The Australian Identity---Part 2
November 22nd 2006 07:15
BALLADS, GOLD & BUSHRANGERS
As the Frontier was tamed ballads and verse told of life on the land, the settler, drover, and jumbuck immortalised alonside the convict. Gold was then discovered at a number of sites. The goldfields of Western Australia witnessed a surge of literary expression as bards told of a life of hard work, hope, a little love, mates, and oppression. The goldfields of Victoria would become famous for a much different reason. In 1854, a small band of miners' staged an uprising at Ballarat, angry at oppressive license fees and rough-handed treatment. They fortified Eureka Stokade and stood against approximately 600 military. Of course they were defeated, but not before creating an enduring legend, that of the rebel underdog standing against the might of the Establishment. The Eureka flag, a white Southern Cross on a blue background, is the adopted flag of the Builder's Labourers Federation of today, known as a militant union who pits the worker and his rights against big-business stand-over tactics.
One cannot detail this era of Australian history without mention of the bushranger and myth, anti-heroes who were in reality lawless pariahs of the bush. Ben Hall and Ned Kelly two of this nation's most infamous. Many a rousing ballad has been recorded, and a contemporary film staring Heath Ledger keeps the myth alive. The bushranger is an enduring Australian identity whose anti-authoritarian kinship with the convict and Eureka rebel are seen as products of a colonial goverment's oppression.
During this turbulent era colonial poetry of a more literary nature began to emerge, headed by Wentworth, Harpur, and Kendall. Kendell's The Last of His Tribe tells the story of an aboriginal warrior lamenting the loss of his people. A poignant poem of its time penned when white settler and indigenous relations were more often than not, settled by rifle.
The end of the 19th century would usher in an era of passion Australian writers' develop for the bush. Literary works capturing the essence of the bush-life, like Gordon's The SIck Stockrider and the anonymous Lazy Harry, ballads depicting drovers, shearers, mateship, and short-lived wealth on the track. G.E. Evan's The Women of the West, a portrayal of the female-gender sacrificing the pleasures of the city for an uncertain life in the bush, a tale that places woman at the forefront of bush-life in colonial Australia.
Next: The Sea, the City, or the Bush.
PW
As the Frontier was tamed ballads and verse told of life on the land, the settler, drover, and jumbuck immortalised alonside the convict. Gold was then discovered at a number of sites. The goldfields of Western Australia witnessed a surge of literary expression as bards told of a life of hard work, hope, a little love, mates, and oppression. The goldfields of Victoria would become famous for a much different reason. In 1854, a small band of miners' staged an uprising at Ballarat, angry at oppressive license fees and rough-handed treatment. They fortified Eureka Stokade and stood against approximately 600 military. Of course they were defeated, but not before creating an enduring legend, that of the rebel underdog standing against the might of the Establishment. The Eureka flag, a white Southern Cross on a blue background, is the adopted flag of the Builder's Labourers Federation of today, known as a militant union who pits the worker and his rights against big-business stand-over tactics.
During this turbulent era colonial poetry of a more literary nature began to emerge, headed by Wentworth, Harpur, and Kendall. Kendell's The Last of His Tribe tells the story of an aboriginal warrior lamenting the loss of his people. A poignant poem of its time penned when white settler and indigenous relations were more often than not, settled by rifle.
Next: The Sea, the City, or the Bush.
PW
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