Category: Literary Criticism

Critical analysis of books and short stories

Witchcraft: Salem in the 1690’s and Europe in the Middle Ages… Can we even compare the two?

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Watch this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpQGmy-pLRk about the most famous witchcraft trials of the history of the USA, dated from 1692. Which relations can you establish between the facts of Salem and the persecution of witchcraft that we have studied in this module? Discuss this question in the forum.

 

I’m not even sure how to begin a comparison of the witchcraft trials of Salem versus the persecution of witchcraft in the middle ages in Europe. The first thing that struck me was that Salem was a short, intense period of mass hysteria, utterly chaotic in its persecution of witches, while the search for witches in medieval Europe, while still cruel and ignorant, was more calculated.

In Salem, the accused could be found guilty simply by the accusations of their accusers, especially when “spectral evidence” was introduced. There was no way to refute these claims, so the accused were guilty without any sort of real proof. It was literally one person’s word against another, and the accused’s word had no value; they had no defense whatsoever. In medieval Europe, there was at least a chance of reprieve because the courts looked for “evidence”, especially if the interrogations were done by the inquisitors, rather than local courts. That, I suppose, is the similarity between the two. In European local courts, many more witches were accused and trialed because of small-town mentality, a sort of “mob mentality”, which is exactly what seemed to happen in Salem, a small town overtaken by mass hysteria and fear of one’s own neighbors.

While Europeans searched for witches to understand unknown tragedies, such as crop failure and infantile death (which was inevitable during those times), the people of Salem accused others of witchcraft, mostly out of spite against their neighbors, for revenge, and to further their own agendas. I could almost understand searching for a source to blame for tragedies that could not be understood at the time – we have done that for thousands of years through the concept of deities and such… but to accuse your neighbors of witchcraft to exact revenge for long-standing feuds – it’s just beyond my scope of empathy.

The accusations of witchcraft in medieval Europe were a way to eradicate paganism and any religion other than Christianity, and so started by the church but persecuted by the public and the secular courts mostly, such the witch hunts were started from above and prolonged by the proletariat. However, the afflicted in Salem appear to have behaved in outlandish ways, either to seek attention or for such intense fear of the devil in a severely strict religious society, by poisoning of fungus on rye (which I do think is a distinct possibility in some cases), or for revenge-filled purposes. The attacks started at the bottom, with public outcry, and spread like wildfire. The courts and the accusers all had something to gain, while the public itself was beset with terror at the thought of the devil among them or at being innocent and accused, punishable by certain death, except to claim guilt and name names, thus their lives be spared. I do believe that Mercy of Salem suffered from post-traumatic stress after seeing her entire family massacred, and then years later, hearing that the attacks had resumed nearby, thus she struck out at someone similar in features to those that killed her family and named him a witch. I have some sympathy for her alone. I don’t know what beset the original children, but I suspect a neurological or psychological disorder was at play.

There are some similarities between the two instances of witchcraft persecution, but so many differences in motive, time period, politics, beliefs, natural disasters, and deaths of unknown origin. It really is a Herculean task to compare the two; one could write an entire thesis on the subject or make it their life’s work, really, as I’m sure many historians do.

The Name of the Rose: Are all Inquisitors Created Equal?

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Watch the movie The Name of the Rose, based on Umberto Eco’s book and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. How is the inquisitor Bernard Gui characterized? Does it match the image of the medieval inquisitors as we have studied them in this unit? Explain why.  

 

First of all, The Name of the Rose was a fantastic movie, despite my doubts early on. I expected the film to center around Bernard Gui as the main character, but he did not make his appearance until the very end. Based on the limited scenes that Bernard Gui participated in, in conjunction with the evocative back story provided by William of Baskerville in his confession to his apprentice, Adso, Bernard was bull-headed and perhaps, intentionally ignorant, of the facts of the case. It was his way or no way – death to anyone who dared speak out against him. I think this characterization fits with how we think of inquisitors in modern society, but it is completely opposite of the medieval inquisitors’ characterizations, based on real evidence, that we have studied in this unit.

