Hope and McKellar

8/7/2019 Hope and McKellar

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AUSTRALIA

a sunburnt country


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AUSTRALIA

A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey

In the field uniform of modern warsDarkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws

Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

They call her a young country, but they lie:She is the last of lands, the emptiest,

A woman beyond her change of life, a breast

Still tender but within the womb is dry.

Without songs, architecture, history:

The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,

Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,The river of her immense stupidity

Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.

In them at last the ultimate men arrive

Whose boast is not: 'we live' but 'we survive',A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

And her five cities, like five teeming sores,

Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state

Where second-hand Europeans pullulate

Timidly on the edge of alien shores.

Yet there are some like me turn gladly homeFrom the lush jungle of modern thought, to find

The Arabian desert of the human mind,Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare

Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes

The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apesWhich is called civilization over there.


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Hope (1907-2000)


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Alec Derwent Hope was born in Cooma, NSW in1907.

He was educated at Sydney University and Oxford.When he graduated he was an English teacher inthe NSW school system and then became a lecturer

In 1968 he retired to devote himself to his writing.

Work is rich in biblical, literary and mythologicalallusions, but also is highly relevant to the time inwhich he lived.

His poetic voice is often witty, authoritative,

sardonic and satiric. Much of his work approaches modern life with

disdain although his stance softened in his laterwork.


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The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes.

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins,

Strong love of grey-blue distance

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold hush of noon.

Green tangle of the brushes,

Where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops

And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die -

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the Rainbow Gold,

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold -

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land -

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand -

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

MYCOUNTRY(1904)


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Mackellar (1865-1968)


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She was a third generation Australian. Her Grandparents arrived in Sydney, from

Scotland, on the 21st. May 1839.

Her education consisted of private tuition at home until she attended lectures at the

university.

Travelling overseas to countries such as England, Europe, America and the East, with

her family was also considered part of her education. Due to this exposure to

different cultures, she became fluent in many languages.

Family, country properties in the Hunter Valley, and near Gunnedah, were places she

loved to visit. The rural communities respected, and always considered the Mackellar

family to be generous to local needs. Dorothea was a proficient horsewoman, and was

proud of her ability to ride side- saddle, even in the rough country terrain. A story is

told of how, after a drought was broken, Dorothea danced barefoot in the rain.

Politics became a long- term interest. After 1902, women could vote in the New South

Wales state elections on equal terms with men. Her diaries record her interest and

concerns of that period, in particular, the discussion on the need for conscription in

the lead up to World War I.

Through out her life, even though an active interest in the community, politics and the

arts was maintained, there was always a deep concern for her family's needs as well.

She died at the age of eighty-two after suffering an extended period of ill health.

My Country is one of the poems better known by Australians. It was written by

Dorothea at the age of twenty-two while she was living in England, and missing her

home country, Australia.


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1. Annotate each poem.

2. Fill out the table considering the following:

How the Australian landscape represented in each poem. Give examples.

Identify poetic devices such as: sound effects (for example, alliteration andonomatopoeia); figurative language (for example, similes, metaphor,personification); and the use of rhyme and rhythm used to create images.

Consider the effect created by these techniques.

The context in which each of the poets was writing, and how that may besignificant for his or her representations, and also the factors that mightinfluence your own context and responses.

Similarities and differences exist in the two poems in terms of structure,style, and tone.

3. Write a paragraph comparing the two poems (200 words)

How do the poems My Country and Australia use descriptions of the

Australian landscape to construct representations of the Australian identity?


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Remember:Remember:Topic sentence: this answers the question in one basicsentence and outlines your reasons.

Body:

o State your firstpoint/reasono Give evidence from the poem

o Elaborate and explain the evidence

Concluding sentence: summarises the paragraph, links back

to topic sentence.

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Hope and McKellar

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Transcript of Hope and McKellar