‘Greatness’ and Australian Literature in the 1930s and 1940s: Novels by Dark and Barnard Eldershaw
Abstract
This paper analyses a single aspect of Australian literary culture in a particular historical period, namely its interest in 'greatness' - great books and great authors, especially the latter - in the years between the Depression and the end of the Second World War. But I try to do so in a way that makes some connections with a broader and longer process of discursive transformation over time, thereby illuminating (both by analogy, and even, perhaps, by weak causalities of certain kinds) similar interests in different periods, notably our own.
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Published 1 May 1995 in Volume 17 No. 1. Subjects: Australian literary criticism, Australian literary history, Characterisation, Defining an Australian literature, Fame, Gender - Literary portrayal, Literary canon, M. Barnard Eldershaw, Eleanor Dark.
Cite as: Buckridge, Patrick. ‘‘Greatness’ and Australian Literature in the 1930s and 1940s: Novels by Dark and Barnard Eldershaw.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 1995, doi: 10.20314/als.162583f038.