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 JOH_LIT_27902 Format: 245 mm x 190 mm Spine: 20 mm CMYK

Australian Literature for Young People

Australian
We are living in a time of radical change, and ideas about teaching and learning
are changing too: what knowledge do students need now and in the future, and
how can we nourish this?

By encouraging a broader and deeper knowledge of this country, its history,

people, art and literature, Australian Literature for Young People not only
familiarises readers with landmarks in Australian literature but addresses key

Literature
contemporary concerns such as the need to be creative and imaginative, to think
across and beyond disciplines, and to communicate and collaborate.

Primary and secondary teachers, parents and pre-service education students

will be inspired to explore Australia’s distinctive literary heritage for themselves,
and to embrace their very significant role in encouraging children in reading.
Research discussed in this book shows that reading is important not only as the
key to education but as part of health and wellbeing. And a recent study of 42
nations across the world shows that books in the home are strongly linked to a

FOR
child’s academic achievement.

Young
Growing understandings of the structures and aesthetics of literature and
deeper engagement with its rich ideas help young people become true global
citizens.

Key features
• A comprehensive, research-based approach drawing on contemporary

People
sources.
• Engages with Australia’s Indigenous heritage throughout, noting the
contribution it makes and should make across the educational spectrum.
• Makes reference to Western literary heritages and to those of other Asia-
Pacific countries.
• ‘Muse points’ promote creativity and imagination by asking readers to engage
with chapter content – and beyond.
• Poetics chapter explores the characteristics of Australian literature.

Johnston
• Appropriate for senior school students, including those undertaking the

Rosemary Ross Johnston

International Baccalaureate.

Rosemary Ross Johnston is Professor of Education and Culture at the University

of Technology Sydney and leads large national and international research
projects.

ISBN 978-0-19-552790-2

9 780195 527902
visit us at: oup.com.au or
contact customer service: [email protected]

JOH_LIT_27902_CVR_SI.indd 1 cyan magenta yellow black 8/05/2017 1:28 PM

 vi

Extended Contents
About the Author ix
Acknowledgments x
Preface xv
Introduction xvii

Chapter 1 Magic, Spels and Gramarye 1

The magic and glamour of reading and writing—Literature for young people—
Why informed understanding is so important—Priorities of study across the
Curriculum—General capabilities across the Curriculum—Information and
communication technology (ICT) capability—Social networks and register—The
miracle of access—Critical appreciation of literature in English classes: a sprint
through literary theory—Using creative arts with literature in English classes—
Research informing practice—The spell of literature—Muse point 1—References.

Chapter 2 The Twenty-First-Century Australian Context:

Educating Rita—and Mehmet and Alinga
and Chinh and … 19
Contexts of culture and situation in Australian education—Challenges—The
context of situation: the education context and twenty-first-century learning—
Emotional intelligence and social and emotional learning—Muse point 2—What
the Curriculum says—Example—Literature matters and new ways of mattering—
Muse point 3—Creating comfortable contexts for discussion—Muse point 4—
Literature and creativity—Example—Muse point 5—Literature and critical
thinking—Example—Critical analysis (critical literacy)—The power of words in all
contexts of life—Muse point 6—Drama and poetry in popular culture—Muse point
7—References and notes.

Chapter 3 Creative Organic Pedagogies and Deep Literacy 41

Believing in education—Believing in teaching—Believing in children and their
capacity to learn—The magic of language and learning: the special place of poetry—
Muse point 8—Interdisciplinary teaching and learning—Muse point 9—Believing
in the power of story: performativity theory—Muse point 10—Creative organic
pedagogy—Literature, literacy and language—Creative and organic imagery—Muse
point 11—Focalisation—Changing ideas about epistemology—Principles of creative
organic pedagogy—Muse point 12— Literature and transdisciplinarity—Muse
point 13—Literature and deep literacy—Muse point 14—The significance of the arts
across the curriculum—Research informing practice—Muse point 15—Overcoming
distance: creative productions in real and virtual worlds—Cut and come again—
Muse point 16—References and notes.

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 Extended Contents vii

Chapter 4 The Centrality of Story 78

Snapshot of the global village—Significance of story in a media-rich age—Muse point
17—Multimodal, multimedia ways of telling—Story and children’s culture—Story and
engaged play—Muse point 18—Story, design thinking and chorography—Muse point 19—
Story, books and tourism—Muse point 20—Story and national cultures—Research on
the importance of reading—Muse point 21—Story as advocacy—Muse point 22—Telling
a story: rhetoric—Story and soul—References.

Chapter 5 Interrelationships: Language, Literacy, Literature 95

In the beginning was the word …—Muse point 23—Grammar and literature—
Defamiliarisation, inscape, thisness, haecceitas—Mikhail Bakhtin and the chronotope—
Muse point 24—Evolving language in an evolving culture—Context—‘Meaning
potential’—Muse point 25—Language and metalanguage—Specific narrative purposes—
The languages of literature and figures of speech (tropes)—Muse point 26—Narrative,
story and discourse—The role of the reader and reader response theory—Story and
making meaning—Modes, multimodes and multimedia—Genre and text-types—Shaun
Tan and the language of picturebooks—Muse point 27—Muse point 28—References.

Chapter 6 Narrative Patterns: Narrator, Plot, Characters,

Setting and Themes 123
The narrator—Example—The plot—Characters—Muse point 29—Setting: time and
place—Muse point 30—Time, place, the chronotope and the world of the text—Example—
Style—Theme—Organisation of narrative—Muse point 31—The book as a material
artefact: peritext, epitext, paratext—Muse point 32—References.

Chapter 7 The World that Creates—and Recreates—the Text 142

Influence and the media: ‘tuning the pulpits’—The idea of ideology—Critical literacy—
Interrogating depictions of racial stereotypes—The idea of difference—Meaning-
making and context—Muse point 33—Perspectives and ways of looking—The created
text: subjectivity—Muse point 34—References and notes.

Chapter 8 Indigenous Storytelling 160

Challenges of culture and situation—Time and Dreamtime—Epistemologies and ideas
about knowledge and education—Indigenous perspectives—Transcribing Dreaming
stories—Indigenous storytelling and writing—Perpectives on Aboriginal life, historical
events and social issues—Indigenous writing of Indigenous story: Indigenous life-
writing, memoir and autobiography—School collaborations—Books for young children—
Muse point 35— Writing Indigenous language stories—Rethinking early contributions—
Research informing practice—Muse point 36—References and notes.

Chapter 9 Romance and Realism and the Spaces Between:

Fantasy and Fairytales, Contemporary and Historical
Realism and Social Issues 182
Children’s literature and fantasy—Types of fantasy—Muse point 37—Types of folk tales—
Fairytales—Literary fairytales—Characteristics of fairytales—Critical interpretations—
Muse point 38—The fairytale archetype—Cleaning up fairytales—Muse point 39—
Fairytales in contemporary Australian young adult fiction— Muse point 40—Australia
as fairytale—Romance versus realism—Realism—Muse point 41—References and notes.

