Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention
Avant-garde poetry in the Antipodes causes all sorts of trouble for literary history. It is an avant-garde that seems to arrive too late and yet right on time. In 1897, Christopher Brennan made his own version of Un Coup de Dés, the same year Mallarmé published it in Cosmopolis. In the 1940s, the same period avant-gardism was declared dead or fatally injured due to the Ern Malley affair, Harry Hooton began writing a significant body of experimental poetry. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Australian Dada emerged ‘belatedly’ through figures like Jas H. Duke (Tristan Tzara had previously sung Aboriginal songs at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916). First Nations and Migrant poets then began reinventing avant-garde poetry in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book maintains that such a confounding literary history poses a distinct challenge to the theories of the avant-gardes we have become accustomed to and changes our perspective of avant-garde time.
1143957178
Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention
Avant-garde poetry in the Antipodes causes all sorts of trouble for literary history. It is an avant-garde that seems to arrive too late and yet right on time. In 1897, Christopher Brennan made his own version of Un Coup de Dés, the same year Mallarmé published it in Cosmopolis. In the 1940s, the same period avant-gardism was declared dead or fatally injured due to the Ern Malley affair, Harry Hooton began writing a significant body of experimental poetry. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Australian Dada emerged ‘belatedly’ through figures like Jas H. Duke (Tristan Tzara had previously sung Aboriginal songs at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916). First Nations and Migrant poets then began reinventing avant-garde poetry in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book maintains that such a confounding literary history poses a distinct challenge to the theories of the avant-gardes we have become accustomed to and changes our perspective of avant-garde time.
29.95 Pre Order
Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention

Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention

by A. J. Carruthers
Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention

Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention

by A. J. Carruthers

Paperback

$29.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on December 1, 2025

Related collections and offers


Overview

Avant-garde poetry in the Antipodes causes all sorts of trouble for literary history. It is an avant-garde that seems to arrive too late and yet right on time. In 1897, Christopher Brennan made his own version of Un Coup de Dés, the same year Mallarmé published it in Cosmopolis. In the 1940s, the same period avant-gardism was declared dead or fatally injured due to the Ern Malley affair, Harry Hooton began writing a significant body of experimental poetry. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Australian Dada emerged ‘belatedly’ through figures like Jas H. Duke (Tristan Tzara had previously sung Aboriginal songs at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916). First Nations and Migrant poets then began reinventing avant-garde poetry in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book maintains that such a confounding literary history poses a distinct challenge to the theories of the avant-gardes we have become accustomed to and changes our perspective of avant-garde time.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399526838
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 12/01/2025
Series: Edinburgh Critical Studies in Avant-Garde Writing
Pages: 368
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

A. J. Carruthers is a poet, critic, author of Stave Sightings: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems (2017), and three volumes of the long poem AXIS: AXIS Book 1 (2014), AXIS Book 2 (2019) and AXIS Z Book 3 (2023). Carruthers has worked in China, as Associate Professor in the English Department, Nanjing University, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments
Prologue
Dedication
PART I: Chronometries (Antiquity, 1897–1947)

  1. Tzara’s Chronometer: Literary History and the Antipodal Avant-Gardes
  2. 1897 in 1981: Stéphane Mallarmé avec Christopher Brennan


3. New Order of the Line: W. C. Williams, Ern Malley, Harry Hooton and the 1940s Avant-Gardes
PART II: Aftershocks (1947–Vanishing Present)

  1. The Dada Chronicles: Jas H. Duke and Barry Humphries
  2. Expansive Geometries: Ania Walwicz’s Polish
  3. Lionel Fogarty’s Historical Style
  4. Traitorous Text: Amanda Stewart Off and On the Page

A Wáng Gă: an Epilogue
Index

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews