Description
Book SynopsisRemembering Patrick White presents the first major study of the full range of White’s work in over twenty-five years, and aims to bring this important author up to date for new generations of readers and scholars. Patrick White is a writer of moods and perspectives and the essays collected here range in their focus over his public presentations, his formal challenges, his spiritual leanings and dramatic gestures. They examine the breadth and significance of White’s intellectual contribution and consider the ongoing legacy of his thought and his art within national and international frames. As a collection, they focus our attention on what Patrick White means at the juncture of the present, reading his work through contemporary critical perspectives that further underscore the dynamism and substance of his writing. Contributors: Bill Ashcroft; Veronica Brady; Bernadette Brennan; Lorraine Burdett; Greg Graham-Smith; John McCallum; Lyn McCredden; Elizabeth McMahon; Brigitta Olubas; Brigid Rooney; Jennifer Rutherford; Anthony Uhlmann.
Trade ReviewRemembering Patrick Whiteis an essential shot in the arm. It reminds us we do need actively to remember Patrick White, to fetch him back centre-stage in Australian literary scholarship. And yet the essays in this book also look forward, remembering in order to re-energise scholarship on White’s novels, plays, and life. Indeed, if this timely book reminds us of the vitality – and the resolute contemporaneousness – of White’s intellectual engagement with Australia and the world, it is to show us how much we still have to gain from bringing new perspectives to bear upon his body of work, which is no less astounding in the twenty-first century than it was during his lifetime.” – Ian Henderson, King’s College London
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Patrick White’s Public Selves Brigid Rooney: Public Recluse: Patrick White’s Literary-Political Returns Bernadette Brennan: Riders in the Chariot: A Tale For Our Times Rodney Wetherell: Patrick White and his Award Form and Expression Jennifer Rutherford: Homo Nullius: The Politics of Pessimism in Patrick White’s The Tree of Man Anthony Uhlmann: The Symbol in Patrick White Elizabeth McMahon: The Lateness and Queerness of The Twyborn Affair: White’s Farewell to the Novel White’s Metaphysics Bill Ashcroft: The Presence of the Sacred in Patrick White Lyn McCredden: Voss: Earthed and Transformative Sacredness Veronica Brady: The Dragon Slayer: Patrick White and the Contestation of History Performance John McCallum: The Late, Crazy Plays Brigitta Olubas: “Some of the doors of the house have never been seen open”: Poetic Habitation and Civil Space in Patrick White’s Early Drama Gregory Graham–Smith: Against the Androgyne as Humanist He(te)ro: Patrick White’s Queering of the Platonic Myth Bibliography Lorraine Burdett: Patrick White, 1994–2009 Notes on Contributors Index
