The Aborigine in Nineteenth-Century Australian Literature | J. J. Healy (essay date 1972)
J. J. Healy (essay date 1972)
SOURCE: Healy, J. J. “The Treatment of the Aborigine in Early Australian Fiction, 1840-70.” Australian Literary Studies 5, no. 3 (May 1972): 233-53.
[In the following essay, Healy surveys mid-nineteenth-century portrayals of Aborigines in Australian fiction, suggesting that the most impressive of these can be found in Charles de Boos's 1867 novel Fifty Years Ago.]
In his Impressions of Australia Felix … Richard Howitt attacked the credibility of ‘Whited Sepulchre Emigration Books’. He expanded his comment:
Truth is unaccommodating—a stately walker on highways—not permitting any of that wandering in by-paths. … Fiction, like the Pope, is more liberal of her indulgences; any exaggeration is by her permitted for effect. Hers is the whole wealth of light and shade—the fine free hand, and the masterly touch. The hard outline softens before her; the formal relaxes; and...
[The entire page is 10559 words long]
Navigate