 

I was more moved by the mystery of the book and William’s quest to solve the crimes than I was impressed by the portrayal of the inquisitor. It seems William is much more suited to the characterization of the medieval inquisitors we have studied because he does not act irrationally – he does his job. This is my understanding of how medieval inquisitors were supposed to act, but as time went on, they became hard-pressed by their superiors to set examples and make people afraid of magic, with the intent that patrons would come whole-heartedly to Christianity and give up their old customs, which threatened the existence of a new religion. William reminded me of an early scientist, almost like Sherlock Holmes, in his dedicated search for clues to the many deaths. Bernard, on the other hand, took testimony (during obvious duress) and did no research to find the real reasons for the crimes. He just attributed them to witchcraft and nearly killed an innocent girl. (Spoiler Alert): The film portrayal suggests she survived somehow, so I’d like to believe that. I still wonder why that particular book, out of the many books that were banned from the Bible throughout time, held such importance. Surely other texts used humor, as well?

Magic in the Middle Ages: An Unexpected MOOC

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So, along with my “Shakespeare in Community” MOOC, I’ve also been taking a “Magic in the Middle Ages” MOOC. I expected the course to be, well, about magic. So far, this is not really the case. I imagine magic as faeries and nymphs and unicorns and all things whimsical and mysterious… Magic during the medieval period was not seen as such. It was full of mystery, sure, but it was feared by the new religion – Christianity, as it could undermine its authority. Thus, the parishioners of the faith were warned and scared into abandoning their charms and talismans, and most of all, to avoid those who practiced the “dark arts”. It was a progression, as at first, there was a difference denoted between good magic (to heal) and bad magic (to harm). However, this soon descended into all magic being regarded as the devil’s work. Witches and others associated with these magics were sought out by inquisitors, as well as local churches and the general public. This is a long and complicated history, and if you wish to pursue it further, I encourage you to take up a history or literature course of the time or to simply take the free MOOC at some point.

Nevertheless, I want to share my forum posts on here, as they do provide some insight into the period and my understanding of the topics. You may need background knowledge to appreciate the arguments presented, and if you like, you can watch the videos I’ll include as links to better give you a sense of what the heck I’m talking about. So far, I’ve written three forum posts for this course, and there shall be two to three more in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Shakespeare in Community: End of Course Self-Reflection

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Although I have yet to post reflections on Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest because I am still digesting the material and swirling it around in my brain, I have completed the “End of Course Self-Reflection” for Shakespeare in Community, which offers prompts to consider about the learning experience thus far. I’ve included these thoughts here, but check back for reflections and assignments specific to the last two plays of the course.

(Sneak peek: I shall write a passionately positive, biased, review on Joss Whedon’s version of Much Ado About Nothing starring Amy Acker as Beatrice and Alexis Denisof as Benedick… It is biased because I’ve held the director and actors in high regard for years, so I went into the film expecting greatness, and even my expectations were exceeded!)

Without further delay, I present my “End of Course Self-Reflection”:

“Reflect on your own encounters with Shakespeare during the second two weeks of this course. What new things have you learned about Shakespeare? What discoveries have you made? Consider also the challenges you’ve faced and how you worked to overcome them?”

The more I delve into Shakespeare, in this course and in the film and play adaptations, the more I come to appreciate, and dare I say, love it. The videos in the course and the posts for each play have been immensely useful to help me wrap my head around complicated plots, themes, and characters. Before, when I would seek out a production of Shakespeare, I would look for something that would be as similar to what I would see in Shakespeare’s time. That has its own value, of course, hence my enjoyment at watching random plays at Renaissance Faires, which are in true form to the 16th century (i.e. VERY interactive with the audience). However, it was my viewing of Much Ado About Nothing that completely swept me away. I was determined to see Joss Whedon’s version because of the director and the cast, particularly Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker. I knew, on that alone, I would enjoy the film. However, I was surprised that the adaptation was quite modern – I can’t even place it… 1920’s, perhaps? The modern adaptation and the decision to film in black and white took nothing away from Shakespeare’s original work, as I always suspected such adaptations would. I even related more to the characters, immersed myself in the plot, and troubled much less over the words. I shall not judge new versions of Shakespeare on their closeness to his original writing, as there are many versions of the “originals” as well, as I have learned in this course. My eyes have been opened to a whole new literary world!

