Concrete Horizons: Romantic Irony in the Poetry of David Malouf and Samuel Wagan Watson

Abstract

I am indebted to more people than I can acknowledge properly here, for even the smallest favours have such a deep impact on the long hard slog that is a PhD. But there are two groups of people to whom I owe a larger debt than most. Firstly, to my colleagues, particularly Hendrick for his support on this long climb and Annika for commiserations and biscuits. The second is the women who have supported me along the way with advice, good conversation, moral support, and endless patience. Thank you for everything Caroline, Birgit, Sabine, Katharina, and Petra. For too many people, a PhD can be a lonely endeavour. In my case, this was not so, not least because of the loving support of my husband Johannes with his endless ability to look interested hearing words like 'Romantic' or 'model' for the thousandth time. I am grateful for so many acts of kindness and the genuine interest and respect which I have experienced in the academic community throughout this journey. I am thankful to Robert Clarke for his willingness to supervise my thesis from the other side of the world and to Christoph Bode for stepping in without hesitation when someone was needed closer. I will not forget the kindness of Lynn McCredden who invited me to her home when I, a complete stranger and rookie taking my first steps into academia, asked for advice. I am also grateful for the support and empathy of my colleagues Christin and Sandra when I came to them with news of death and then with news of birth. Finally, my thanks go to all those involved in the research group "Modell Romantik" which has supported my research, both financially and intellectually. It has been an honour to deep dive into Romanticism at the same place it was brought into life by the early Romantics of Jena. The threads which have woven themselves into literature across the globe have so become the same threads that tie together my different lives and different homes here in Germany and in Australia. "If you are to be interested in Australian literature, it is not because it is some peculiar and exotic place like Africa, it is because it is another version of Europe which will tell you something about Europe. The changes we have made and the variation of it that we offer will tell you about yourselves, and that's why you might be interested in what we're doing. "-Malouf 1990 Framing Romanticism Poetry is dense, compact, and in the case of Watson and Malouf, its voice is a deeply personal one. While the line between poetry and prose becomes ever more blurred, poetry retains a certain musicality, a form of communication with the reader which slips out from under the sign, making it a mode which lends itself to reflection on the relationship of the self to the world and to language itself. This is an unashamedly Romantic standpoint, but it is a fitting one, considering that these relationships form the central concern of this book. The way that Romantic irony is modelled in Malouf and Watson's texts, both thematically and in function, reflects a heightened and even postmodern aware...

The Self and the Other Beyond Landscape and Language

“…Thus, the purpose for using the concept of Romantic irony is to create a point of reference "which allows contemporary Australian authors to write about the hybrid subject and the hybrid landscape without the need to resolve its contradictions and layers" (Barratt-Peacock, 2020, p. 33). Barratt-Peacock (2020) begins her examination of the theoretical model of Romantic irony by referring to the Romantic perception of space, defined as "the problem of consciousness and subjectivity," and to the matter of "how the ego can determine itself while at the same time being determined by the Other, or being simultaneously subject and object" (p. 46). The scholar incorporates in her discussion Bärbel Frischmann's (2009, p. 85;cf.…”

“…Barratt-Peacock, 2020, p. 68). Barratt-Peacock (2020) refers to the statements of other scholars (among others Patrick Buckridge, Vivienne Hamilton, Phillip Neilsen or Bridget Grogan) that tend to classify his works as Romantic or Postromantic, considering such aspects as the sublime, transcendence, nature and myth (pp. 69-71).…”

“…Samuel Wagan Watson is an Indigenous poet of mixed "Munanjali, Biri Gubba, German and Irish" origin (Barratt-Peacock, 2020, p. 170). Barratt-Peacock (2020) classifies his poetry as mostly concerned with "the hybrid subject, language and place in (sub)urban Australia" (p. 167). Watson is perceived as a poet of the "second generation," commenting on the complex social reality of Australia in the form of "protest" writing (McCooey, 2017, p. 77;cf.…”

“…144-145, 148). Barratt-Peacock (2020) indicates that the specific language of the land can be easily understood without speech, in contrast with the English language, which is an alien element brought by the first settlers (p. 148). The author's remarks about the role of different aspects of language present in Malouf's poems is connected with Friedrich Schelling's concept that associates language with "the living word" (Barratt-Peacock, 2020, p. 146).…”

“…Throughout the analysis of other poems, the author also indicates the specific function of darkness as a metaphor of "Indigenous place[s]" that "exist [...] beyond language" of the colonisers (Barratt-Peacock, 2020, p. 198). Barratt-Peacock (2020) points out that Watson changes the initial use of protest poetry "to create his own particular ironic approach": he uses the Gothic as well as rhetorical irony to portray Australia "as a hydra-headed place of irresolvable tensions and injustices" in order to "find [...] hope" (p. 203). An interesting conclusion is that certain elements (e.g.…”