Smyth, Elizabeth A. (2023) The Semi-Georgic Australian Sugarcane Novel. In: Edney, Sue, and Somervell, Tess, (eds.) Georgic Literature and the Environment: Working Land, Reworking Genre. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, Abingdon, Oxon, UK, pp. 184-198.

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Abstract

In Australian ecocriticism, farming is understood as a destructive colonial extraction of wealth that has obliterated the pre-colonial Aboriginal relationship with non-human nature. This view is problematic for those seeking to recognise positive changes in farming practices or to develop alternative literary conceptions of farming. This chapter recognises the transmission of Roman culture to Australia by juxtaposing Virgil’s Georgics with three Australian novels and exploring how the georgic mode is registered. A focus on farming practices in Ronald McKie’s The Crushing (1977), Jean Devanny’s Cindie: A Chronicle of the Canefields (1946), and John Naish’s The Cruel Field (1962) enables an ecocritical reading that counters findings by Shirley McDonald (2015) of British colonists in Canada as practising sustainable agriculture. How Aboriginal characters interact with farming and are excluded from or included in the georgic mode is also discussed. Together these novels depict Aboriginal dispossession and marginalisation, large-scale transformation of pre-existing landscapes, and destruction of coral reefs. This chapter makes use of readings of Virgil’s Georgics as a reflection of Roman imperialism, a scientific text, and a portrayal of chaos and human limits to contribute new understandings of the Australian sugarcane novel and to, perhaps, enable the creation of new versions.

Item ID:	75909
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISSN:	9781003241300
Keywords:	Georgic, Virgil, Aboriginal representation, Australian novel, Bees, Cindie: A Chronicle of the Canefields (Jean Devanny), Colonialism, Dark Emu debate, Devanny, Jean (Cindie: A Chronicle of the Canefields), Ecocriticism, Farm novel, Indigenous characters, McKie, Ronald (The Crushing), Naish, John (The Cruel Field), Sugarcane, The Cruel Field (John Naish), The Crushing (Ronald McKie)
Related URLs:	https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/81221/
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2022 01:47
FoR Codes:	47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature) @ 50% 47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470509 Ecocriticism @ 30% 47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470513 Latin and classical Greek literature @ 20%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100%
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