“Write about the work you’ve done for this course. Include one or more links to examples of your work. (You can link to the work itself, if you shared it on the web, or to a Forum post or Facebook thread where you talk about the work.) Discuss the evolution of your work from the first half of the course to the second half. How were your encounters with the first two plays different from your encounters with the second two? Did your own work and responses to the plays also evolve? Link to a discussion forum (or one of your own posts) that felt especially rich to you. Feel free to cut and paste specific sentences, if there are lines you wrote that you’re especially proud of.

Consider your work on the final project. How did you tackle or adapt the assignment? How do you feel about your own accomplishment? Link to it here, if possible, or just talk about the choices you made.”

I feel, with each new assignment and reflection that I post on my blog, http://www.literaryfaerie.com, I come to understand Shakespeare a little better; I see past the words to the story, yet I appreciate the words on their own terms. For example, I found that I understand the whole of the work by watching it as a play or a film, which has helped me get beyond the words I struggle with. Yet, the assignments force me to look at the words and dissect them, study them, and see what jumps out at me. When I wrote a poem based on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which I posted to my blog, I first printed out many verses that stood out to me for certain words or their content, in general. I was more attracted to the phrasing of words than to some of the words themselves, so I played around with them. I used the phrasing, but out of context or said by different characters, to change their meaning, yet keep the lyricism. It was fun and quite the experiment. I’ve enjoyed looking at Shakespeare with fresh eyes, rather than just critically analyzing the literature, which I’ve also written on my blog for each play we’ve sampled and have done so in every study of Shakespeare throughout my schooling. I have been more excited for each activity and reflection as we have progressed into the course. The activities truly are experimental, which is what I strive to do in my blog – to travel outside my comfort zone to experience something new, for myself and for my readers. I have yet to tackle the final project. I am a bit intimidated because it is a video reproduction of one of our plays in some form, but I am also enthusiastic at the prospect. I know it will enrich my creativity even more so than this course already has. I will undoubtedly post it on my blog, http://www.literaryfaerie.com, as well as to my twitter account, @literaryfaerie. There are also links to my various assignments and thoughts on twitter, as well – some I’ve reshared with @hackshakespeare and/or #moocspeare, as a kind of quote from my blog tweet, but I have written original content on that twitter account, as well, so I can share my insights as they occur to me. This has been the most interactive course I’ve taken through Coursera, despite the lack of tests or required assignments and peer assessments. The freedom of expression for exploring Shakespeare is in stark contrast to the dreary study of it often found in traditional classrooms. I could not speak higher of my regard for this course.

“Finally, the questions that began the film series made for the course: Why do we need Shakespeare? What is Shakespeare for?

And the questions from the final film: Why do we need the humanities? What are the humanities for?”

