The Nineteenth Century

Early attempts at producing literary works were rather gentrified, written in the English style for an English audience. A good example is the work of W. C. Wentworth, author of Australasia, an Ode (1823), which is minor and imitative. During the next few decades Australian writers began to discover at least their subject, if not yet their voice, with the interpretive nature poetry of Charles Harpur (1813-68) and Henry Kendall (1839-82) and with the novels of Henry Kingsley (brother of Charles Kingsley), who wrote about pioneer life. The bush ballad, begun by Adam Lindsay Gordon, flowered in the work of Henry Lawson (1867-1922) and A. B. ("Banjo") Paterson (1864-1941), whose Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (1895) includes the famous song "Waltzing Matilda."

Convict life was depicted in Henry Savery's Quintus Servinton (1830), but it was not until almost a century after the first prisoners arrived that they received their due, in Marcus Clarke's classic account of life in a penal colony, For the Term of His Natural Life (1874). Less powerful, but true to life in the bush, were the novels of Rolfe Boldrewood (pseud. of Thomas A. Browne) and James Tucker, whose Ralph Rashleigh (1844) was the first book to focus on Australia's unique combination of prison life, aborigines, and bushrangers. Other important 19th-century novelists were Miles Franklin (1879-1954), whose My Brilliant Career (1901) is often designated the first authentically Australian novel, and diarist-novelist Tom Collins (pseud. of Joseph Furphy, 1843-1912). Poets of note include Hugh McCrae (1876-1958) and Dame Mary Gilmore (1865-1962).

The Twentieth Century

The increasing industrialization of the early 20th cent. rendered the pastoral nature of most Australian literature anachronistic. The present century eventually produced greater sophistication and diversity among writers. Probably the most important Australian writer of the early 20th cent. was Henry Handel Richardson (pseud. of Ethel Richardson Robertson), whose autobiographical trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney (1930), presents a compelling portrait of Australian life. Richardson's reputation was matched at mid-century by Patrick White whose strong, somber novels, Australian in setting yet universal in theme, reveal the author's ambivalence toward his native land; White received the Nobel Prize in 1973.

Other notable 20th-century novelists are Brian Penton, Leonard Mann, Christina Stead (only one of whose novels is actually set in Australia), Arthur William Upfield (1888-1964), John O'Grady, Morris West, C. J. Koch, Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally, the aborigines Colin Johnson and Alexis Wright, and the Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan. After emigrating to Australia in 1950, the English novelist Nevil Shute subsequently produced novels with Australian settings and themes. Remarkably, in a nation with such natural and human wonders, there has not yet been a major Australian poet. Current claimants, however, include R. D. Fitzgerald, Kath Walker, Judith Wright, J. P. McAuley, Kenneth Slessor, Vance Palmer, and Chris Wallace-Crabbe.

The aborigines have an intricate classification system that defines kinship relations and regulates marriages. The Kariera, for example, are divided into hordes, or local groups of about 30 people, which are divided into four classes, or sections. Membership in a section determines ritual and territorial claims. In half of the hordes the men are divided among the Karimera and Burung sections; in the other half they are divided among the Palyeri and Banaka sections. These sections are exogamous, and rules of marriage, descent, and residence determine how these sections interact: Karimera men must marry Palyeri women, and their children are Burung, and so on. Sons live in the same hordes as their fathers, so the composition of hordes alternates every generation. The complex system, by requiring each man to marry a woman from only one of the three possible sections, fosters a broad network of social relations and creates familial solidarity within the horde as a whole. Aborigines maintain elaborate systems of totemism (the belief that there is a genealogical relationship between people and species of plants or animals). They see the relationship between totemic plants and animals as a symbolic map of the relations between different people.

Contact with British settlers, beginning in 1788, initially led to economic marginalization, a loss of political autonomy, and death by disease. So-called pacification by force culminated in the late 1880s, leading to a massive depopulation and extinction for some groups. By the 1940s almost all aborigines were missionized and assimilated into rural and urban Australian society as low-paid laborers with limited rights; many aborigine children were taken from their natural parents and given to foster parents to promote assimilation.

In 1976 and 1993 the Australian government enacted land-rights legislation that has returned to the aborigines a degree of autonomy, and court decisions in 1992, 1996, and 2006 have recognized aboriginal property and native title rights. The recent increase in aboriginal population reflects improved living conditions and a broad and inclusive definition of aboriginal identity on the part of the government. Their average standard of living and life expectancy, however, are not comparable with that of most Australians. In 1999 the Australian government issued an official expression of regret for past mistreatment of aborigines but, concerned that it would encourage claims for compensation, did not issue the formal national apology sought by aboriginal leaders until 2008, when the government was led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Bay of the Indian Ocean, southern Australian coast. Its generally accepted boundaries are from Cape Pasley, Western Australia, to Cape Carnot, South Australia—a distance of 720 mi (1,160 km). The head of the bight abuts on the arid Nullarbor Plain and is bounded by cliffs 200–400 ft (60–120 m) high. Near Eucla on the bight's shores is the Nuytsland Reserve. Lying in the track of the winter western winds, the bight has a reputation for storms and rough seas.

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Variety of football played between two teams of 18 players. The field is oval, 145–200 yd (135–185 m) long, with four goalposts at each end. A six-point goal is scored when the oval ball is kicked through the two central goalposts. A one-point “behind” is scored when the ball is kicked over the behind line extending between the central and outer goalposts. The game's finest spectacle is the “mark” in which competing players leap, sometimes riding on the back of an opponent, in order to catch the ball directly from the kick of another player. The player making such a catch is awarded a mark, an unhindered kick from behind the spot of the catch. The sport was developed in Melbourne. The Victorian Football League was established in 1896 as the first professional league. It was renamed the Australian Football League in 1990 to reflect the addition of franchises outside of Victoria state.

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Group of perhaps as many as 500 languages spoken by the 300,000 to 1,000,000 native inhabitants of Australia before the beginning of European conquest in 1788. More than half are now extinct; of the remainder, only about 20, mostly in the North Territory and northern Western Australia, remain in active use by both adults and children. Most Australian languages belong to a single superfamily, Pama-Nyungan, and the remainder, a very diverse group of languages spoken in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and parts of the North Territory, may be remotely akin to Pama-Nyungan.

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Public university in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Founded in 1946, it originally offered only graduate programs. Undergraduates were first admitted in 1960, and today the university offers a wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs. Affiliated with the university are research schools of medicine, physical and biological sciences, social sciences, and Pacific studies.

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Political entity (pop., 2006: 324,034), southeastern Australia. A capital territory was mandated by the 1901 Australian constitution; the site was chosen in 1908. It lies within New South Wales and consists of Canberra and the area around Jervis Bay. Parliament moved there from Melbourne in 1927. In 1989 the Territory received responsibility for self-government similar to that held by Australian states.

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Leading ballet company of Australia. It was sponsored in 1962 by art patrons interested in promoting a national ballet. Peggy van Praagh was the first artistic director (1962–74). Since 1965 the company has toured Europe and North America.

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Mountain range, southeastern Australia. The mountains form the southern end of the Great Dividing Range and the watershed between the headstreams of the Murrumbidgee River and the rivers flowing south to the Pacific Ocean. The highest peak is Mount Kosciusko. The valleys of the Australian Alps have been used for grazing, while the highlands have seen scattered mining ventures.

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