Charles Harpur Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Uli Krahn

Critical Essay by Uli Krahn

SOURCE: Krahn, Uli. “‘How Nourishing Is Nature’: Imaginary Possession of Landscape in Harpur and Skrzynecki.” Southerly 60, no. 3 (Winter 2000): 29-38.

In the following essay, Krahn explores the techniques that Harpur and Peter Skrzynecki employ to express ownership of the culture and landscape of Australia.

Notions of place have been central in the cultural self-definition of settler colonies like Australia, since difference in place is the most visible marker distinguishing the colony from the imperial motherland.¹ In Australian literary discourses, place is very much tied up with landscape, presumably as difference in landscape foregrounds the distinguishing difference of place.² Landscape is thus used to emphasise the distinctiveness of Australia, from earliest colonial writings to the present day discourses of nationalism, literature and tourism. As landscape is supposed to define Australia, it is by extension used to define true Australianness. One of the most poignant metaphors of this long-standing belief...
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