of a particular condition of being down under, derived from "a tradition of colonialism and post-colonialism; from geographical location, both a deterrent and a spur; from post-Romantic literary tradition, coinciding with the early years of white settlement; and from the universal lure of ideas of travel, never more flourishing than at the present" (Hergenhan, Petersson xiii).' (Publication abstract)