Harriet Edquist

Aspects of Theocritean Otium

The nature of Theocritean otium (hasychia) is not a new topic in the general field of Theocritean studies; sooner or later those critics who wish to come to terms with the poetic intent of the major Greek bucolic poet will have to arrive at some definition of the precise significance of that movement towards peace, harmony, and spiritual and intellectual fulfilment which provides the overriding impetus in pastoral. Rosenmeyer has done much, possibly more than most, towards a complete description of this ideal (yet enigmatic) state, and he is right, I think, to stress not only the centrality of otium to the bucolic Idylls (‘ Otium is a keyword in the discussion of the pastoral’), but the unmistakable Epicurean bias of the work. This affinity with certain fundamental goals of Epicureanism suggests that one is to regard otium as signifying a considerable amount more than that which can be deduced merely from the sum of its physical parts — shade, peace, music, sex. These aspects of existence are undoubtedly present in the poems, but ultimately they tend towards a definition of a more abstracted state, one which touches not simply pastores , Daphnis, and Lycidas, but the lot of man in general.

Towards a literary geography of the interwar Australian novel

This paper discusses the possibility of constructing a literary geography of twenty Australian novels published by writers from New South Wales between the Depression and the end of World War II. Using Franco Moretti’s approach that examines where action takes place in novels (Atlas of the European Novel 1800–1900, Verso, London and New York, 1999) it argues that in the Australian novels, action is confi ned to relatively few places. These are the city of Sydney itself, a few harbourside suburbs and the rural hinterland in the south and west of New South Wales. The paper further argues that each locale gives rise to its own characteristic action: the city is the space of political struggle, the harbour suburbs are places for refiection on the European colonisation of the land, and the hinterland is the place where white Australians wrestle with issues of national identity. It concludes by observing that the most striking quality of this geography is its partial nature in that it ignores suburbia, the urban condition that has defined Australian settlement since the nineteenth century.

Ghosts of the Past: Mapping the Colonial in Eleanor Dark’s Fiction

This paper examines Eleanor Dark’s fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, for what it tells us about literature, history and place. By attending to where action takes place in her novels we find a particular engagement with Sydney and its origins, as they are represented in the landscape, in urban form, in language and in maps. Dark’s constructs a literary map of Sydney in which the past sits beside the present, refusing to be silent, and this juxtaposition of past and present provides one of the most powerful tools for social and cultural critique in her work.

Precise and Imprecise Geographies in Christina Stead's Seven Poor Men of Sydney

Abstract This paper will examine the literary representation of space and place in Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), the first published novel of one of Australias foremost writers, Christina Stead. Seven Poor Men of Sydney is held to be one of the most accurate and vivid representations of Sydney in modern Australian literature, but by focusing attention on where action actually takes place in the novel, this paper argues for a more nuanced understanding of Steads literary geography. It shows how only a relatively small part of Sydney is actually described and how imprecisely described and vague locales occupy more textual space than the city itself, thereby throwing into contention accepted understandings of the relationship between Stead and her fictional settings.

Reading Modernity: Architecture and Urbanism in the Interwar Australian Novel

The capacity of literature to represent the problems and conditions of the modern city has been little explored by Australian architectural historians. When we seek to understand the discourse of the modern, twentieth-century city and its architectural legacies we tend to rely, understandably, on the utterances of architects and other designers; the novel is not a natural sourcebook. The argument put forward in this paper is that literature can provide us with insights into the Australian understanding of place and in particular, the city. It does so by an examination of a group of popular novels set in Sydney between the Depression and World War Two and mapping where action takes place in the narrative, drawing conclusions relevant not only to our understanding of literary geography but also to literatures construction of the city in crisis.