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Gwen Harwood 1920-1995

Gwen Harwood 1920-1995. An introduction to her life and work. Who is Gwen Harwood?. Born in Brisbane, she lived most of her life in Tasmania She had a happy childhood in Queensland Harwood joined a nunnery for six months She married and had four children

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Gwen Harwood 1920-1995

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  1. Gwen Harwood1920-1995 An introduction to her life and work

  2. Who is Gwen Harwood? • Born in Brisbane, she lived most of her life in Tasmania • She had a happy childhood in Queensland • Harwood joined a nunnery for six months • She married and had four children • Her writing career began in her 30s

  3. Who is Gwen Harwood? • She was passionate about language and music • She loved being a mother and a grandmother • She wrote very personal letters to Thomas Riddell – a man who was not her husband – and dedicated all her volumes of poetry to him for 45 years

  4. Who is Gwen Harwood? • She played games with publishers and readers • She challenged the establishment and its values • She survived cancer in 1985, many poems draw on this experience

  5. Why look at contextual information? • We read her poems for signs of parallel with her private life • We gain meaning of her texts through knowledge of her personal life • The poet herself had to negotiate the complex relationship between her private and public life

  6. Masks and Disguises • Harwood developed personae, using ‘disguises’ for different purposes. Harwood is sometimes not the ‘I’ in her poetry. She sometimes writes in the voice of an invented character. • She often used pseudonyms also. She published under a variety false names.

  7. The Pseudonyms • Timothy Klue – an angry young man • Walter Lehman – he writes about Professor Eisenbart, an arrogant academic • Francis Geyer – a Hungarian refugee who writes about a musician called Krote • Miriam Stone – a Jewish housewife from Armidale NSW

  8. Why? • Gwen Harwood wanted to get her work published as much as possible • Some poems rejected under her real name were accepted under male pseudonyms • When she became ‘known’ she was concerned that she was being published not on her merits but because of her name

  9. The great Bulletin hoax of 1961 • Two sonnets, written by Walter Lehman, were acrostics: SO LONG BULLETIN and F--- ALL EDITORS • This was discovered by a Melbourne Uni Student • The offending issue was recalled and an apology published

  10. Scandal! • This was an anti-establishment act. Here was a woman in her 40s telling the establishment to get F---d • Right up until the day she died she kept people guessing, refusing to deny that she published under different names

  11. One of Australia’s most acclaimed poets: • Harwood uses traditional metres and forms • Her work is seen as ‘European’ rather than Australian • She is an intellectual who is critical of academics • Her work is passionate and sexual

  12. Harwood’s final word: • The affirmation of the value of friendship is one of the most striking characteristics of her work • She said: ‘My life is linked together by very long friendships. It is good in your 60th year to have friends who love you still, in spite of your faults.’

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