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y separately published work icon Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry multi chapter work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... 2013 Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Australian poetry is popularly conceived as a tradition founded by the wry, secular and stoic strains of its late-nineteenth-century bush balladeers Adam Lindsay Gordon, Henry Lawson and 'Banjo' Paterson, consolidated into a land-based 'vigour' in publications such as the Bulletin. Yet this popular conception relies on not actually consulting the poetry itself, which for well over one hundred and fifty years has been cerebral, introspective, feminine and highly — even experimentally — religious.

'Western Christian mystics and Western Christian mystical poets of the classical world, Middle Ages and modern era have been sources of inspiration, influence and correspondence for Australian poets since the writings of Charles Harpur (1813-1868), but there have also been ongoing debates as to how mysticism might be defined, whom its true exemplars might be, and whether poets should be considered mystical authorities.

'This book dedicates whole chapters to five Australian Christian mystical poets: Ada Cambridge (1864-1926), John Shaw Neilson (1872-1943), Francis Webb (1925-1973), Judith Wright (1915-2000) and Kevin Hart (1954 - ), with additional contextual chapters on their contemporaries and new approaches by Aboriginal poets since the early 1990s.

'Scholars and students are increasingly disregarding the popular 'bush' facade and reading Australian poetry in terms of the sacred, the philosophical, the contemplative and the transcendent. At a national level this can be traced back to the post-war and 1970s generations of poets and readers who rejected the safe old bush myths for a more relentless interrogation of Australian origins, environments and metaphysics. Yet internationally, as among the general Australian public, the very idea of an Australian Christian mystical poetry seems incongruous with a metaphysically weak bush tradition which asks very little of them.

'This book casts Australian poetry in a new light by showing how Australian Christian mystical poetics can be found in every era of Australian letters, how literary hostilities towards women poets, eroticism and contemplation served to stifle a critical appreciation of mystical poetics until recent decades, and how in the twentieth century one Australian Christian mystical poet began to influence another and share their appreciations of Dante, Donne, Traherne, Blake, Wordsworth, Brontë, Rossetti, Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot and Lowell.

'Despite parallel international works on British, American and European Christian mystical poets, there has never been a book-length exploration of Australian Christian mystical poets or poetics. This study draws upon eight years of research to not only consider debates around Christian mysticism during the lives of its selected poets, but to also frame its argument in terms of the twenty-first-century Christian mysticism scholarship of Kevin Hart, Amy Hollywood, Ursula King and Bernard McGinn's seminal multi-volume history of Western Christian mysticism, The Presence of God. Simultaneously, Australian literary criticism of the relevant eras as well as in the present are explicitly engaged throughout. This book is a rigorous work of original scholarship which will significantly impact future discussions on the possibilities of Australian literature.' (Publisher's description)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Amherst, New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Cambria Press ,
      2013 .
      image of person or book cover 4354488256754933017.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 294p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication Date: April 8, 2013
      ISBN: 9781604978445 (alk. paper)
      Series: y separately published work icon Cambria Australian Literature Series Susan Lever (editor), Cambria Press (publisher), Amherst : Cambria Press , 2008- Z1869108 2008 series - publisher criticism

      The Cambria Australian Literature Series focuses on critical studies of writing by Australians, with a particular emphasis on contemporary Australian fiction. In recent decades Australian fiction publishing has outstripped critical study, with the work of many important writers receiving little more critical attention than newspaper and journal reviews, with occasional articles in scholarly journals or collections by diverse critics. This series gives an opportunity for sustained consideration of a writer’s full career. In each book, an individual critic engages with the work of a writer, assisting other scholars, students and general readers in understanding its complexities. Each book seeks to find an appropriate, original and lively approach to the writer in question. In particular, the series places the writing not only within Australian culture but also in the context of international developments in the novel.

      Source: Publisher's website.

Works about this Work

Review : Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry. Nicholas Birns , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , June vol. 38 no. 2 2014; (p. 246-247)

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Review : Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Elaine Lindsay , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 2 2014;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Toby Davidson. Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Elaine Lindsay , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 13 no. 3 2013;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
[Untitled] Emily Sutherland , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 6 no. 1 2013;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
[Untitled] Emily Sutherland , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 6 no. 1 2013;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Toby Davidson. Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Elaine Lindsay , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 13 no. 3 2013;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Review : Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Elaine Lindsay , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 2 2014;

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Review : Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry. Nicholas Birns , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , June vol. 38 no. 2 2014; (p. 246-247)

— Review of Christian Mysticism and Australian Poetry Toby Davidson , 2013 multi chapter work criticism
Last amended 11 Jan 2018 09:08:02
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