Summative entry

Summative entry: ENGL102: Australian Literature.

By Charles Lilienthal

Over the course of the semester I found my blogging experience to be interesting and thought provoking from week 3 through to week 10, I wrote a variety of both critical and creative blogs in addition to peer reviews of my class mates’ blogs.

For my first blog in week 3, I wrote a critical analysis of A mid – summer noon in the Australian forest by Charles Harpur in 1851, wherein I mentioned the techniques that the author used in order to describe the Australian rainforest vividly such as figurative language and regular descriptive language such as ‘’over plains and over woods, what a mighty stillness broods”. I found that this text was simple enough to analyse, and intriguing to become lost in the world of lushous woods that this short story manifested.

In Week 4 I did a creative blog piece, where I did a poem called ‘The Plain’s Gate beneath the mountain pass’, is a reflection of my perpetual willingness to reconnect with nature and its formations as a way of moving away from the man-made cities in order to appreciate my own humanity. Selective imagery of journey and nature flavour my exploration of the self and its inherent ties to the earth as many cultures have discovered.  Going on bushwalks and hiking inspired me to explore these topics with this imagery.

After my visit to the Art Gallery in Week 5, I wrote a critical piece on two paintings that stood out to me the most, ‘The ‘Ned Kelly ’ painting by Sidney Nolan, and ‘on the wallaby track’  in 1896. Sidney Nolan defines the cultural and social phenomena of the bushranger and its immediate ties with the typical convict ideal. Nolan actualises Australia as a barren land of bush and desert landscape, to further his views on bushrangers as Australian iconography. For me, it was the essence of understanding the initial development of Colonial Australian ideas. The other painting, ‘on the wallaby track’, I chose sparked my interest in the formation and perpetuation of male and female gender roles as immigrants coming to Australia. It is clearly identifiable that the spheres of male and female are distinct- the female bears the child as she lays, and the male is transfixed by a task characterised by menial labour. It was interesting to choose this work as the gender roles of today have transformed, and looking back on what once was helps one to make greater sense of what is now.  

For the fourth week of my blogging experience, Which was week 6, I chose to do a poem based on ‘proverbs of hell’ by William Blake.  I rather enjoyed writing this piece as it encouraged me to explore writing using the dark themes of damnation and satire , in the form of the ‘one reapeth what they sow’ quote at the start of the poem, in reference to miners going down the mineshaft, trucks being involved in the excavation of the iron ore from the ground, in a slight jab at the industry itself. Which can serve to entertain the reader. The ghastly theme of horror and attempts to scare the audience supplements adds to the impression that the reader can get, with imagery of the volcanic eye and the sense of its’ fumes.  The poem ends with a message for the audience to adhere to proverbs that encourage virtuous behaviour, and with humour to appreciate the title ‘proverbs of hell’.  

For week 7 of the semester, I chose to write a creative blog post in the form of a letter to the character Miss Slattery, which was centred on inquiring as to how her relationship with her partner Lummy was going, commending them on their emotional adventures, and encouraging them to go on more, keep in strong ties with family members on both sides, friends and while they gain a greater spark in their relationship.

I generally found creative blogs to be more enjoyable and lengthy compared to critical blogs which tended to be shorter. Though it was an interesting task analysing texts and identifying techniques that make up the meaning of the text and the imagery it can create.  Peer reviews were also quite engaging tasks, and I wrote the majority of them fairly easily. Pointing out good use of quotations, writing techniques in other student’s blog posts that made their creative pieces such as letters stand out, and critical blogs be informative on themes revealed on texts studied in class.

As far as Best Blogs from myself, I would say that my best critical blog was the week 5 Art gallery post, whereas my best creative post was my week 6 post on proverbs of hell by William Blake. The Blogging experience overall was informative, engaging and helped develop my writing skills greatly for English at university.