Islands, Identity and the Literary Imagination

Australia is the planet's sole island continent. This book argues that the uniqueness of this geography has shaped Australian history and culture, including its literature. Further, it shows how shifting understandings of the island continent shed new light on the relationship between islands and continents in the mapping of modernity.

List of contents

Section 1. Islands Real and Imaginary; Introduction; Chapter One. What's in a Metaphor: 'No Man is an Island'; Section 2. Islands: Making the Planet, World, Globe; Chapter Two: The First and Last Of New Worlds: The Caribbean and Australia; Chapter Three: Insular and Continental Interiors: The Shifting Map of Literary Universalism after the War; Section 3. Dreams and Nightmares; Chapter Four: Accidents of Empire: Shipwrecks and Castaways; Chapter Five: The Best and Worst of Times: Utopias, Dystopias, Archipelagos.

About the author

Elizabeth McMahon is Associate Professor in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales.

Product details

• Authors: Elizabeth McMahon, McMahon Elizabeth
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2019
• EAN: 9781785271892
• ISBN: 978-1-78527-189-2
• No. of pages: 312
• Series: Anthem Studies in Australian Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Cultural Studies, ARCHITECTURE / Landscape, English, Australia, LITERARY CRITICISM / Australian & Oceanian, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literature: history and criticism, Landscape architecture and design