Review of L'aube D'une Nation: les écrivains d'Australie de 1788 á 1910 by Maryvonne Nedelijkovic; and Die Rezeption australischer Literatur im deutschen Sprachraum von 1845-1979 by Volker Wolf

Abstract

Special Australian Literature numbers have been a feature of several overseas journals in recent years. Whether they emanate from Canada or India, France or Italy, Malta or Denmark, whether they reproduce papers given at conferences or simply round up articles under guest or visiting editors, they serve to illustrate the fact that Australian Literature is now becoming established in a new international context and in ways that could not have been foreseen twenty years ago. But interest from the outside, so to speak, has never been lacking in the history of Australian Literature. German and French explorers, travellers, visitors and commentators, for instance, appeared quite early on the scene; and though some contemporary poets seem genuinely to believe that American influences have only had an impact on Australian poetry since the 1960s, one has only to think of Emerson's influence on Harpur, or Poe's on Kendall—or of a characteristic article like the one on 'American Poets' in the Illustrated Journal of Australasia for April 1858—to see that they go back well over 150 years. Australian literary culture is richer than many realise, and cross fertilisation has been a feature from the beginning