Australian Literature

[old man emu]

How many of us have been inoculated with the viral Cultural Cringe? How many of us have been taught to believe that the only literary works produced in Australia, by Australians, were the poems and stories of Lawson and Patterson?

 

When even the gramophone and electric light are still novelties, how do you entertain yourself when the labours of the day are done? Apart from melody making on simple musical instruments, all you can do is read. In the 19th Century hundreds of authors in the Colonies wrote of their experiences, or created fictions to feed the extensive need to provide entertainment for their fellows. A lot of the books of fact, fiction and poetry would have been lost if not for something called "Project Gutenberg Australia", an arm of the worldwide Project Gutenberg which aims to digitise as much "out of copyright" printed matter as possible.

 

If you've got time to spare, have a look here to see written material from the first days of the Colony to radio plays of the 1950's. http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html

[Old Koreelah]

Thanks for that link, OME. I’ve bookmarked it for later reference. A valuable resource.

 

You’re right about the prodigious written output of our forebears, who had plenty to write about and fewer distractions than today.

My cousin’s Pop (who we all called Granfather Smith) wrote so many bush ballads that they filled a large book. Long after he left us, I had a vague ambition to turn some of his poems into song. That project was stymied by my total lack of musical talent and was shelved in favour of fast motorcycles and even faster women.

 

Hopefully those who come after us can still read and value these literary treasures. 

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

That project was stymied by my total lack of musical talent

It takes two to Tango. Look at the great lyricist/composers of the past: Gilbert & Sullivan, Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe, Trench & Hatch. You must preserve the lyrics and once that is done there are hundreds of composers to turn to for a tune. I have an old workmate who's a singer/songwriter. 

[onetrack]

One of the interesting areas is the amount of old bush poems that seem to have been never recorded, but which were just handed down from person to person.

 

My father worked in the station country of the Murchison in W.A. and used to recite quite a number of bush poems that I have never heard again, or read again, anywhere.

 

Unfortunately, I never took the time to get him to write down these poems, so they're lost for all time now, FWICS.

[Old Koreelah]

Just like our Indig people, what you learn in childhood stamps you with your culture.

Despite being raised a farm boy, I appeared a long-haired hippie student to my wife’s father. On one road trip together he started reciting Harry Dale the Drover and other bush verse, and was impressed when I could complete each poem.

[facthunter]

You were a Poet that didn't know et?  Nev

[facthunter]

I'm wracking my brain here. WAS there a poet about Lawsons's time named Dyson. These people used to put on Evenings in towns as they travelled around the Country.  Nev.

[onetrack]

Edward Dyson was a regular contributor to the Bulletin, and a reasonably prolific writer and poet. Whereas Lawson was regarded as the "Swagman Poet", Dyson was regarded as the "Miners Poet", thanks to his mining background.

 

The ongoing debilitation of the Spanish Flu hit him very hard, and coupled with an appendicitis operation, severely weakened him from his late 50's and he died relatively young at age 66. These events reduced his overall literary output.

 

Some of his poems verge on C.J. Dennis' style of slang, and many younger people today would be a bit flummoxed as to the meaning of many of the slang words in use in the late 1800's.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Dyson

 

http://www.public-domain-poetry.com/edward-dyson/fact-of-the-matter-4995

 

 

[Marty_d]

did Dyson suck?

[Old Koreelah]

Quite a few of us Old Farts are flummoxed by such an archaic word!

[facthunter]

Thanks muchly for that. My  source was from a german who would now be 130 if he  was alive and a  learned citizen of Wandiligong ( Just up the road from Bright, Fred Mommsen.  Nev

[old man emu]

10 minutes ago, Marty_d said:

did Dyson suck?

I've dried my hands with Dyson.

[old man emu]

17 minutes ago, onetrack said:

http://www.public-domain-poetry.com/edward-dyson/fact-of-the-matter-4995

Cop that, young Banjo!

[onetrack]

Even an old fart like me had to look up what a "pier-glass" was.

[old man emu]

It's a thing for introverts to look into, situated between things extroverts look out of.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I just love Banjo Patterson. Dyson may be correct, but I still like the Banjo. The man from Ironbark is still a favourite I can recite from memory.

My Auntie Pat, who was at school in 1930, never heard about australian poets at all, english poets were all they were allowed to read. 

 

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I just love Banjo Patterson.

Banjo was certainly more uplifting than that sad sack Lawson.

[facthunter]

You fella's must be pretty old if you know these things?  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

Sure am old Nev, I went to school in the 1950's. In 1959, as a year 9 student, I helped do did Mulga Bill's Bicycle at speech night... I was Mulga Bill.

My old schools ( Hartley st and Anzac Hill ) have both been demolished now....  that makes me feel old. The remains of Hartley st were a museum, maybe still are!

[facthunter]

59 is when  I was posted to Western Sydney  as a secondary teacher and first time away from home.  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

cripes nev, you are even older than me !

 

[facthunter]

Not a lot of us left. .    I must have started "infants" early as I was about a year ahead of where I should have been for my actual age. I was only about 18 months older than some of my students. I was only 18 when I graduated Teacher's College.  Nev

[spacesailor]

So, Who is the senior ,

Cripes , I hope not I .

I haven't got my L, s yet, for that Cirrus A22 .

Not to worry !

 There's heaps of licensed aviators here , When I need a chauffeur.  LoL

spacesailor

PS , my hair is thinning  & I sit longer than last year .

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon being younger than the rest of your class is a curse. An old teacher of mine ( a barossa german by heritage) was the dux of grade 4 and his father demanded and got him to miss grade 5 altogether. It ruined his enjoyment of school, he told me as an old man.

I was a bit the same, without being promoted through a year, most of the rest of the kids were a year older. The darker your color, the more likely you were to be older. Well I was smart enough, but I was a small kid,  always the last to be chosen for a sports team and the girls liked the big boys so I never had a girlfriend. Just being one year older would have been great for me.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

At least over 70 you are exempt from jury duty. And no one asks you to help move heavy things.