As a student of the humanities, I find the second question easier to answer than the first, but I’ll give it a shot. We need Shakespeare like we need all great artists, whether they share with us the written word, an aesthetic for the eyes, or the sounds of a musician. Shakespeare commented on his everyday life, but he also wrote with themes that transcend time, characters that we can relate with to this day, and he wrote with beautiful prose, verse, and lyricism, which, albeit, may be hard to understand today because the language has changed as it always does, but it is worth the effort to hear the beauty in his words. There is more magic in those words than reading them on a page, and as a writer, I didn’t think I would ever admit that. The past few years, I have given more credit to other mediums than in the past. As a child, I valued the “book” over anything else. I still collect books of all kinds. Yet, plays have interaction — you are literally “there” with the actors — and films can provide special effects and scenery that we may not have even been able to imagine for ourselves. Films can transport us to other worlds because they are created by others — we see into the mind’s eye of our fellow human beings, more so than what our minds can conjure on their own. Everyone sees and observes something different in their surroundings because no one person’s perspective is the same, which is why literature and art can be interpreted in numerous ways. We interpret the world with the power of our past and the scope of our imaginations. We put our mark on this world in many formats, and there are infinite possibilities if we are willing to share our vulnerabilities and have courage. Shakespeare is an integral part of the humanities for his genius and his wit, no more or less so than Chaucer or Oscar Wilde or Sophocles or J.K. Rowling. They all add to our cultural understanding, our pure enjoyment, and our appreciation for life itself. We step outside our own little pedestrian world and follow some grand adventure, get our adrenaline running, and imagine what couldn’t be imagined. The humanities, and the arts in particular, have, in many ways, inspired science (think of all the advances made on account of science fiction), and science has brought us into a future, undoubtedly unbelievable to those of Shakespeare’s time. Yet, his themes ring true many centuries later, as I hope, artists of today can inspire future generations.

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Is NOT A Love Story

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Never before had I read or watched A Midsummer Night’s Dream until this morning. Despite some plot and theme preparation from my Shakespeare in Community MOOC, I still managed to hold onto preconceptions that a play about love and faeries would be, well, happy… and magical.

It took me a scene or two to familiarize myself with the characters, particularly because in this play, Puck was played simultaneously by a man and a woman (or so I suppose). While I was relegated to watch a movie version of Romeo and Juliet, I lucked out and found a theatrical production of MSND. In fact, the playbill read:

Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theatre presents William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Summer 2007 stage production featuring the music of Felix Mendelssohn.

With no surprise, the actors, the sets, and the accuracy of Shakespeare’s language were all of the highest quality. I could have been transported to the Globe Theatre in England, were I not aware of my surroundings. I imagined myself sitting in the theatre during a live performance, which was authenticated as audience members occasionally, unwittingly, stepped in front of the camera, thus momentarily obscuring my view. There was an unbearably long (mere minutes), and oddly placed, intermission, and the orchestra was brilliant. My “seat” was far closer than if I attended the performance in person, so YouTube does have its benefits.

The mechanics of the performance aside, the content of the play truly caught me off-guard. I had no prior exposure to this play in any entirety (not counting a Disney show’s parody, which, in hindsight, did not cast much light on the subject, now that I have seen the actual play), so I experienced every word, every action, every confusing and infuriating moment for the first time. These were fresh emotions and reactions to a Shakespearean play, which I have not felt in many years, since other Shakespearean works have reappeared often throughout my life.

For a play about love, and it is, sort of, in many varied forms, MSND has much hatred, callousness, whining, degradation, and scorn – and that’s before the faeries make their mischief! My utmost surprise came at the lack of love toward Hermia by her father, Egeus. He is despicable and treats his daughter like dirt. Meanwhile, Helena basically harasses Demetrius and even asked him to treat her as his dog (literally) if only he allowed her to love him. She is desperate and crass, loud and rude. After the night’s confusion, Demetrius does come to love her (probably by spell, but since he did mention that he loved her when they were children, it’s possible that his love still exists), yet Helena pulls him down the aisle and must keep his attention during their brief ceremony. It is quite painful to watch. Hermia seems a sweet spirit, with no obvious faults, yet she is repeatedly abused by all the mortal men, including her father and especially during Lysander and Demetrius’ duel. I believe she is the most deserving of the term “victim”.

Finally, to end a very odd play indeed, is the “play within a play”, which is the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed, even if it was meant to be a farce. I was put off by the harsh comments of the audience (particularly the Duke) made during the play, even criticizing the actors in earshot and to their faces. Was this the norm in Shakespeare’s time or was this of his own imagining? Hippolyta seems utterly disgusted with her “lover”, Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and rather annoyed at the whole process of betrothal. Her responses to her own wedding and general bitchiness make me want to reread some of my Greek mythology to see why she carries this attitude. Was she forced into the marriage? Of course, the play does not address this; in fact, the Duke and his bride are minor characters in terms of time on stage.

