The Vision Splendid

Abstract

As the preceding Sections have demonstrated, Australia has been repre­sented in literary form in a variety of ways by different groups at different periods. It is apparent in so much of that writing that the representation of Australia is of central cultural concern: to describe Australia most convin­cingly is to earn a role as one of the custodians of a particular piece of cultural property. It also becomes apparent that this image-making is polemical, a matter of debate, argument and contest. Each of the images provides a means by which we are taught to identify Australian-ness and is hence a way of characterising a specific version of Australian culture. All are ways of giving form to particular versions of ‘the national experience’ or ‘the national identity’.