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Issue Details: First known date: 2004... 2004 Literary New Chums : Michael Wilding and Marcus Clarke
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Hergenhan's contribution to the Festschrift for Michael Wilding starts as a memoir, reminiscing about the mid-1960s when he and Wilding were colleagues at the University of Sydney. Both Wilding and Hergenhan were interested in a Marcus Clarke 'revival', and both did some critical writing on Clarke which, in Wilding's case, led to the significant monograph Marcus Clarke (1977). Hergenhan discovers an affinity between the two writers who both were expatriates from England having to make sense of the new environment in Australia, and who both were Australian as well as international writers. He argues that 'perhaps Wilding saw much of himself in Clarke' (226), and concludes:

'Clarke provided a literary model [for Wilding], a morale booster, and above all an analogue of a thoroughly professional writer, with a flexible, restless outlook, pursuing the new with the aid of the old, a young expatriate writer, beginning his acclimatisation but always nurturing his internationalism. ... Theirs is one of the most fascinating connections - of "imagined counterparts" - in Australian literary history' (232).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Running Wild : Essays, Fictions and Memoirs Presented to Michael Wilding David Brooks (editor), Brian Kiernan (editor), Sydney New Delhi : Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture Manohar , 2004 Z1139818 2004 anthology criticism biography short story essay

    From the editors' introduction: Michael Wilding, the distinguished teacher, critic and writer, retired in 2000 from his Personal Chair in English and Australian Literature at the University of Sydney. Two of his former colleagues, David Brooks and Brian Kiernan, have put together this Festschrift as a mark of honour to his brilliant career.

    A number of his colleagues and students have written about Michael's achievements as a scholar and critic in various fields, and many among them about his attendant interest in the politics of writing and criticism. These essays on a vast range of themes in English and Australian literatures (including the ones on Michael's own novels and short stories), some on European literature, and one on its interaction with Asian literature have been grouped together in broadly chronological sequence according to topic.

    The last section of this volume has essays on Professor Wilding's parallel career as a creative writer, fiction by some of the contributors and a variety of memoirs.

    Sydney New Delhi : Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture Manohar , 2004
    pg. 223-232
Last amended 6 Sep 2004 14:29:26
223-232 Literary New Chums : Michael Wilding and Marcus Clarkesmall AustLit logo
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