Watching the play in theatre format made me feel part of the performance, but movie versions do have their place – for one thing, the audience is less distracting. Either medium is an exceptional way to see one of Shakespeare’s plays come to life. As we discussed this week in my course, Shakespeare’s plays have been translated into many languages and people even watch them without speaking the language of the land, so my aversion to Shakespeare for not understanding the “King’s English” seems rather arbitrary. And yes, naysayers will emphasize that Shakespeare often wrote and “borrowed” stories that were based on others’ work, such as folklore and poetry, rather than write completely original content, but he made the stories his own, which is what any good writer does. (Lord of the Rings has many mythological references, as does Star Wars, because the themes transcend time.) He used his skillful language, but more than that, he brings these stories to the “Every Man” even today because all patrons of his art can relate in some way to the themes and the powerful emotions. If you can follow a play without understanding the language, then one must think this is due to brilliant acting, directing, and of course, playwriting.

Finally, note that while Romeo and Juliet begins with love and ends in tragedy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins with tragedy and ends in “love”, I would attest that truer love is present between Romeo and Juliet, and the real tragedy lies in the seemingly happy, yet blissfully ignorant, lives of the newlyweds, and even more so, the adulterous Faerie Queen and the spiteful Faerie King.

*As quoted by the director of the production, Joshua Randall, in regard to Puck: “We thought of them as two halves of the same Puck rather than two Pucks. The main reason was because we wanted Puck to be able to explicitly express both female and male characteristics. Since the character of Puck is somewhat androgynous, many modern productions choose to have Puck played by a woman. However, in this production we were highlighting the gender roles and therefore did not want to choose only male or only female characteristics for Puck.”

Discovering the Joy of Shakespeare, or For the Love of Romeo and Juliet

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I’ve been studying Romeo and Juliet for some time now. Of course, I know the main plot points – it’s been parodied countless times in countless art forms, and I read the play, with much instruction, during my freshmen year of high school. Yet, as I took up the book again, I found myself stymied by the language. I could not behold the grandeur of the vocabulary, as so many fans of the Bard seem to attest. As someone with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Asperger’s, whenever I read anything – whether intellectual or not, I reread each sentence at least twice, sometimes more. This makes me a slow reader, but an excellent analyst of literature. However, when trying to understand the whole of a Shakespearean work, one cannot just concentrate on the meaning of every single word. Looking at footnotes and dictionaries frequently while attempting to read the play disrupts the natural rhythm of the play.

Sure, for intensive study of Romeo and Juliet, or any other play by any other playwright for that matter, understanding the nuances of the language, the double meanings, or the lost meanings from Elizabethan times to our own, is essential. As I’ve learned in my Shakespeare in Community course, this understanding likely came naturally to the original audiences of Shakespeare’s plays. Language is fluid, though; it changes with each generation. Reading work that may be a hundred years old, or 600 years old, or one thousand years old is like reading a different language. One studies the grammar and syntax of a foreign language, immersing oneself in the culture and spoken words, before one has enough mastery to read a book in that language and understand it as second nature.

As a writer, I was determined that I should read this play, rather than watch the play performed, as if that was somehow cheating. But I was so fixated on every word I didn’t understand, I was getting nowhere fast. Finally, I relented. I watched the 1976 version of Romeo and Juliet. Immediately, I saw and heard things that I just couldn’t pick up by reading. I love literary analysis and enjoy it immensely, but how can I analyze something I don’t fundamentally understand at its core. I only knew this play as if looking through tiny peepholes in a fence, missing the wholeness of the work. Shakespeare is a different language to me: I needed to watch the reactions of the characters, their movements, their facial expressions; I needed to hear the laughter (I never knew there was so much joviality in the first acts! I read those lines as stoic, not recognizing a goodhearted jest between friends) to appreciate the story behind the words. It was as if watching and listening to the action without focusing on understanding every word provided me with subtitles to each scene, allowing me not only to get the gist of what was happening, but also to finally hear those beautiful, passionate, unbridled words. The play came alive! With whispers and shouts and declarations of love, crying vehemently and vows of rage-filled revenge – I couldn’t insert these emotions into my reading because I was hung up on just understanding the vocabulary.

