thought / question: a follow-up

[tysolna]

First of all, thanks for your replies, and your help. You guys rawk.
Since I would probably say the same thing to more than one of you, I'm going to make a new post of this.

Now then. I think I should have clarified my initial question; apologies.
The only geographical area I had in mind was "mindspace", the place a country's myths, or heritage, come from. I know that there are a lot of European myths coming from the Middle Ages (I also know I am generalizing, but that's for argument's sake), and from what I have seen I'm rather convinced that there are a lot of US myths coming from everything attached to the Wild West era / area. As nugirlontheblok just said, it is the concept, not the actual physical thing.

Yes, I meant both Outback and Wild West referring to non-Aboriginal Australia and non-Native American USA.

So, from what I gather by your replies, there is few or no romanticizing Australia-the-land-and-landscape in, say, literature or art, like there is with the US and the Wild West, or Europe and the Middle Ages, or, come to think of it, Canada and the land?

Comments

[nugirlontheblok.livejournal.com]

I believe that if you want the 'romantic' view of the 'outback', as white settlers term it, then you should definitely look at Aboriginal myths and legends. They had a far more intimate perception of what the Australian continent was all about :)

[tysolna]

I shall do that, thanks for the tip! :)

Maybe then I will understand what 'dreamtime' really means...

[nugirlontheblok.livejournal.com]

If you can get hold of it L. Allen's 'Time before morning. Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines' would be helpful to you. (Crowell, NY, 1975)

[tysolna]

It's in a library nearby; I made an inter-library loan request just now. Can take a week or three, but I'll get it. Again, my thanks!

This is a bit stream of consciousness...

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Brit Alan Garner's Strandloper romanticises aborigines and their connection with the land...

Would it be fair to say that writers who depict America and Europe tend to romanticise the land itself while writers who depict Australia tend to romanticise the people who live on the land? Perhaps because the conditions, flora, and fauna in Australia were felt as more Other by Euro-culture-centric writers than Europe or North America so they needed to depict it mediated through the inhabitants' ideas of the place? Are the more familiar landscapes New Zealand depicted more directly by writers? My reading would indicate that they are (warning: small sample).

I dunno if that makes sense.

Re: This is a bit stream of consciousness...

[nugirlontheblok.livejournal.com]

I'd have to disagree with that. I think the landscape has been romanticised, through the concept of 'outback' with it's connotation of space, and freedom, and its association with a type of iconic, or laconic (!) Aussie 'lifestyle'. Elanor Dark and Patricia Wrightson wrote both of the land and the inhabitants. And I think the flora and fauna are depicted by them and other writers as a part of that iconic landscape rather than separate from it; it is therfore not always mediated through the inhabitants.

Re: This is a bit stream of consciousness...

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

it is therfore not always mediated through the inhabitants.

Which is why I didn't say or imply it is "always" mediated. I was only noting what I, perhaps wrongly, perceive as a tendency. I'm more familiar with Australian folk culture than literature. :-)

its association with a type of iconic, or laconic (!) Aussie 'lifestyle'.

Yes. That's part of what I meant about the landscape being mediated through its inhabitants.

I don't really see where you think we're disagreeing but perhaps I'm being dense. :-)

Re: This is a bit stream of consciousness...

[nugirlontheblok.livejournal.com]

Ahh I thought you were implying that the landscape in literature was mediated through the inhabitants only rather than it also standing alone in it's iconography. Apologies if I misinterpreted that :)

Re: This is a bit stream of consciousness...

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

No apologies necessary. It was a bit stream of consciousness.

I also forgot to qualify what I said with a guess that it'd be different according to the time period because early explorers possibly have more immediate contact with the land and less with the inhabitants, then pioneers (if they're smart and want to live) learn from the locals, then settlers come into conflict with both the locals and the land, and lastly the settlers become the locals and mediate the land through their own hybrid culture... possibly.... :-)

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

Just hire out Crocodile Dundee 1 and 2 *l* 3 was rubbish;)