Bibliography

Walker, Shirley. Judith Wright. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Primary and secondary bibliography extensively covering the years 1925 through 1979, and partially covering 1980. Critical material is subdivided into the following categories: books and theses, general articles, lectures and verse; shorter references; brief notes; and specific review.

Biography

Smith, Graeme Kinross. "Judith Wright 1915–." In Australia's Writers, pp. 289–96. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson Australia, 1980.

Biographical consideration of Wright's poems and politics.

Criticism

Bennett, Bruce. "Judith Wright, Moralist." Westerly, No. 1 (March 1976): 76–82.

Examines both Wright's poetry and prose to expose the "unifying principle of love … as the basis of a constructive and life-enhancing moral outlook."

——. "Judith Wright: An Ecological Vision." In International Literature in English: Essays on Major Writers, edited by Robert L. Ross, pp. 205–21. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.

Traces the recurring themes of conservation and ecological responsibility through the entire body of Wright's work.

Brennan, G. A. "The Aborigine in the Works of Judith Wright." Westerly, No. 4 (December 1972): 46–50.

Considers the attitudes Wright expresses in her writings toward Australia's Aborigines and white European settlers. Brennan concludes that those of Wright's poems that focus on the tragic events of the past do so not with a tone of condemnation toward the pioneers, but with a sincere lament for the passing of the Aboriginal culture.

Buckley, Vincent. "The Poetry of Judith Wright." In Essays in Poetry: Mainly Australian, pp. 158–76. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1957.

Echoes the widely held perception that Wright's The Gateway, is an inferior follow-up to her first two collections of poetry, placing at least some of the blame on the overzealous acclaim given to those earlier volumes; nonetheless, Buckley argues that her place in literature is secure.

Dowling, David. "Judith Wright's Delicate Balance." Australian Literary Studies 9, No. 4 (October 1980): 488–96.

Outlines the constant concern with duality and reconciliation of "the basic dichotomies of human existence" that dominates most of Wright's poetry.

Heseltine, H. P. "Wrestling with the Angel: Judith Wright's Poetry in the 1950s." Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature 38, No. 2 (June 1978): 163–71.

Highlights the use of Old Testament imagery in Wright's earlier poems.

Higham Charles. "Judith Wright's Vision." Quadrant V, No. 2 (Autumn 1961): 33–41.

Strives for a fresh look at Wright's first four collections of poetry, asserting as many others do, that Wright's talent is made most evident in her first two collections.

Hope, A. D. Judith Wright. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Overview of Wright's career.

Kramer, Leonie. "Judith Wright, Hope, McAuley." The Literary Criterion XV, Nos. 3–4 (1980): 83–92.

Attempts to place Wright, Hope, and McAuley within a modernist framework, while contrasting Wright's lack of "interior conflict" with the despair and "radical disquiet" of the other two poets.

McAuley, James. "Judith Wright." In A Map of Australian Verse: The Twentieth Century, pp. 160–77. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Includes an introduction by McAuley, as well as excerpted commentary from other critics, and several of Wright's poems printed in full.

Mares, F. H. "Judith Wright and Australian Poetry." Durham University Journal 19, No. 2 (March 1958): 76–84.

Compares Wright's use of her Australian background to Dylan Thomas's synthesis of his Welsh experiences.

Moore, T. Inglis. "The Quest of Judith Wright." Meanjin 17, No. 3 (Spring 1958): 237–50.

Analysis of Wright's third book of poems. Moore asserts that the poet's desertion of metaphysical themes for social and personal ones is accompanied by a use of allegories in place of symbols she had earlier utilized.

Scott, W. N. Focus on Judith Wright. St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1967.

Chronicles Wright's life and works through the mid-1960s.

Strauss, Jennifer. "Modulations of High Seriousness: The Later Poetry of Judith Wright." In STOP LAUGHING! I'M BEING SERIOUS: Three Studies in Seriousness and Wit in Contemporary Australian Poetry, pp. 1–29. North Queensland, Australia: James Cook University Foundation for Australian Literary Studies, 1990.

An examination, in particular, of the tone of Wright's poetry.

Sturm, Terry. "Continuity and Development in the Work of Judith Wright." Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature 36, No. 2 (June 1976).

Places Wright's work within the Romantic tradition of the "visionary poetry [of] Blake, Shelley and Yeats."

Tatum, Stephen. "Tradition of the Exile: Judith Wright's Australian 'West.'" In Women, Women Writers, and the West, edited by L. L. Lee and Merr Lewis, pp. 233–44. Troy, N.Y.: The Whitston Publishing Company, 1979.

Contrasts the use of frontier imagery in Wright's poems with non-Australian literary frontier images, particularly of the American West.

Walker, Shirley. "Judith Wright's Linguistic Philosophy—'It's the word that's strange'." Australian Literary Studies 8, No. 1 (May 1977): 7–15.

Explores Wright's use of language, primarily as a symbolic tool to "fuse factual experience and its emotional significance."

Wright, Dorena. "Judith Wright Brother and Sisters, Old Man, Two Old Men." In Australian Poems in Perspective: A Collection of Poems and Critical Commentaries, edited by P. K. Elkin, pp. 141–59. St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1978.

Analysis of three of Wright's character poems.

Wright, Judith. "A Statement at Writers' Week." Overland, No. 89 (October 1982): 29–31.

Assesses the role of the writer as spokesperson for political and social causes.

Zwicky, Fay. "Another Side of Paradise: A. D. Hope and Judith Wright." Southerly 48, No. 1 (March 1988): 3–21.

Compares two of Australia's most popular native poets, centering specifically on their treatments of Eden as metaphor and attributing their different viewpoints and styles primarily to their difference in gender.

Interview

Wright, Judith, and Davidson, Jim. An interview. Meanjin 41, No. 3 (September 1982): 321–38.

Discusses the particular aspects of Australian experience that have influenced her writing, including the verse of early Australian poets, issues surrounding the Aborigine's place in modern Australia, and the white's historical and current impact on Australia's historical and social landscape. Additionally, Wright touches on the particular problems she faces as a poet in contemporary Australia.

Additional coverage of Wright's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Contemporary Authors, 13–16 (rev. ed.); Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 31; Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vols. 11, 53; Major 20th-century Writers; and Something about the Author, Vol. 14.