Comparison Of Up The Country And Dorothea Mackellar's Up The Country

What is it about ‘the bush’ that is so special to Australians? The bush has an iconic status in Australian life and features strongly in any debate about Australian national identity. The Australian landscape was something that was uniquely Australian and very different to the European landscapes. It is a symbol for a national life. Today I will be analysing two poems that have contrasting views on what the Australian landscape means to them. Dorothea Mackellar’s ‘My Country’ talks positively about the country whereas Henry Lawson’s ‘Up the Country’ has a more negative view. Dorothea Mackellar was inspired by the experiences of Australians living and working in the bush. On the other hand, Henry Lawson believed that an Australian identity must

This poem by Henry Lawson, written in 1892, shows his view of Australia in his poem by saying the bush is a horrible and dull place to stay. He was from the bush, but been brought up in bush poverty and had suffered hardship and unemployment. Lawson’s poem gives a very negative image of the bush. He wrote this poem in first person, so as it gives his personal opinion. He paints a bleak portrait of the bush landscape, writing of ‘those burning wastes of barren soil and sand’ and claiming that ‘the country’s rather more inviting round the coast’. He used the title as a pun, not to say ‘I’m going into the outback’, but to make a mockery of the other poets idolising it. The first 7 lines are showing how the bush is nowhere near as beautiful as Mackellar says it is. The meaning of the lines, ‘I have lost a lot of idols which were broken on the track, Burnt off a lot of fancy verses, and I’m glad that I am back’ shows that while going through the outback, he lost faith in the scenes that his counterparts had described to him during his reading of their poems. The next line ‘Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast’ is showing that he might be wrong and that he may find these wonderful landscapes further out but he doesn’t want to go any further. In stanzas 2-3, he starts to describe why the desert is such a horrible place to be. He starts by mocking other poems, ‘sunny plains!

Through poetic techniques and style, these poets position the reader to view the Australian experience from two contrasting perspectives. These two poems both are a conflicting as Dorothea Mackellar talks about a positive experience and Henry Lawson talks about a negative experience within the Australian culture by using various poetic techniques. Although the content of both are varying, both poets have managed to clearly present their perception of what Australia means to