The nature of Australian literature

Abstract

Land and language have been the two major rival determinants of written literature in Australia. Two hundred years ago, in 1788, white settlers, bringing with them an alphabetically written language, the concept of a distinction between literature and utilitarian or ephemeral writing, and the technology for producing multiple copies of what needed to be widely disseminated, came to establish a penal colony for Britain. A colony, penal or otherwise, immediately establishes a tension between the introduced culture, with its language, law, education and scale of values, and the indigenous qualities of the land that is settled and its existing inhabitants. A sense of exile may, through the perspective of distance, sharpen appreciation and assessment of the homeland, but it can also be an inhibiting factor in coming to terms with the new circumstances. The initial puzzlement, incomprehension and near-despair of some of the first white colonists in Australia was offset by the enterprise, curiosity, and wonderment of others. Many convicts and free settlers, together with some officers and soldiers, soon realised that this was no temporary exile but a new home, with qualities different from those of the British Isles.