Performances based around the work of William Blake and his legacy in Australia have taken place today in Strathfield (ACU)! What an amazing collection of young voices celebrating the continuing creative power of William Blake and his impact on such diverse talents as Patrick White, Brett Whiteley and Allen Ginsberg. Here are our pre-performance tutorials…
Month: October 2018
Introduction to the Literature and Art of New York: Tour January 2019
Hello All fellow travellers: Listen to the short lecture here as you look at the three slides that are immediately below this link. The slides are also placed within this space (if that is easier for you to use!) Click here for images to accompany this short talk: Intro:Overview Here also is a beautiful very short…
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
This play was performed today by our wonderful second year students who were exploring the ways in which Beckett was pushing the boundaries of English language along a continuum that had begun with Joseph Conrad, The poets of the First World War, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and George Orwell. Beckett comes…
David Malouf- Fly Away Peter: Part 2
We had a great time exploring the powerful poetry and symbolism of David Malouf’s wonderful short novel Fly Away Peter today. Here is the audio lecture on this topic followed by the audio tutorial. Enjoy! Below this is the White-Board brain storm from Tutorial 3 and the PowerPoint for tutorials 1 and 2. week 12…
Riders in the Chariot- Final Classes
Hi All, today was our final excursion into the world of Patrick White, especially his representation of Alf Dubbo, the Aboriginal artist as a ministering priest of a renewed Christianity. Patrick White shows us how Alf Dubbo’s belief is restored through his visionary imagination and in this way illuminates the way in which William Blake’s…
“Wherever I hang my knickers – that’s my home.”
Today we explored a range of immigrant writers who either embraced the English Language totally (such as Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka), or those who enjoyed flaunting the creative powers of their own appropriation of English (such as Louise Bennett and Grace Nichols). This is a fascinating topic that shows the ways in which users…
Francis Webb’s Eyre All Alone & David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter
Today’s lecture began with some further comments on the poetry of Francis Webb. In particular I looked at “End of the Picnic”, “Black Cockatoos”, “Banksia” (from the Eyre All Alone sequence and “Harry” (from the Ward Two sequence. The first part of today’s audio lecture covers these poems. Enjoy listening! We then moved on to David Malouf’s…
Alf Dubbo (artist), potential redeemer!
Patrick White presents his hero Alf Dubbo -one of the four “Riders” in the Chariot- as a human being who brings into the present the transformative power of his aboriginal creative heritage. He does this through his deep animation of Christian themes, bringing these back to their true meaning in the sources of Christianity prior…
Nation, Race and Language- The Fate of the English Language at the End of Empire!
We began today’s lecture trying to respond to the question about language (in the screen shot below) and about the ways in which Samuel Beckett may be trying to address these questions. There were some great responses to the question from the class and you can hear these as the first items in the recorded…
20th Century Poets, Francis Webb and Judith Beveridge
Today we began by exploring the life and language of Francis Webb, especially his poem “Five Days Old” which gives such a deep insight into the way he uses language to transform his experience into such a momentous event. We then had the privilege of having as our guest the poet Judith Beveridge who spoke…
Alf Dubbo and Mordecai Himmelfarb
The Aboriginal and the Jew have a really important place in Patrick White’s Riders in the Chariot. They embody two outsiders who have the key to a kind of wisdom that is not available to many. What is extraordinary is the way that Patrick White locates the seminal meeting between these two central characters in a…
George Orwell & Politics & Language
Audio Lecture on George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and “Politics and the English Language”: George Orwell who experienced the horrors of imperial exploitation when working as a police officer in Burma began then to think of ways in which he could challenge corruption in politics, indeed in all human affairs, using his gift of language.…
Patrick White- Australia’s only Literature Nobel Laureate.
Please see the end of this Blog for audios “In all directions stretched the Great Australia Emptiness, in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man… in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blind blue eyes… the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier,…
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Spring 2025 
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