Judith Wright Criticism
Judith Wright stands as a towering figure in Australian literature, renowned for her lyric poetry that captures the essence of the Australian landscape and cultural identity. Her work is deeply rooted in personal experience and intellectual engagement with both European and American literary traditions, which she intertwines with themes like humanity’s perception of time, reality, and the quest for permanence through love. As discussed in Poetry in Australasia: Judith Wright, her collection Woman to Man uniquely offers a female perspective on themes of love and creation, influenced by her formative years on a sheep ranch in New South Wales.
Wright's debut collection, The Moving Image, explores the mythic dimensions of the Australian environment, a theme she revisits in subsequent works. Her collections The Gateway and The Two Fires, noted in The Poetry of Judith Wright, mark a shift towards more metaphysical concerns, reflecting on human relationships with nature and existential themes. Her later works, like Phantom Dwelling, continue this evolution, characterized by a relaxed and often ironic style.
Critics have lauded Wright’s early poetry for its vivid conveyance of Australian life and distinctive female perspective, with notable praise from figures such as Vincent Buckley and Elizabeth Vassilief. However, her later works, scrutinized by Keeping the Home Fires Burning: Australian Poetry, Judith Wright, received mixed reviews due to their increased focus on metaphysical and political themes. Nonetheless, her engagement with issues like Aboriginal rights and environmental conservation, emphasized by critics such as Val Vallis and Margaret Gibson, showcases the depth of her thematic explorations and her evolving awareness of ecological and social issues.
Through her collections "Alive" and "Fourth Quarter," Wright further delves into environmental degradation and projects a nuanced vision of Australia's future, a direction praised by Peter Porter. Alongside her poetry, Wright has contributed significantly as a biographer, critic, and short story writer, cementing her status as a literary figure of international prominence. Her work continues to provoke critical engagement and admiration, reflecting a lifelong commitment to exploring the human condition and environmental consciousness.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Wright, Judith (Contemporary Literary Criticism)
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Doing Philosophy's Job
(summary)
In the following essay, Val Vallis commends Judith Wright's approach to poetry criticism for its emphasis on thematic depth over stylistic analysis, highlighting her conservationist philosophy and her skill in creating impactful imagery from everyday life, while addressing critiques of her work's perceived philosophical shift.
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Peter Porter
(summary)
In the following essay, Peter Porter argues that Judith Wright's recent poetry, particularly in "Alive" and "Fourth Quarter," navigates themes of environmental degradation and the inevitability of mortality, while also offering insight into the complex nature of Australia and its potential for an Arcadian future.
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Margaret Gibson
(summary)
In the following essay, Margaret Gibson examines Judith Wright's poetry as a testament to her dedication to celebrating life's wholeness, highlighting her connection to the Australian landscape and evolving awareness of environmental degradation, which is reflected in her lyrical expressions of unity amidst the dualities of human existence.
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Doing Philosophy's Job
(summary)
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Wright, Judith (Poetry Criticism)
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Poetry in Australasia: Judith Wright
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In this essay concerning Wright's Woman to Man, Lindsay asserts that Wright is the first woman poet to speak of love with a truly female voice.
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The Poetry of Judith Wright
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Here, Brissenden examines Wright's first three volumes of poetry. The critic praises many aspects of the poet's work, but worries that the metaphysical panderings in the third volume, The Gateway, denote a shift in Wright's focus, "away from the personal, the particular and the dramatic towards the abstract and the impersonal."
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Judith Wright's World-View
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In the following essay, Scott places the philosophical underpinnings of the poet's work within the context of a Platonic worldview, noting her dual views of nature: on one hand it represents the immediate world and worldly concerns, while on the other it symbolizes an unchanging cosmos that is sensed unconsciously and idealized as Eden.
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Keeping the Home Fires Burning: Australian Poetry, Judith Wright
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In the following essay, Fleming takes issue with the generally warm response Australian critics have given Wright's poetry. He methodically attacks both the 'content' and the 'form' of Wright's works, and decries what he terms her 'paucity of imagination.'
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The Later Poetry of Judith Wright
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Here, Wilkes defends Wright's third and fourth volumes of poetry, The Gateway and The Two Fires, contending that the two collections represent an expansion in Wright's poetry, an attempt "to reach beyond the immediate experience, to probe its significance." Additionally, Wilkes examines the significance of two later collections, Birds and Five Senses, in Wright's body of work.
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The Genius of Judith Wright
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Using his review of The Other Half (1966) as an occasion to write a retrospective of Wright's career, Ewers traces her development from regionalist to universalist, and concludes that she is a mystic with a poetic voice.
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Some Poems of Judith Wright
(summary)
McAuley was an Australian poet, critic, and educator who influenced his country's literature through his emphasis on traditional poetic forms and techniques and his opposition to the nationalistic tendencies of some Australian writers and critics, including those in the "Jindyworobak" movement that championed native Australian elements in the arts. In the following analysis of several of Wright's poems, McAuley studies both content and mechanics to contrast what he considers Wright's better poetry with her less successful work. He concludes that Wright's best poems are endowed with a consonance of form, content, and purpose that the others, while successful on certain levels, lack.
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The Crystal Glance of Love: Judith Wright as a Love Poet
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Here, Kohli contrasts Wright's work with the more overtly sensual poems of Indian poet Kamala Das. Kohli argues that words and communication have a higher value in Judith Wright's poetic vision of love than they do in the poetry of Das, whose emphasis on passion 'makes words irrelevant.' The critic also maintains that Wright's work depicts love as a source of contentment and completion.
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A review of The Double Tree
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In this review of Wright's retrospective collection The Double Tree, Pritchard notes an increasing flexibility in Wright's poetic tone, comparing her work to that of D. H. Lawrence and W. B. Yeats.
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Judith Wright and the Colonial Experience: A Selective Approach
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The following essay was delivered as a seminar in 1981. In this analysis, Janakiram examines and applauds Wright's struggle, in both poems and in life, to create a relationship 'to be won by love only' between the European settlers of Australia, the Aborigine population and culture, and the land itself. Janakiram maintains that Wright uses this relationship to achieve a true Australian identity, not as an exile or a conqueror, but as a native at peace in her homeland.
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Alive, Fourth Quarter and Phantom Dwelling
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In this excerpt, Walker argues that Wright's collections Fourth Quarter and Phantom Dwelling represent a growth in the poet's already estimable talent and vision. Walker contends that in these books Wright brings a variety of new influences and insights to bear on old themes, answering with clarity questions left open by old poems, and finding peace through reconciliation where once she found conflict.
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Poetry in Australasia: Judith Wright
(summary)
- Further Reading