Pick and Answer two questions only.

Over both answers you must discuss the work of three to four authors  not discussed in your essay. While you may write on authors studied in the first half of the course (ErnMalley, Henry Lawson, Barbara Baynton and Lesbia Harford), at least two must be from the second half of the course (The Jindyworobaks, Marjorie Barnard, Lennie Lower, Kenneth Slessor and Patrick White). You may write on the author who you covered in your presentation (Patrick White).
Given the restrictions of word length, if you write on poetry it’s best to focus on just a couple of poems by each author: go for depth rather than range.
This assignment requires two discursive (essay-like) answers of 1,000 words each; but write these in an ‘exam’ style, rather than as formal, referenced essays. While your answers are to be more thoughtful and composed than they might be under the time constraints of an invigilated exam they are not expected to be appreciably longer. An excessively long answer will be penalised.
All quotations from the texts should indicate page numbers, as should any secondary critical material you use – but note that secondary sources are not mandatory. If you do cite critical material, use only basic references – just enough that your source can be consulted, if necessary. There’s no need for a bibliography.

Question 1
Discuss the representation of time and/or history in relation to modernity in the work of one or two authors studied in this course. This can include narrative time – the treatment of time in narratives – as well as the possibility of timelessness.
Question 2
How is the ‘primitive’ represented in the work of one or two authors studied in this course, and what is its meaning in terms of Western primitivism?
Question 3
Australian literary modernism has at times been seen as a variously muted, belated or derivative project. How do you regard the status of modernist literary experimentation in the works studied in this course? Answer in relation to one or two authors, closely reading samples of their work.
Question 4
‘It is not my country, although I have lived in it’ (Laura Trevelyan in Voss, end of chapter 1). To what extent are questions of ‘belonging’ and/or white cultural legitimacy at issue in the work of one or two authors studied in this course? You don’t have to refer to Voss.
Question 5
One of the difficulties of White’s style is his use of heavily symbolic language. Giving examples, indicate some ways in which this operates in Voss. Do you feel that White succeeds in this way?
Question 6
Modernism has often been defined in terms of iconoclasm and the breaking of traditions, frequently with political implications. Looking at one or two authors, discuss some of the political meanings of their work. This can include textual politics: the way the language of the text resists dominant paradigms or patterns of thought.

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