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 viii Extended Contents

Chapter 10 The Picturebook Genre: Semiotics,

Semantics and Style 212
The importance of the visual in a digital age—Visual literacy—The evolution of the
picturebook—Picturebooks and phenomenology (the science of perceptions)—Muse
point 42—Picturebooks as introductions to the great narratives of literature—Muse
point 43—Muse point 44—Verbal and visual art—Subject matter—The poetic visual
(or visuality) of picturebook language—The visual and modality (the representation of
realness)—Muse point 45—Reading images and illustrations as text—Tools for analysis—
Comics and comic books—The grammar of visual design—Dominant specularity—
Film theory—The mise en scène and salience—Applying literary literacies to expand
conceptions of the visual—Register—The visual chronotope—The graphic novel: Shaun
Tan’s The Arrival—Some further points—Muse point 46—References and notes.

Chapter 11 Cross-curriculum: Australia and

Asia—Sharing Stories and Global Citizenship 249
A complex area of great diversity—Muse point 47—The idea of global citizenship—Muse
point 48—Muse point 49—Books about Asia within Australian children’s literature—
Muse point 50—Growth of children’s literature in Asian countries—Books written
in Asia in English (or translated)—Muse point 51—Muse point 52—Similarities and
dissimilarities: environmental themes—Muse point 53—Stories about war—Australia
and Asia: a continuing story—Muse point 54—The significance of literature in moving
forward—A note re accessibility—References and notes.

Chapter 12 Towards a Poetics of Australian Children’s

Literature 270
The idea of a poetics—Muse point 55—Time in the ‘timeless land’—Founding the modern
nation—The idea of the terroir—The idea of an imaginary—Performing nation—Muse
point 56—‘Big literature’ and the idea of literature in context—Early representations
of Australia in books for young people—Nation as home—‘Writing the colonial
adventure’—‘One people, one destiny’!—Muse point 57—The First World War and the
verse of CJ Dennis—The landscape writers and Australian romantic nationalism—The
beginnings of social realism—Young adult fiction—Poetry across the continuum—Muse
point 58—Picturebooks and environmentalism—Muse point 59—Australian landscape
and symbolism—The Australian Gothic—Muse point 60—Mystique, lyricism and
surrealism—Deep literacy—Children, magic realism and transcendence—References
and notes.

Epilogue: Going Forward ... and an Ethics of Hope 316

Appendix: Talk Story/Listen Story as a Research and Teaching
Methodology 320
Index 324

00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 8 27/04/2017 3:45 PM

 ix

About the Author

Rosemary Ross Johnston is Professor of Education and Culture at the University of
Technology Sydney, where she is Director of the International Research Centre for Youth
Futures. She has held many executive and governance positions, including as Vice-
President of the Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures Modernes (affiliated
to UNESCO).
She is a leading researcher, a Chief Investigator on three Australian Research
Council grants including one working with remote Indigenous communities, and
one of three Chief Investigators on an international Leverhulme grant, Children and
War 1890–1919. She leads the large action research project IMC Sky High!, which
is designed to encourage engagement and retention in school education, literacy,
develop potential, social skills, and inspire new possibilities for positive futures. She
also leads the Australopedia project, a digital cultural multimedia encyclopedia built
by schoolchildren and exploring and telling their local stories of people, place and
community.
Professor Johnston is widely published in the fields of literacy and literature.

00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 9 27/04/2017 3:45 PM

 x

Acknowledgments
I want to acknowledge the support, expertise and sheer professionalism of the team at
Oxford University Press, Australia, in particular Debra James, Katie Ridsdale, Jennifer
Butler and Mary-Jo O’Rourke. Debra, thank you for a long association through the
five editions of Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature and for suggesting
this new book—it has been a joy to write. Katie, thank you for your ongoing interest,
understanding and encouragement, and for coming up to Sydney and seeing me,
which was so nice. Jen, thank you so much for your ready help, consideration,
and appreciation, and I am so grateful for your always-speedy and careful (and
inspiring) responses. Mary-Jo, thank you for your absolute care, diligence and super-
conscientious checking of the manuscript. You have been fantastic and it has been a
pleasure to work with you.
I also want to acknowledge the University of Technology Sydney, my employer for
many years, which has always encouraged my research projects and where so many
colleagues have become friends. I particularly want to thank Dr Paul March, Dr Lesley
Ljungdahl, Dr Barbara Poston-Anderson and Dr Donald Carter for their help at various
times. Thank you also to those who have worked with me in the past as research
assistants, Helen Cousens, Annabel Robinson, Robert Johnston and Dr Rachel
Perry. I want to acknowledge my team at the International Research Centre for Youth
Futures, Dr Sarah Loch (who read some early chapters), Dr Nicola Sinclair, Associate
Professor Annette Hilton, Dr Mehal Krayem, Dr Meera Varadharajan, Dr Joanne Yoo,
Dr Sandris Zeivots and Ms Libby Myles, with whom I work so closely and who help to
bring our projects to life.
I have been inspired by the intellectual generosity and excellence of the national
and international community of children’s literature scholars—there are so many
but I especially thank (for their expertise, hospitality and friendship) Professor John
Stephens, Professor Peter Hunt, Professor Perry Nodelman, Professor Kimberley
Reynolds, Professor Maria Nikolajeva, Professor Roger Sell, Professor Lissa Paul,
Professor Lynne Vallone and Professor Francesca Orestano.
I want to acknowledge my partners over the years, and the donors and funders who
have made research possible, including the Australian Research Council. I particularly
want to acknowledge the major funder of our ongoing project IMC Sky High! and their
CEO, Brian Hitchcock, and coordinator of corporate social responsibility, Gregory
Nairn. And I must acknowledge the inspiring collaboration of the principals and
teachers of our growing number of IMC Sky High! schools.
And my students—so many over the years—some of whom are still in contact and
all of whom have shared thoughts and ideas that have stayed with me. What a privilege
it is to be a teacher!

00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 10 27/04/2017 3:45 PM

 Acknowledgments xi

And of course, I—and all of us—must acknowledge our writers, poets and
illustrators, past and present, who together have created this wonderful, exciting,
mind-enhancing, precious world of art and literature for young people and for our
nation. There are so many more that I wish we had space to include: we celebrate
them all. As a governor for many years of the Dromkeen National Museum of Picture
Book Art (now donated to the people of Australia and housed at the State Library of
Victoria), I am grateful to the Oldmeadow family and former Chair of the Board of
Governors, Ken Jolly (Chair of the Board of Scholastic Australia), for the impressive
contribution this collection has made to Australian cultural history. I am also grateful
to the national and international professional associations on whose executives I have
been honoured to serve—the Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures
Modernes (FILLM), International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL),
Children’s Literature Association (ChLA), Montgomery Institute (Canada), and the
Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research (ACLAR)—and for the
year I spent in Finland in 2000 as H W Donner Research Professor working with
the ChiIPA doctoral training project at Åbo Akademi University. And our resources
are growing! A recent visit to the National Centre for Children’s Literature at the
University of Canberra, hosted by its director, Emeritus Professor Belle Alderman,
was inspiring and showed the many and diverse opportunities their archive make
available to researchers.
Last but never least, thank you as always to my family, especially Sarah and Robert,
who have often gone beyond the call of duty, but all of them, including my lovely
extended family, who have been with me on this journey and along for the ride.

