Paper: 07; Module No: 05: E Text (A) Personal Details: Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Suchorita Chattopadhyay Jadavpur University Coordinator for This Module: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee University of Hyderabad Content Writer: Md Samsujjaman University of Hyderabad Content Reviewer: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee University of Hyderabad Language Editor: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee University of Hyderabad (B) Description of Module: Items Description of Module Subject Name: English Paper No & Name: 07; Canadian, Australian and South Pacific Literatures in English Module No & Title: 05; Literary Writings Related to Settlement and Nationalism in Australian Literature Pre-requisites: Students need to know the English Language, Australian Literature, Nationalism in Australia, Settlement in Australia and Australian culture. Objectives: The module explores how the themes of settlement and nationalism have reflected in the different Australian literary genres written in 19th & 20th century. Key Words: Nationalism, Nation, Settlement, Bush Tradition, Australian Literature, Australian aboriginals, Australian slang and culture 1 About the Module: The module Literary Writings Related to Settlement and Nationalism in Australian Literature deals with a critical overview of Australian literature to examine how the themes of settlement and nationalism have reflected in the different literary genres written in 19th & 20th century. It also deals with the literature of Australia, which mainly maps the picture of the lives and experiences of indigenous and settled people to show how they have contributed for the development of national consciousness and modernization of the Australian nation through producing different genres of literature. Moreover, the module explicates how the distinctive culture, tradition, history and geographical elements depicted in the different genres of Australian literature which became important elements to develop national consciousness among the Australians. Part – I; Settlement in Australia According to statistical data, 97% of the total, Australians were immigrant people, who settled in the different parts of Australia from the whole world. They came Australia in searching of resources and markets to output their products in the new places of Australia after the technological and industrial revolution and advancement in Europe. It is recorded that British officials came Australia first in 1788 and established a colony in New South Wales. In the same century, British empire occupied the whole Australia for scientific exploration and collection of natural resources. Even a large number of British convicts were transported to the various regions of Australia and they made up a substantial percentage of the population in the various parts of colonized Australia. The Large-scale settlement did not occur until the 1850s, following a series of gold accumulation. Further waves of settlement happened after the First and Second World Wars, with many post-World War II migrants coming from Europe and other countries of The Middle East, Asia, The Pacific islands, Africa, and Latin America. Before European settlement, Australia was inhabited by various indigenous peoples-Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal Tasmanians, Torres Strait Islanders and Melanesians. Basically, a small percentage (approximately 2.8% of total population) of present-day Australians descends from these aboriginal peoples. The literary texts of them are considered as their voice of representation in Australia. Their literature also talks the bad effects of colonialism over them, which have destroyed both their human and natural resources (Abowd and Freeman, 386-87). Part – II; Nationalism in Australia 2 The immigrant people had the sense of isolation and displacement, while they were living in Australia. But it exhausted and they mingled with the distinctive Australian cultural, geographical, historical and traditional components & heritage. On the other hand, colonial oppression over the Australian people was also an important reason, which developed nationalist feeling among the Australians. Thus, many anti-colonialist movements occurred in the last decade of the 18th century and finally, on 1st January 1900, Australia emerged as a new democratic & a sovereign country in the political map of the world. Last two decades of the 19th century are reckoned as the era of the growth of nationalism in Australia. Since that time, a vast amount of literary texts have produced about the nationalism and transnationalism, Australian culture, dialects, heritage and history of the Australians. A weekly magazine “Bulletin”, used to publish from Sydney, had an immense contribution for the development of nationalistic and egalitarian sentiment in Australia in the last two decades of the 19th century. The writers of this magazine have depicted the experience and hardships of the ordinary Australians, especially the farmers and ordinary people in rural area. Further, it also deals with the literary texts which have an immense contribution to the development national consciousness, Australian identity with its own culture and traditions. The writers also depict the pictures of Australia’s landscape which they consider as their national heritage. Meg Tasker in his article (Two Versions of Colonial Nationalism: The Australasian Review of Review v. The Sydney Bulletin) says- 1885, the Bulletin became the journalistic voice of a stridently anti-English, anti- Imperial republican ism. The motto "Australia for the Australians" was not unique to the Bulletin, but it succinctly expresses a resistance to late-colonial imperialism that took various forms at different times, including republicanism, socialism, opposition to British imperialism. Part – III; Idea and definition of Nation/Nationalism The term Nation is defined by many scholars and critics. Here I only discuss two famous critic’s definition and their ideas about the nation. According to Benedict Anderson, the nation is “an imagined political community- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson-6). He argues that nation is “imagined community” because though the citizens of even a smallest nation will never know all their fellow citizens, though they cannot meet them or hear of them yet they imagine that there is an inherent connection among them. 3 Even the citizens of a country can never know each of the other yet they have an affinity and interest as part of the same nation. It is also “imagined community” because the concept of it was born in an age in which the enlightenment and revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely dynastic realm. He further explains that nation is “political”, because it has a democratic government. He says that the nation is also ‘sovereign’ and ‘limited’ because besides the geographical boundaries of a nation, the other nations exist. A nation gets its existence through the revolution against colonization and the decline of the divinely hereditary monarchy. The other nation doesn’t have the right to invade a nation. Ernest Gellner defines the term, nation as “Two men are of the same nation if and only if they recognize each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words, nations maketh man; nations are the artifacts of men's convictions and loyalties and solidarities. A mere category of persons (say, occupants of a given territory, or speakers of a given language, for example) becomes a nation if and when the members of the category firmly recognize certain mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of their shared membership of it. It is their recognition of each other as fellows of this kind which turns them into a nation, and not the other shared attributes, whatever they might be, which separate that category from non- members” (Gellner-6). Part – IV; Nationalism in Australian Literature Introduction: The churnings of Australian nationalism reached to the arena of journalists, novelists, poets, short story writers, mainly to the common man in Australia. They felt the urge of a national calling and unity. These elites started to find the ways to develop nationalist sentiment. Hence the literary and non-literary texts in Australia are produced from the last two decades of the 19th century. These literary and non-literary texts have depicted a panoramic view of Australia’s distinctive cultural, historiographical and traditional heritage & elements which have immensely inspired all the Australian to develop the national integrity and consciousness among themselves. The idea of nationalism is much reflected in poetry, fiction and in a short story. Here I am going to discuss how the idea of nation/nationalism has reflected in the writings of great Australian literary figures. Nationalism in Australian Poetry: 4 Henry Lawson (1867-1922): Henry Lawson is one of the best poets and short story writers in Australian literary history. He used to write mainly poems and short stories in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century about the tiresome life and plight of ordinary poor Australians in the era of British colonialism. His poems have inspired Australians immensely to develop national consciousness and identity in that period by depicting distinctive images of the Australian city, Australian bush traditions, culture and dialects. His poems also deal with the theme of British colonial oppression which affects Australians badly. Even he has used the language of ordinary