MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Graduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

ENM4370/5370

Contemporary Australian poetry and fiction

Robin Gerster and Jennifer Strauss

Synopsis This subject will examine issues in contemporary Australian writing and criticism. In studying the fiction, emphasis will be placed on ways in which contemporary ideas about fictional modes and genres have been called into play in fiction which scrutinises the construction of Australia's historical past and explores possibilities of relationships to the rest of the world which are not exclusively oriented towards Europe. These issues will also be relevant to the study of the poetry, which will attempt to delineate the major thematic and formal parameters of modern Australian poetry and to see how these are established not only in the work of particular poets but also through the canon-forming and canon-contesting instrumentality of anthologies.

Assessment (8 points) Assignment/s (2500 words): 40% + Essay (3500 words): 60%

Assessment (12 points) Two essays (2500 words each): 30% each + Essay (4000 words): 40%

Prescribed texts

• Astley T Beachmasters Penguin
• Astley T A kindness cup Penguin
• Astley T It's raining in Mango Penguin
• Carey P Oscar and Lucinda Penguin
• Castro B Birds of passage Allen and Unwin
• Gilbert K Inside black Australia: An anthology of Aboriginal poetry Penguin
• Hampton S and Llewellyn K (eds) The Penguin book of Australian women poets Penguin
• Hospital J T Dislocations UQP
• Leonard J (ed.) Contemporary Australian poetry: An anthology Houghton Mifflin Australia
• Murray L Collected poems Angus and Robertson
• Tranter J and Mead P (eds) The Penguin book of modern Australian poetry Penguin
• Wright J Collected poems Angus and Robertson