The author and the publisher wish to thank the following copyright holders for
reproduction of their material.
Images: Alamy/BFA/Marvel Studios, p. 80; Allen & Unwin, pp. 27 right, 84, 85
top, 119, 171 bottom, 221 bottom left, 232, 316 centre right; Archipelego Consultancy,
p. 263; Belinda Vivian, permission kindly given by Belinda Vivian daughter of Ron
Vivian, p. 234; Avda-berlin. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, p. 191; Backroom Press, p. 164; Barbara
Mobbs/H. C. & A. Glad, pp. 187 left, 294; Bendigo Art Gallery/Walter Withers, p. 207
left; Brolly Books for Illustration from the children’s book Little Aussie Adventurers
by Natalie Jane Parker and Anita Forbes and reproduced by kind permission of
the publisher Brolly Books, p. 17 bottom; Catherine H. Berndt Estate, pp. 168 left
and right; Currency Press. Contemporary Indigenous Plays by Vivienne Cleven,
Geoffrey Narkle, Wesley Enoch, Jane Harrison and David Milroy, first published by

00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 11 27/04/2017 3:45 PM

 xii Acknowledgments

Currency Press, Redfern in 2007, cover reproduced courtesy of Currency Press. p. 73

left; Education Services Australia, p. 255 top; Era Publications for Gary Crew, The
Watertower 1994, p. 216 left; Ethos Books, Singapore, p. 259 top and bottom; Fablecroft
for cover of Australis Imaginarium compiled by Tehani Wessely, Fablecroft, 2010, p.
306 bottom; Fairies Dancing (pen and ink and w/c), Outhwaite, Ida Rintoul (1888–
1960)/Private Collection/Photo © Chris Beetles Ltd, London/Bridgeman Images, p.
200; Michelle Anderson Publishing Pty Ltd., p. 221 top; Folger Shakespeare Library
Digital Collection. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Share Alike 4.0 International license, p. 9; Fremantle Press, pp. 176 centre left, 239,
240, 231 top; Random House Group Limited for Snow-White by Josephine Poole,
Illustrations (c) Angela Barrett. Published by Hutchinson (RHCP) Reprinted by
permission of the Random House Group Limited, p. 236 top left; Harper Collins
Publishers Australia, pp. 32, 36, 46, 85 bottom, 105, 128 bottom left, 128 bottom
right, 154, 157 left, 169 right, 169 left, 173, 236 top right, 226 bottom right, 236 bottom
left, 287, 295 bottom, 295 centre, 295 top, 316 left, 317; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
pp. 25, 38 right, 227; Manna Press for Jackie French’s Chook Book, revised edition,
Manna Press 2010. Reproduced with permission from the publisher Manna Press, p.
43 right; Jakec. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 4.0 International license, p. 153; JJ Harrison. This file is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, p. 66; Magabala
Books, pp. 28 right, 60, 172, 174 right, 176 centre, 176 centre right, 176 left, 174 left,
258 right; Margaret Barbalet and Jane Tanner for The Wolf, p. 216 right; Martyman
at the English language Wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, p. 213; Melbourne University Press,
p. 170; MPH Group Publishing, pp. 25 centre right, 258 centre left, 258 left; Nadia
Wheatley and Neil Phillips, p. 20 top centre; National Library Australia, p. 207 top;
New Frontier Publishing, p. 20 bottom; NewSouth Books, University of New South
Wales, p. 127 left and right; Oyez!Books, p. 262; Pan Macmillan Australia, pp. 63,
124, 132, 135,187 right; Penguin Australia, pp. 6, 21 top, 21 bottom, 20 top left, 20
top right, 28 left, 28 centre left, 28 centre right, 41, 73 right, 97, 157 right, 188, 189, 215
right, 221 bottom right, 222, 224 left, 224 right, 236 bottom right, 237, 254 left, 254
right, 283, 316 right; Penguin Random House, New York, p. 316 centre left; RE press,
p. 316 centre; Rosemary Ross Johnston, pp. 177, 225 right, 225 left, 225 centre, 226 top
left; Sally Heinrich, p. 261; Scholastic Australia, pp. 13, 17 top, 27 left, 176 right, 231
bottom; Shutterstock, pp. 215 left, 226 top right; Walker Books Australia, pp. 30, 87
left, 87 right; 90, 128 top, 238 top, 260, p. 238 bottom, 255 bottom, 293, 306 top; Windy
Hollow Books, p. 199.
Text: ACARA. All material identified by ACARA is material subject to copyright
under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and is owned by the Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority 2013. For all Australian Curriculum material
except elaborations: This is an extract from the Australian Curriculum. Elaborations:
This may be a modified extract from the Australian Curriculum and may include
the work of other authors. Disclaimer: ACARA neither endorses nor verifies the
accuracy of the information provided and accepts no responsibility for incomplete
or inaccurate information. In particular, ACARA does not endorse or verify that:

00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 12 27/04/2017 3:45 PM

 Acknowledgments xiii

The content descriptions are solely for a particular year and subject; All the content
descriptions for that year have been used; and The author’s material aligns with the
Australian Curriculum content descriptions for the relevant year and subject. You
can find the unaltered and most up to date version of this material at http://www.
australiancurriculum.edu.au This material is reproduced with the permission of
ACARA; Allen & Unwin for extract from Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks,
Allen & Unwin, 2004 and extract from The Boy Who Built a Boat by Ross Mueller
and Craig Smith, Allen & Unwin, 2006; Backroom Press for extract from Jimmy and
Pat Meet the Queen by Pat Lowe, Backroom Press, 1997; Barbara Mobbs Literary
Agent for Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Puddling, kindly approved by copyright
holders, H. C. & A. Glad; Bruce Dawe for poem ‘Homecoming’ by Bruce Dawe,
Flanagan, Martin, 1989; Cheryl Buchanan for poem from ‘Planet Earth’, by Lionel
Fogarty, 1980; Curtis Brown (Australia) By arrangement with the licensor, The
Dorothea Mackeller Estate, c/ Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd and poem ‘A Fine Thing’,
by Rosemary de Brissac Dobson. By arrangement with the licensor, The Rosemary
Dobson Estate, c/ Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd and poem ‘Australia’, by A.D. Hope. By
arrangement with the licensor, A. D. Hope Estate, c/ Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd and
poem ‘Autobiographical’ by Rosemary Dobson. By arrangement with the licensor, The
Rosemary Dobson Estate, c/ Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd and poem ‘Terra Australis’,
by James McAuley. By arrangement with the licensor, The James McAuley Estate, c/
Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd; Danny Darling for extract from Overlander Trail words
and music by Roy Darling published by Boosey and Hawkes 1945; HarperCollins
Publishers Australia for extract from A is for Aunty by Elaine Russell, ABC books,
2001 and extract from Onion Tears by Dianna Kidd, HarperCollins, (1989) and extract
from poem ‘Magpies’ by Judith Wright; Les Murray for poem ‘Dynamic Rest’, from
Waiting for the Past, Black Inc., 2015; Lional Fogarty and Philip Morrisery for poem
‘Love’ in New and Selected poems, 1995; Melbourne University Press for extract from
David Unaipon, Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines, Melbourne University
Press, Carlton, 2006; Michael Rakusin for Poem ‘The Wanderer’, by Antigone Kefala;
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd for extract from Tomorrow, When the War Began
by John Marsden reprinted by permission of Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd and
Feeling Sorry for Celia, Jaclyn Moriarty, Pan Macmillan, 2000; Paolo Totaro for poem
‘Child Drawings’, Paolo Totaro Collected Poems 1950-2010. Padana Press: Leichhardt,
NSW, p.114; Penguin Australia and Jenny Darling Agency for extract from All That
I Am, by Anna Funder, Penguin Australia, 2012 and extracts from Cloudstreet by
Tim Winton, Penguin Australia 1998. Reproduced with permission by Penguin
Group (Australia); Penguin Australia for extract from Christmas in Australia,
John Williamson,Viking 2014 and extract from The Fisherman and the Theefyspray
by Paul Jennings & Jane Tanner, 1994 and for poem ‘Felda’, by Omar Musa. And
extract from Alison Lester, Kissed by the Moon, Viking, 2013 and extract from The
Waterhole by Graeme Base, Picture Puffin 2003 and extract from The Treasure Box
by Margaret Wild, Picture Puffin, 2013. Reproduced with permission by Penguin
Group (Australia); Random House Australia for extract from Way Home by Libby
Hathorn, Random House Australia. 1995; Richard Trudgen, in Why Warriors Lie
Down and Die by Richard Trudgen, Aboriginal Resource & Development Services

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 xiv Acknowledgments

Inc, 2000; Royston Darling for extract from Poem ‘Corinthian Sun’ by Royston
Darling; Sarah Sydney for lyrics from Apple Tree (Carpe Diem) by Sarah Sydney;
Scholastic Australia for extract from Imagine a City, by Elise Hurst (2014) Tomas
Tranströmer: New Collected Poems, trans. Robin Fulton (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) www.
bloodaxebooks.com; University of Western Australia Press for poem ‘Breakfast’ and
‘Seeing Paddocks’ by Martin Harrison from Wild Bees: New and selected poems, 2008;
Walker Books Australia for extract from WHERE THE FOREST MEETS THE SEA
by Jeannie Baker Copyright (c) 1987 Jeannie Baker. Reproduced by permission of
Walker Books Australia.
Every effort has been made to trace the original source of copyright material
contained in this book. The publisher will be pleased to hear from copyright holders
to rectify any errors or omissions.

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 xv

Preface
What makes a literate nation?
The arts—literature in all its forms, theatre and cinema, dance, music, drawing,
painting and sculpture—both sustain and create literate nations. They are not an
extra-curricular frill, but an integral part of communal and personal lives; they
arm for the journey and help make sense of the journey.
The arts are historically and culturally charged ‘habitats’ which emerge from
the experience of humankind. Discipline-driven Western curricula tend to
separate the arts from mainstream learning. But indigenous modes of knowledge
transmission are arts-based and art-generated; story and song cycle and dance
and visual arts shape and are shaped by social, learning and spiritual experience.
While Western curricula may not necessarily reflect this, the arts play a vital
role in the constitution of national capital and national heritage. They are ‘creative’
not only for those who create them (the artists and writers and composers), but for
those who interact with them and imaginatively participate as readers and viewers.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines ‘create’ as ‘bring into existence’;
others define ‘creative’ as ‘inventive and imaginative’, ‘creating or able to create’,
‘characterised by originality and expressiveness’, ‘stimulating’ (Oxford Reference
Dictionary, Reader’s Digest Universal Dictionary). The many creative forms of
the arts stimulate responsive creativity—activating thinking and engagement of
the emotions, inspiring senses of the aesthetic, generating connections between
artistic and lived experience. Creativity is contagious, active and vicarious; it
jumps from one thought to another, from one imagination to another, from one
mode of expression to another, from outer worlds to inner worlds, and from inner
worlds to outer worlds.
A literate nation is creative. Through its policies and practices, through the
investments (financial and other) it is prepared to make in the education of its
young, it recognises the significance of the arts in teaching and learning, and
in making provision for sustainable presents and creative futures. In valuing a
culture of multiple artistic experiences, it encourages the capacity to listen with
the mind as well as the ear, see with the spirit as well as the eyes.
The arts play out the great mystery in human lives, the otherwise inexpressible.
They provide a ready forum for the discussion of moral issues, with all their
concomitant stresses and ambiguities. Books and drama and art do not provide
pat answers; rather, they peel open the most challenging questions. They help to
unpick and interpret the density of living, as we do in Australia, in a multicultural
and multi-faith society. Readers and viewers peer through the arts to observe the
engagement of others (real and fictional) with the pressures of daily life, as well as

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 xvi Preface

with the clouds of unknowing. Indeed, the intersection of arts and religion provides
an insightful introduction to negotiating the intercultural/interfaith divide.
The arts promote vision and understanding that are at once deeply personal and
beyond the personal. Individuals are not sustainable—they are mortal. The arts—as
religions do—sustain the spirit by giving a glimpse and a hope of something more.

Rosemary Ross Johnston, Literate Australia: a monograph (2009)

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 xvii

Introduction
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Carl Sagan, Cosmos, The Persistence of Memory, Part 11 (1980)

About Australian Literature for Young People

1. This book is research-informed by many ongoing projects and also a lifetime of
teaching in schools and in universities at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
2. Literature is an integral part of cultural context, which it both impacts and reflects.
In the light of current educational trends (see Chapter 2), this book refers to that
wider cultural context. We must encourage a broader and deeper knowledge of
this country, its history, its people, its art, to truly understand and appreciate its
literature. This will nurture enquiry and promote educational creativity.
3. We are living in a time of radical change, and ideas about teaching and
learning are changing too. This book seeks to address these changing
ideas: about epistemology—the sort of knowledge children need now and will
need later; about pedagogy—how best to nourish those needs (for creativity,
imagination, agile thinking across domains, the ability to communicate and
collaborate, wellbeing); about disciplines—how they intersect and breed
crossover knowledge that inspires fuller understanding. There are changing
ideas about how schools and systems should reflect how children learn—not
constrained by age or stage, but by skills and competencies.
The Australian Curriculum is a guide to all of this, but how teachers
accomplish its intentions should emerge from their own inner resources, their
ongoing reading and intellectual growth, their up-to-date knowledge of the
world and its demands on young people. If teachers—and parents and the
community—are teaching and reaching for creativity, they themselves must
be creative.
4. Literature is exposure to creativity not only in its infinitely variable telling
of stories—multimedia, multimodal—but also in the actual stories it tells. It
is all about humans, both ‘real’ and representational (for example, animals),
engaging with the challenges of life, in ways other than our own, places other
than our own and times other than our own. It is a unique exposure to the
thought-worlds of others.
5. Many great themes are found across the literary continuum, including in books
for young people. These include the struggle between good and evil (Macbeth
as well as Lord of the Rings and The Famous Five); the internal struggle (Hamlet
as well as the Narnia stories); the quest, voyage or going out, and return (The
Odyssey as well as Peter Rabbit); the rags-to-riches story (Pygmalion, Jane
Eyre, Great Expectations, fairytales such as Cinderella); the coming into one’s
destiny (Harry Potter); and the emergence from darkness into a wiser rebirth (A
Christmas Carol and The Secret Garden; see Booker 2004).

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 xviii Introduction

This book emphasises how exposure to such themes in children’s books

prepares a fertile receptivity for later encounters with more sophisticated
expressions. Picturebooks are particularly helpful (for readers across all stages)
because they are generally short and provide visual and verbal examples of the
complexities of literary theories and applications.
6. Although I have sometimes referred to texts from other countries, this book
focuses on the rich reservoir of Australian literature, particularly, for ease of
reference, on texts that are well-known.
7. I have adopted the spelling of ‘picturebook’ as one word, to more adequately
describe these books in which story emerges from the two communication
systems of the verbal (word signs) and the visual (image signs). This reflects:
a international critical scholarship in children’s literature and particularly the
picturebook (see Nikolajeva & Scott 2001)
b cultural trends that have led to the emergence of visual literacy in school
curricula
c the growing willingness of writers, illustrators and publishers to
explore the possibilities of producing books that creatively use verbal
text + visual text.
8. ‘Literature’ may now exist without words, as in the graphic novel. Images and
visual signs have become increasingly significant as part of communication in
a digital culture which encourages icons and symbols. Literary analysis now
has to engage with the visual. Picturebooks provide a succinct and effective way
of developing understanding not only of how words and images play with one
another, but also of how images themselves communicate.
9. Because film is now part of the multimodal texts for English study, there is some
limited reference to films where appropriate (see Johnston 2014).
10. This is a mind book, not a handbook. It is designed for growing ideas. It is not a
textbook with readymade exercises; rather, it seeks to inspire a nimble hypertext
of mind that, out of its own rich scholarship and intellectual endeavour, creates
teaching and learning that are personalised for these young people in this place
at this time.
All of us involved in education, and indeed all of us, need to seek
continuously to enlarge our thinking and reflection, as well as knowledge. We
always need to know more than we need to know. Our personal repertoire of
thinking enriches who we are and how we teach, as well as how we live that
‘need-to-know’ with those who also need to know (and live) it.

The organisation and research base of this book

This book directly relates its contents to, but is not limited to, the Australian Curriculum.
Some excerpts from the Curriculum are included because they outline intellectual contexts,
can inform the general public and can inspire teachers to develop their own approaches.
The book has a strong cross-curricular, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary emphasis.
This is why it does not separate poetry from prose; we need to reclaim the place of poetry
as a rich accompaniment to everyday life.

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 Introduction xix

This book is the result of years of research and includes specific input from research
teams and Indigenous communities with whom I have worked. At times I refer to
three major projects that I lead:
• New Ways of Doing School involved fieldwork in remote and regional
Indigenous communities; see Chapter 8.
• IMC Sky High! is a cultural and educational program for Years 7 and 8 in
challenging socioeconomic areas.
• Sharing Creative Cultures is a creative arts and literacy program for Years 4, 5, 6
designed to enhance understanding of diverse cultures.
These programs revolve around the idea of story: stories told to self, about self,
about others. Some are grounded in an emancipatory action research methodology
that extends Hawaiian ‘talk story’; see Appendix.
However, research needs to be applied if it is to make a difference and there is
no more worthwhile place to apply this research than with teachers, who are in
the enviable position of walking alongside others and opening doors into the ever-
changing worlds of ideas. These worlds of ideas are made accessible through literacy
and literature, and equip us for the complex, edifying and mysterious journey that is
life.

The ‘Muse points’

Muses sarcophagus, Louvre MR880

(Public domain)

The Muses (personifications of knowledge and the arts, goddesses of inspiration and creative
influence)

In Greek and Roman mythology the nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and
Mnemosyne (goddess of memory: thus ‘mnemonic’), were the goddesses of the arts
and sciences: Calliope (epic poetry), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy
and pastoral poetry), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Melpomene
(tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Clio (history), Urania (astronomy).

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 xx Introduction

To muse = to think about something carefully or thoroughly; to think or say

(something) in a thoughtful way, to ponder, consider, contemplate, meditate on, even
to daydream.
Wondering is part of musing. Aristotle wrote: ‘Men were first led to the study
of philosophy, as indeed they are today, by wonder’ (Taylor 1910: 75). Science
has emerged from musing, pondering and wondering: the physicist James Clerk
Maxwell says his first memory is of ‘lying on the grass, looking at the sun and
wondering’ (Koestler 1964: 260).
As part of reflection, and to grow minds and creative expansions of practice,
each chapter contains Muse points. These are places to stop and think. Current
educational and corporate communities stress the need for people not only to think
but to think about thinking in multiple ways: non-linear as well as linear, illogically as
well as logically, using methods and ideas outside domains of usual practice, to make
conceptual leaps and help knowledges collide and grow—and sometimes disrupt—in
the spaces between. They encourage transdisciplinary rather than compartmentalised
thinking. Transdisciplinary paradigms are part of:
a new intellectual age, which is not only rethinking, reconceptualising, and reassessing educational
practices, but the very nature of education itself.
(Johnston 2008: 223)

Transdisciplinarity is a dynamic that encourages movement and intellectual energy

between, across, above, below and beyond siloed thinking structures (Johnston 2008: 225).
Musing also promotes threshold thinking:
As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept, there may thus be a transformed internal
view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view … A threshold concept can be
considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking
about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing
something without which the learner cannot progress.
(Meyer & Land 2003: 1, 3)

Through threshold thinking and its capacity for inducing transformation,

students suddenly see the bigger picture. Such learning may be counter-intuitive, alien
(emanating from another culture or discourse), upsetting or incoherent (Meyer &
Land 2003: 5–6). The element of learning that disrupts or troubles initiates rethinking
and new thinking.
Literature is innately transdisciplinary: it is concerned with stories about
everything—think about country as character in Patricia Wrightson’s Wirrun trilogy
(see Muse point 1). It can be troublesome, as in Nadia Wheatley’s The House That Was
Eureka, or disruptive, as in The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan.
So Muse points generally prompt and sometimes disrupt. Hopefully they encourage
reading in the psychology of learning, science, philosophy, as well as literary theory.
By showing what fictional characters do, books offer countless examples that promote
diversity and agility in solving problems. They sponsor imagining and reimagining in
authentic contexts, alongside those with whom we are sharing teaching and learning
and, indeed, life.

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 Introduction xxi

References
Booker, C (2004) The Seven Basic Plots: why we tell stories, London/New York: Continuum.
Johnston, RR (2008) ‘On connection and community: transdisciplinarity and the arts’
in Transdisciplinarity: theory and practice, ed. B Nicolescu, New York: Hampton,
223–236.
Johnston, RR (2009) Literate Australia, University of Technology Sydney <www.uts.edu.
au/sites/default/files/accy-literate-australia.pdf>.
Johnston, RR (2014) ‘Pullman, the idea of soul, and multimodal “seeability” in Northern
Lights and the film The Golden Compass’ in Philip Pullman: his dark materials, eds
C Butler & T Halsdorf, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 36–57.
Koestler, A (1964) The Act of Creation, London: Pan Books.
Meyer, J & Land, R (2003) Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: linkages to
ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines <www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/
ETLreport4.pdf>.
Nikolajeva, M & Scott, C (2001) How Picturebooks Work, New York: Garland.
Taylor, AE trans. (1910) Aristotle on his Predecessors: being the first book of his metaphysics,
Chicago: Open Court.

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00_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 22 27/04/2017 3:45 PM
 1
1

Magic, Spels and

Gramarye
Studying English literature at school was my first, and probably my biggest, step towards mental
freedom and independence. It was like falling in love with life.
(Ian McEwan, novelist)

Spel (Anglo-Saxon) = to write, to read, to work magic

Gramarye (Anglo-Saxon) = to cast a spell, to cast a ‘glamour’ (said to be used by witches)

‘Grammar’ derives from graphein (Greek) = the art of reading and writing.

‘Glamour’ is a corruption of ‘grammar’.

The Literature strand aims to engage students in the study of literary texts of personal, cultural,
social and aesthetic value … Texts are chosen because they are judged to have potential for
enriching the lives of students [and] expanding the scope of their experience … Learning to
appreciate literary texts … builds students’ knowledge about how language can be used for
aesthetic ends, to create particular emotional, intellectual or philosophical effects.
(http://v7-5.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/content-structure/literature)

The magic and glamour of reading and writing

Writing consists of marks of what we call language on a page: in the English language
these marks consist of only 26 letters—ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ—
and punctuation protocols (such as commas, full stops, question marks and so on).
Reading makes sense of those marks of language: it creates mind-pictures
of characters and what they look like; of places, time and events; of voices and
sounds; and of touch and smell. The reading of writing is a sort of magic: there is no
soundtrack, although we hear sounds; there is no image on a screen, although we see
mental images.
Writing, and the reading of writing, create the powerful spell of story. Stories
model, inspire and teach language. Books offer one of the most significant and
accessible ways of introducing children to language through the multiple modes of
story. Because books are read to very young children, children become aware that
print marks and sounds match in some way so as to express meaning; they become
aware of what sentences sound like and the coherence of narrative.

01_JOH_LIT_27902_TXT_SI.indd 1 27/04/2017 3:55 PM

Other documents randomly have
different content
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise.

Unnumber’d blessings on my head

Thy tender care bestow’d,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those blessings flow’d.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts

My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a grateful heart,
To taste those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life

Thy goodness I’ll pursue;
And, after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
Addison.
Break forth into thanksgiving,
Ye banded instruments of wind and chords!
Unite, to praise the Ever-living,
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words,
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon:
Thou too be heard lone eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six days work, by flaming Seraphim
Transmits to Heaven! as deep to deep
Shouting through one valley rolls;
All worlds, all nature, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation poured
Into the ear of God—their Lord.
Wordsworth.
Is there any smile of prophecy upon the world’s wide face?
Among the striving millions there, say who shall win the race?
’Mid fallen towers, and falling thrones, and glories that decay,
Will any kingdom rise to shine in everlasting day?

One spirit powers His riches o’er all the earth abroad,
And all these changing pictures shew the glory of our God.
But, would you know the meaning and the virtue of the whole,
Descend to yonder vale, where dwells one happy human soul.

There sitting in the sunshine, the grey-haired labourer see,

He smiles upon his grandson there, who plays besides the tree;
Where, when a child, he played himself, and soon its bough shall
wave,
When he rests from all his labours, above his quiet grave!

Oh yes; there is a meaning and a rest for every heart,

Not in gazing on the whole, but in doing well a part;
Where rests in peace and thankfulness, one reasonable soul,—
There centres all the happiness, the wisdom of the whole!
J. Gostick.
 THOUGHT.
O Lord, how great are thy works? and thy thoughts are very deep.—Psalm xcii.
5.
I hate vain thoughts; but thy law do I love.—Psalm cxix. 113.
The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord.—Proverbs, xv. 26.
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature.—Matthew,
vi. 27.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.
Shakspere.

Rise, O my soul, with thy desires to heaven,

And with divinest contemplation use
Thy time, where time’s eternity is given,
And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse;
But sown in darkness let them lie;
So live the better, let the worst thoughts die!
Sir Walter Raleigh.

Think that is just; ’tis not enough to do,

Unless thy very thoughts are upright too.
Thomas Randolph.

His pure thoughts were borne

Like fumes of sacred incense o’er the clouds,
And wafted thence on angels’ wings, through ways
Of light to the bright Source of all.
Congreve.
 Companion none is like
Unto the mind alone,
For many have been harmed by speech,—
Through thinking, few, or none.
Fear oftentimes restraineth words,
But makes not thoughts to cease;
And he speaks best, that hath the skill
When for to hold his peace.

Our wealth leaves us at death,

Our kinsmen at the grave,
But virtues of the mind unto
The heavens with us we have;
Wherefore, for virtue’s sake,
I can be well content,
The sweetest time of all my life
To deem in thinking spent.
Lord Vaux.

Thoughts uncontrolled and unimpressed, the births

Of pure election, arbitrary range,
Not to the limits of one world confined.
Young.
 O ye, whose hours in jocund train advance,
Whose spirits to the song of gladness dance,
Who flowery fields in endless view survey,
Glittering in beams of visionary day;
O yet while Fate delays th’ impending blow,
Be roused to thought, anticipate the woe;
Lest, like the lightning’s glance, the sudden ill
Flash to confound, and penetrate to kill.
Beattie.

O reader, had you in your mind,

Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader, you would find
A tale in everything.
Wordsworth.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,

Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain.
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Each, as the various avenues of sense,
Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense,
Frightens or fades; yet all, with magic art,
Control the latent fibres of the heart.
Rogers.
 God is great and right!
He crowned man’s brow with radiant orbs of light—
Light which inspires all abstracts, and prints
On each twin lens all images and tints.
To contract, brings the world beyond our span,
And makes the farthest star converse with man;
To read His works, God thus illumed the head,
But made man’s breast no window to be read.
Glory to God; though given to King and Pope,
To seal our eyes, our bosoms none can ope;
There still shall freedom one asylum find:
Go to, make creeds and laws to scourge mankind;
Enthral them, hand and foot, and sight and speech,
Thought only, thought is barred beyond your reach;
What racks can bind? or what research unveil
The soul, with flesh encompassed as a mail
Of proof, impervious, save to God alone,
Defies her labours, and resumes her own.
Whether she break communion with the tongue
And bid it mock you with the lie you wrung,
Or scorning such degenerate use of breath,
Escape with truth, and leave you dust and death.
Nicholas Thorning Moile.
Think’st thou to be concealed, thou little thought,
That in the curtained chamber of the soul
Dost wrap thyself so close, and dream to do
A secret work? Look to the hues that roll
O’er the changed brow—the moving lips behold—
Linking thee unto speech—the feet that run
Upon thy errands, and the deeds that stamp
Thy lineage plain before the noon-day sun;
Look to the pen that writes thy history down
In those tremendous books that ne’er unclose
Until the day of doom, and blush to see
How vain thy trust in darkness to repose,
Where all things tend to judgment. So beware,
O, erring human heart! what thought thou lodgest there.
Mrs. Sigourney.

Methought I heard a reverend old man speak;

Grey were his locks, his eyes were calmly bright,
The rosiness of youth was on his cheek,
And, as he spoke, a heaven of truth and light
Open’d itself upon my inner sight;
While, banish’d by his accents soft and meek,
Dissolve itself in holy harmony.
Then to the old man, doubtfully, I said,
“Yet in the world these evils are not dead!”
But, confidently, thus he gave reply—
“As in my thoughts, so in the world they lie.”—
And with these words he rais’d his drooping head.
J. Gostick.
Free from guile, and free from sin,
May the thoughts my breast within,
Gracious God, Thy favour win!
Egone.
 TIDINGS.
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.—
Psalm cxii. 1, 7.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping
watch over their flock by night.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of
great joy, which shall be to all people.—Luke, ii. 8, 10.

The tidings which that infant brings,

Are not for conquerors, or for kings:
Not for the sceptre or the brand,
For crowned head, or red right hand.
But to the contrite and the meek,
The sinful, sorrowful, and weak:
Or those who, with a hope sublime,
Are waiting for the Lord’s good time.
Only for those the angels sing,
“All glory to our new-born King,
And peace and good-will unto men,
Hosanna to our God! Amen!”
Miss Landon.
Sent from the ark, the dove, with timid flight,
Strove through the storms, yet found not where to light;
Pursued by winds o’er restless ocean’s roar,
Back to the flood-tossed crew no leaf she bore:
So through the past man’s tempest-driven mind,
Sent fancy forth some resting-place to find;
O’er bush, tree, hill, she winged her trackless way,
Nor foothold found her weary flight to stay;
Back o’er the sea on terror-haunted air,
She flew, to tell the tidings of despair;
Again she flies for fairer forms to seek,
And lo! the olive borne upon her beak!
Hear her glad news,—she rested on the tomb,
Saw the dawn break, and flit the ancient gloom!
Through night she swept, and heard the gentle fall
Of angel footsteps in its silent hall;
Upborne from earth, in strong and joyous flight,
Fearless she sought the empyrean height,
Gazed on the source whence pours the living ray,
On earth’s time-shadows, God’s eternal day.
John Brooks Fellon.
 TIME.
O Lord, Thou art my God: my times are in Thy hand.—Psalm xxxi. 14, 15.
It is time to seek the Lord.—Hosea, x. 12.
It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light.—Zechariah, xiv. 7.
But this I say, brethren, the time is short.—I. Corinthians, vii. 29.
Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.—II.
Corinthians, vi. 2.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his
hand to heaven,
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, that there should be time no
longer.—Revelation, x. 5, 6.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
Shakspere.
Misshapen time, copesmate of ugly night;
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care;
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare:
Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are.
Shakspere.

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,

To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light;
To stamp the seal of time on aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger, till he render right.
Shakspere.

Time is so swift that none can match his course,—

Time is so strong that none can match his force:
Like to a thiefe Time stealingly doth haste;
No man can call Time backe when Time is past.

* * * * *

Time is as swift as thought—the swift’st-wing’d swallow

Cannot endure the flight of Time to follow:
Time is of the Ubiquitaries’ race,—
Time’s here, Time’s there, Time is in every place;
Time is divided in a three-fold sum,
Time past, Time present, and the Time to come.
A present Time I presently intreat,
For therein lies the sum of my conceit,
For Time (once past) can never be recall’d.
And therefore Time is figured to be bald.
Peter Small.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace,
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is our gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine,
About the supreme throne
Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthly grossness quit,
Attir’d with stars, we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time!
Milton.

Throw years away!

Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments seize
Heavens on their wing: a moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy.
Young.
O Time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squandered, wisdom’s debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days all due to that discharge.
Young.

Time as he passes us, has a dove’s wing,

Unroil’d and swift, and of a silken sound;
But the World’s Time, is Time in masquerade!
Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged,
With motley plumes; and where the peacock shews
His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
Cowper.
“Why sits thou by that ruin’d hall,
Thou aged carle so stern and grey?
Dost thou its former pride recall,
Or ponder how it pass’d away?”

“Know’st thou not me?” the deep voice cried,

“So long enjoyed, so oft misused—
Alternate, in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused?

Before my breath, like smoking flax,

Man and his marvels pass away,
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish, and decay.

Redeem mine hours—the space is brief

While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
And measureless thy joy or grief,
When time and thou shalt part for ever!”
Sir Walter Scott.
Time speeds away—away—away:
Another hour—another day—
Another month—another year—
Drop from us like the leaflet sear;
Drop like the life-blood from our hearts;
The rose-bloom from the cheek departs,
The tresses from the temples fall,
The eye grows dim and strange to all.

Time speeds away—away—away,

Like torrent in a stormy day;
He undermines the stately tower,
Uproots the tree, and snaps the flower;
And sweeps from our distracted breast
The friends that loved—the friends that blest;
And leaves us weeping on the shore,
To which they can return no more.

Time speeds away—away—away:

No eagle through the skies of day,
No wind along the hills can flee
So swiftly or so smooth as he.
Like fiery steed—from stage to stage,
He bears us on from youth to age;
Then plunges in the fearful sea
Of fathomless eternity.
Knox.
 Time, as he courses onwards, still unrolls
The volume of concealment. In the future,
As in the optician’s glassy cylinder,
The undistinguishable blots and colours
Of the dim past collect and shape themselves,
Upstarting in their own completed image
To scare, or to reward.
Coleridge.