Now, for the first time, I observed Romeo, Juliet, and their family and friends as teenagers. The duels between Mercutio and Tybalt were most likely caused by the hormones coursing through their bodies, coupled with the feud between the two houses that those boys may not have even fully understood. While Mercutio antagonizes, Tybalt remains bull-headed. Blows were bound to be had, but over-zealous teenagers armed with weaponry, and it’s no wonder that disaster struck. I was more drawn in by the injustice and the sadness of young life lost during senseless battles than I was by the love and lust between Juliet and her Romeo that intensified as each act progressed. Only as I watched them kiss passionately before their wedding ceremony did I realize how in love they were. Until then, I only saw Juliet as a child of 14 – naive, willing to do whatever her mother asked of her, sweet and innocent. Romeo and Benvolio tried to keep the peace among the houses, but alas, poor Romeo was bested by circumstances (and Tybalt’s bull-headedness). This is not the play I read as a 14 year old, focused on these weird, outdated words and listening to lectures just to understand what this darn story was about.

Shakespeare was a playwright. His works are meant to be performed in the theatre. I love books in all their glory, but now I will approach plays as plays and not as books. The message seems to get lost in the translation.

Critical Analyses of various Australian Literature works

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Hello again,

It has been quite some time since I’ve dedicated myself to updating this blog, as I’ve been rather busy developing my new business. I have started taking free Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs, as they are commonly referred to), and this has given me an outlet for learning and writing, which I have sorely missed.

The following analyses are in response to a peer assessment from my “Australian Literature: A Rough Guide” course (of which the deadline has now passed, so I feel free to post my “answers” publicly). I included the prompts because these topics were not of my own brilliant choosing, but they are nonetheless thought-provoking.

This was an exercise in brevity, as I had to objectively analyze rather dense and important national and cultural writing in less than 200 words! A stretch for me, as I tend to lean toward the side of verbosity. I think the end result came out quite well. I will not post summaries of the works cited because it would be far too long and tedious a task, but most of the literature can be found online or bought for a reasonable price. The works I have chosen are well worth the read, as are many other Australian pieces!

Just a side note: These views are my own. While you may take from them concepts, ideas, and curiosity (which I hope you do!), you may not take from them literally. You should form your own opinions of the pieces. In other words, PLEASE DO NOT PLAGIARIZE.

Australian Literature: A Rough Guide

Peer Assessment

1. Choose a specific passage of text from week 1 – it doesn’t matter how long – and describe how you think it constructs a locale or place.

*Instructors’ Notes: “How do you feel it?” Construction is demonstrated via imagery, description, feeling, narrative, etc.

Tim Winton’s In Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir was my first sampling of Australian literature, and I was surprised by how vividly he constructs place through narrative. He speaks of Australians as “surrounded by ocean and ambushed from behind by desert – a war of mystery on two fronts.” The language, “surrounded”, “ambushed”, “war”, invokes feelings of fear, especially as he laments on our lack of control over either: “…we cannot subdue or comprehensibly understand…” His line, “The desert is a spiritual place… and the sea the mere playground of our hedonism,” gives an exaggerated sense of the people’s thoughts who call this place home, and furthers our understanding of Australia – and Australians – as wild and untamed by his passage, “Nowhere else on the continent is the sense of being trapped between sea and desert so strong as in Western Australia.” Without resorting to simple descriptive prose of the landscape, at least until page three, Winton has already given us a glimpse of life in Australia through his powerful selection of language: Australia is rough and wild, and the expanse of the land and sea is contrasted against the narrow living space on the beach, the only habitable place – the “edge.”

