Burning Sappho

doi:10.1017/9781009470186.015

10 - Burning Sappho

Gwen Harwood’s Incendiary Verse

from Part III - Authors

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2024

Ann-Marie Priest

Edited by

Ann Vickery

Show author details

Ann Vickery: Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter investigates Gwen Harwood’s subversion of gendered presumptions of authorship and style. After discussing her skilful redress of a male-dominant literary culture through hoax poetry, it considers how Harwood mobilised male personae to critique the cultural valuing of science and reason, explore sexual immorality, and address women’s experience of domesticity. It discusses how Harwood celebrated motherhood but was also one of the earliest writers to articulate its associated realities of exhaustion, loss of self, and feelings of despair and rage. The chapter argues that Harwood lays important groundwork for second-wave feminism while representing the ambiguities of care and connection. The chapter also engages with Harwood’s later exploration of death and the dynamic between sex and spirituality.

Keywords

hoax pseudonyms domesticity feminism sex

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry , pp. 167 - 182

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blackman, Wilson. “Four Poets in One: Gwen Harwood.” The Creative Arts [audio recording], Radio Australia, 5–7 April 1964.Google Scholar

Dodwell, Diane. “Worlds Beyond Words: Gwen Harwood’s Selected Poems.” Westerly no.2, June 1977, pp. 73–79.Google Scholar

Douglas, Dennis. “A Prodigious Dilemma: Gwen Harwood’s Professor Eisenbart and the Vices of the Intellect.” Australian Literary Studies vol.6 no.1, 1973, pp. 77–82.Google Scholar

Dunlevy, Maurice. “Poet of Man’s Regrets.” Canberra Times, 29 June 1968, p. 14.Google Scholar

Edgar, Stephen. “An Interview with Gwen Harwood.” Island Magazine no. 25–26, 1986, pp. 74–76.Google Scholar

Hall, Rodney and Shapcott, Thomas W., eds. “Introduction.” New Impulses in Australian Poetry, edited by Hall, Rodney and Shapcott, Thomas W.. University of Queensland Press, 1970, pp. 1–13.Google Scholar

Harwood, Gwen. Poems. Angus & Robertson, 1963.Google Scholar

Harwood, Gwen. A Steady Storm of Correspondence: Selected Letters of Gwen Harwood: 1943–1995, edited by Kratzmann, Gregory. University of Queensland Press, 2001.Google Scholar

Harwood, Gwen. Collected Poems: 1943–1995, edited by Hoddinott, Alison and Kratzmann, Gregory. University of Queensland Press, 2003.Google Scholar

Harwood, Gwen. Idle Talk: Letters 1960–1964, edited by Hoddinott, Alison. Brandl & Schlesinger, 2015.Google Scholar

Horne, Donald. “The Hoax That Misfired.” The Bulletin vol.82 no.4253, 19 August 1961.Google Scholar

Hudson, Flexmore. “Slim Volumes.” Australian Book Review vol.3 no.7, 1964, p. 132.Google Scholar

Lawson, Elizabeth. The Poetry of Gwen Harwood. Sydney University Press, 1991.Google Scholar

Lawson, Sylvia. “Review of Australian Poetry Now.” The Australian, 19 December 1970, p. 23.Google Scholar

Page, Geoff. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry. University of Queensland Press, 1995.Google Scholar

Porter, Peter. “Satires in C Major.” Times Literary Supplement, 9 May 2003, p. 7.Google Scholar

Priest, Ann-Marie. “Baby and Demon: Woman and the Artist in the Poetry of Gwen Harwood.” Hecate vol.40 no.2, 2015, pp. 67–83.Google Scholar

Priest, Ann-Marie. “‘The Hoax That Misfired’: Gwen Harwood’s Cultural Dissent.” Southerly vol.77 no.1, 2017, pp. 115–36.Google Scholar

Priest, Ann-Marie. A Free Flame: Australian Women Writers and Vocation in the Twentieth Century. UWA Publishing, 2018, pp. 7–31.Google Scholar

Priest, Ann-Marie. My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood. LaTrobe University Press/Black Inc., 2022.Google Scholar

Shapcott, Thomas W. “Correspondence.” Australian Book Review vol.3 no.9, 1964.Google Scholar

Shapcott, Thomas W. ed. Australian Poetry Now. Sun Books, 1970.Google Scholar

Sheridan, Susan. “Suburban Sonnets: ‘Mrs Harwood,’ Miriam Stone and Domestic Modernity.” Australian Literary Studies vol.23 no.2, 2007, pp. 140–52.Google Scholar

Strauss, Jennifer. Boundary Conditions: The Poetry of Gwen Harwood. University of Queensland Press, 1992.Google Scholar

Strauss, Jennifer. “Gwen Harwood: 1920–1995.” Quadrant, April 1996, pp. 67–68.Google Scholar

Trigg, Stephanie. Gwen Harwood. Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar

Book contents

10 - Burning Sappho

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive