School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemBurrowing on the beach: satire in the poetry of A.D. Hope, John Forbes, and J.S. Harry( 2014)This thesis proposes a new method of reading satire in the work of three white postcolonial Australian poets. Making detailed use of French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of the rhizome, the thesis argues that the satire of A.D. Hope, John Forbes, and J.S. Harry can be read as a dually deconstructive and generative machine. Such a view questions the existent, structural models of satire proposed by theorists in the field, as well as the stylistic designations made regarding each of these poets’ work. The thesis begins with a nominal definition of the genre of satire which is thereafter deployed in the three chapters of close-readings: it is crucial to the method that such a definition must itself be questioned by the poets themselves. Such a method, in its dual movement of proposition and self-critique, performs what this thesis regards as the very process of satire, thereby embodying the kind of reading for which the thesis argues. Chapter One examines the theme of self-sacrifice in A.D. Hope’s work and argues that it constitutes his satirical will to criticism; Chapter Two places the 1988 bicentenary of European settlement as the satiric object of John Forbes’ collection, The Stunned Mullet; and Chapter Three tracks the nomadic, satirical movement of J.S. Harry’s rabbit character, Peter Henry Lepus, and his interactions with the figure and philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The thesis therefore tries to think about the intersection of genre, poetics, and nation. In doing so, it demonstrates a model for interpreting such discourses as ecopoetics and decolonising poetics, and for revisiting texts not commonly associated with these contemporary movements.
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ItemJohn Marston: from sharp fang'd satirist to stoic philosopher( 2014)The principal objective of this thesis is put forth evidence of John Marston's unique satirical aesthetic, through conflating interests in Horace and Juvenal, as latent content in his dramatic works. Though once held in high regard by his contemporaries, Marston's satiric intentions in drama are typically under- appreciated in current scholarship, leading to critical misconceptions of his work as amoral and sensationalist. Against such a trend, this thesis argues that Marston's satire is not only moral, but coincides with developing philosophical interests throughout his dramatic career, most commonly realised in proto-feminism and Stoicism.
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Item‘Like a bird he looks upwards’: inarticulateness in fiction( 2010)This Creative Writing MA has two main components: a creative work and a dissertation. Both components grapple with the problems and possibilities of inarticulateness in fiction. The creative work comprises Part One of a novel, “The Yellow Jumper”, set in contemporary Australia. “The Yellow Jumper” is a work of poetic realism that begins with, and returns to, a man sitting in the gutter in front of his terrace in Sydney‘s Surry Hills, while an un-seasonal wintertime ‘Southerly Buster’ blows. This man, Simon Leary, finds himself increasingly unable to communicate with his girlfriend, Anna, and his best friend, Muz. He is also increasingly engrossed by memories of the Murray River, near which he grew up. The inarticulateness in “The Yellow Jumper” belongs to Simon: the prose foregrounds, without mimicking, his difficulties of expression. The dissertation begins with a prologue, “Clashing in the Gap”. This prologue outlines some of the stark contrasts between “The Yellow Jumper” and American Psycho, but also emphasises how a concern with inarticulateness underlies both works. However, in Ellis’ novel, inarticulateness is deliberately formal and modal, as well as being a trait possessed by the characters. The thesis, “Tapping the Gap: American Psycho and Inarticulateness,” is informed by contemporary satiric theory and Anglo-American moral philosophy. Cora Diamond’s work furnishes me with a way of thinking about the concept “inarticulateness” - a concept that the first chapter of the thesis is concerned to define in relation to literature, especially postmodern literature. The second chapter of the thesis telescopes in on the problems and possibilities of inarticulate satire. Here, I delineate the satiric mode, and then demonstrate how American Psycho invokes and disappoints satiric conventions. Both components view inarticulateness as a tool of which creative writers may make use. The gap between experience and expression is a difficult space to inhabit; it is also, I suggest, potentially a fertile space for the creative writer.