2. What was the most interesting perspective on injustice that you encountered in the readings for week 2? Refer to any or as many texts as you wish.

*Instructors’ Notes: What was new or different to you in terms of injustice? What surprised you? What was new to your sense of literary elements, for example: how it’s different in its method of communicating the content?

The most interesting perspectives on injustice were in the contradictions; we tend to think of justice as straightforward, but in two particular texts, “For the Term of His Natural Life” by Marcus Clarke and “A Convict’s Tour to Hell” by Francis Macnamara, justice – and therefore injustice – is framed by the individual, whether ‘lawman’ or ‘convict’, or even the outsider, Mrs. Frere. In Clarke’s work, these two viewpoints are contrasted heavily. While Mrs. Frere and the convicts see the torture of these men and boys as cruel and unnecessary, the keepers of justice, Maurice Frere and Captain Burgess, view their treatment as deserved. Even in the extreme, as in ‘One Hundred Lashes’ or in the jumpings-off to which Mrs. Frere became exposed, the men are convinced they aren’t to blame. Likewise, it is this reversal of roles present in “A Convict’s Tour to Hell” where good versus evil, just versus unjust, are called into question. We find that the men charged with keeping order in life are tortured in Hell for their tyranny, and the convicts, so abused in life, are free to ascend to Heaven – their petty crimes assuaged by their gross mistreatment.

3. Week 3 focused on stories that all had some relation to history. How important do you think historical reality is for the literary imagination? Present your view by referring to any or as many texts as you wish (from any week).

There’s always an inevitable bias by the writer or by those in power, so historical accuracy is often blurry, at best. Perhaps not as important as the actual details or accounts are the concepts, feelings, and emotions in the context of an event. For example, consider Ned Kelly as a legend versus a historical figure. From the outset, he is wrongfully accused, so his personal history isn’t based in reality. The only accounts of Ned Kelly that can truly be seen as historically valid are his letters, such as “The Jerilderie Letter” (which still undoubtedly contains certain bias), but the legend of his injustice takes precedence over historical accuracy. For example, Peter Carey’s “The True History of the Kelly Gang” is largely speculative, though his work is based on real people and true events. Clarity is key: whether a text is based on real events with fictional characters, completely imagined or biased intentionally to exemplify a theme, a text which contains historical figures but may intentionally or unintentionally be historically inaccurate, or as accurate as possible, such as the field journals of early explorers. Otherwise, the reader is misled in knowledge and may even feel betrayed.

4. Compare two different versions of ‘home’ in Australian Literature that you encountered in week 4. Refer to more than one text.

*Instructors’ Notes: Make a comparison by geographical context or descriptive elements or family obligations, etc.

I find it intriguing that two writers have such contrasting views of their homeland’s habitability, and which they prefer: the interior or the coast. For A.D. Hope in “Australia”, the writer finds that “…her five cities, like five teeming sores… each drains her… where second-hand Europeans pullulate… on the edge of alien shores.” He compares the coastal cities to Europe, with “… the chatter of cultured apes/Which is called civilization over there,” viewing them as devoid of spirit. Hope finds solace in “The Arabian desert of the human mind,/Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come.” On the other hand, Christina Stead’s “For Love Alone”, particularly ‘Sea People’ insists “There is nothing in the interior…” She refers to the “endless dust” and “the salt-crusted bed of a prehistoric sea”. However, her description of the coast is rather picturesque: “The skies are sub-tropical… suns and spirals… a reflection of the crowded Pacific Ocean, with its reefs, atolls, and archipelagos. It is a fruitful island of the sea-world…” Although Teresa leaves Australia for Europe, she recognizes that Australians are born of water, “…‘Men of what nation put you down – for I am sure you did not get here on foot?’”