Above and Below

doi:10.1017/9781009470186.008

4 - Above and Below

Sublime and Gothic Relations in Nineteenth-Century Australian Poetry

from Part II - Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2024

Michael Farrell

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Ann Vickery

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Ann Vickery: Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria

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Summary

This chapter considers how nineteenth-century poetry in Australia adapted European conceptualisations of the sublime and the gothic to articulate a literal inability to settle on the land. It argues that settler poetry has a difficulty with being grounded: its representations have a tendency to hover, sublimely, above the surface of the earth; or, if forced under, they refuse to simply die: but live on, as gothic, revenant, voices. It draws on popular and canonical examples like A. B. (Banjo) Paterson’s “The Man from Snowy River” and “Waltzing Matilda,” Adam Lindsay Gordon’s “The Sick Stockrider,” and Mary Gilmore’s “Old Botany Bay,” as well as examples that have been sourced from historical archives.

Keywords

Sublime Gothic settler colonialism nineteenth-century literature

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry , pp. 73 - 88

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

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4 - Above and Below

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