And who is he, the vast, the awful form,

Girt with the whirlwind, sandalled with the storm?
A western cloud around his limbs is spread,
His crown a rainbow, and a sun his head,
To highest Heaven he lifts his kingly hand,
And treads at once the ocean and the land;
And hark! His voice amid the thunder’s roar,
His dreadful voice—that time shall be no more!
Bishop Heber.
I ask’d an aged man, a man of cares,
Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs;
“Time is the warp of life,” he said, “Oh, tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!”
I ask’d the ancient, venerable dead,
Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled;
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flow’d,
“Time sow’d the seed we reap in this abode!”
I ask’d a dying sinner, ere the tide
Of life had left his veins.—“Time!” he replied;
“I’ve lost it! ah, the treasure!” and he died.
I ask’d the golden sun and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years;
They answered, “Time is but a meteor glare,”
And bade us for Eternity prepare.
I ask’d the Seasons, in their annual round,
Which beautify or desolate the ground;
And they replied, (no oracle more wise,)
“’Tis folly’s blank, and wisdom’s highest prize!”
I ask’d a spirit lost, but oh, the shriek
That pierc’d my soul! I shudder while I speak!
It cried, “a particle! a speck! a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!”
Of things inanimate, my dial I
Consulted, and it made me this reply—
“Time is the season fair of living well,
The path of glory, or the path of hell!”
I ask’d my Bible, and methinks it said,
“Time is the present hour, the past is fled;
Live! live to-day! to-morrow never yet
On any living being rose or set!”
I ask’d old Father Time himself at last;
But in a moment he flew swiftly past:—
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.
 I ask’d a mighty angel, who shall stand
One foot on sea, and one on solid land:
“By Heaven,” he cried, “I swear the mystery’s o’er;
Time was,” he cried, “but Time shall be no more!”
Joshua Marsden.

O Time! the fatal wreck of mortal things,

That draws oblivion’s curtains over kings.
Their sumptuous monuments, men know them not,
Their names without a record, are forgot,
Their parts, their ports, their pomp’s all laid i’ the dust,
Nor wit, nor gold, nor buildings, ’scape Time’s rust;
But he whose name is ’graved in the white stone,
Shall last and shine when all of these are gone.
Mrs. Anne Bradstreet.

Be silent and still, for his end draweth near,

And watch with a quivering breath;
No mortal eye beheld his birth,
But all shall behold his death,
For the nations from every land and clime
Shall gather to gaze on the close of Time.

The Moon shall look down with a tearful eye,

And the Sun shall withhold his fire,
And the hoary Earth, all parched and dry,
Shall flame for his funeral pyre,
When the Angel, that standeth on earth and shore,
Proclaimeth that “Time shall be no more!”
Edward Pollok.
O, God of times, and yet, in time a man!
Before all times thy time of being was;
And yet in time thy human birth began,
Lest we should fade, untimely, like the grass,—
Thou that hast said thy word should never pass,
And thou that dost all times begin and end,—
Vouchsafe thy comfort to my sad soul send.
G. Ellis.

A moment is a mighty thing,

Beyond the soul’s imagining,
For in it, though we trace it not,
How much there crowds of varied lot!
How much of life, life cannot see,
Darts onward to eternity!
While vacant hours of beauty roll
Their magic o’er some yielded soul,
Ah! little do the happy guess
The sum of human wretchedness;
Or dream, amid the soft farewell
That time of them is taking,
How frequent mourns the funeral knell,
What noble heart is breaking,
While myriads to their tombs descend
Without a mourner, creed, or friend!
R. Montgomery.
 TO-DAY—TO-MORROW.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring
forth.—Proverbs, xxvii. 1.
Ye know not what shall be on the morrow.—James, iv. 14.

To-day is yesterday returned; returned

Full-powered to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn,
And reinstate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not share its predecessors’ fate;
Nor, like its elder sisters, die a fool.
Young.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool,

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve.
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves and re-resolves, then dies the same.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man’s presumption on to-morrow’s dawn.
Where is to-morrow? in another world.
And yet on this perhaps, this peradventure,
(Infamous for lies) as on a rock of adamant
We build our mountain hopes, spin our eternal schemes,
And big with life’s futurities expire.
Young.
To-morrow you will live, you always cry,
In what far country does this morrow lie,
That ’tis so mighty long ere it arrive?
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live?
’Tis so far fetch’d this morrow, that I fear
’Twill be both very old and very dear.
To-morrow I will live, the fool does say;
To-day itself’s too late, the wise lived yesterday.
Cowley.

To-morrow!
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward and the fool, condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect:
Strange! that this general fraud, from day to day,
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
Dr. Johnson.
 To-morrow then begins the task, you say:
Alas! you’ll act to-morrow as to-day:
What? is one day, (you cry,) too much to ask?
Trust me to-morrow shall commence the task.
But think, ere yet to-morrow’s dawn come on,
Our yesterday’s to-morrow will be gone.
Thus, while the present from the future borrows,
To-morrows slowly creep upon to-morrows,
Till months and years behold the task undone,
Which, still beginning, never is begun.
Just as the hinder of two chariot wheels
Still presses closely on its fellow’s heels;
So flies to-morrow, while you fly so fast,
For ever following, and for ever last.
Howes, from Persius.

To-morrow, didst thou say?

Methought I heard Horatio say, To-morrow.
Go to—I will not hear of it—To-morrow!
’Tis a sharper, who stakes his penury
Against thy plenty—who takes thy ready cash,
And pays thee nought but wishes, hopes, and promises,
The currency of idiots—injurious bankrupt,
That gulls the easy creditor!—To-morrow!
It is a period nowhere to be found
In all the hoary registers of Time,
Unless perchance in the fool’s calender.
Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society
With those who own it. No, my Horatio,
’Tis Fancy’s child, and folly is its father;
Wrought of such stuff as dreams are, and as baseless
As the fantastic visions of the evening.
Cotton.
As Time glides on in silent flow,
To-day yields to to-morrow;
To-morrow’s expectations grow
To-day’s own bliss or sorrow.

Still, as to-morrow’s sun appears,

It shines upon to-day;
So, realized, our hopes and fears
For ever melt away.
Anon.
 TONGUE.
The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth
out foolishness.
A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the
spirit.—Proverbs, xv. 2, 4.
The tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a
matter a little fire kindleth!
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our
members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature;
and it is set on fire of hell.
The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which
are made after the similitude of God.
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these
things ought not so to be.—James, iii. 5, 6, 8, 9, 10.

The man
In whom this spirit entered, was undone.
His tongue was set on fire of hell, his heart
Was black as death, his legs were faint with haste
To propagate the lie his soul had framed.
Pollok.

Sacred interpreter of human thought,

How few respect, or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of every wrong,
Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue;
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or sell their glory at the market price!
Cowper.
Nor did the pulpit’s oratory fail
To achieve its higher triumph.—Not unfelt
Were its admonishments, nor lightly heard
The awful truths, delivered thence by tongues
Endowed with various power to search the soul.
Wordsworth.

From idle words that restless throng,

And haunt our hearts when we would pray,
From pride’s false chime, and jarring wrong,
Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way:
For Thou hast sworn that every ear,
Willing, or loth, Thy trump shall hear,
And every tongue unchained be,
To own no hope, O God, but Thee.
Keble.
 TREASURE.
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
—Proverbs, x. 2.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.—Matthew, vi. 19, 20,
21.

He is a path, if any be misled;

He is a robe, if any naked be;
If any chance to hunger, He is bread;
If any be a bondman, He is free;
If any be but weak, how strong is He!
To dead men life He is, to sick men health;
To blind men sight, and to the needy, wealth—
A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth.
Giles Fletcher.

Not to understand a treasure’s worth

Till time has stolen away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
Cowper.
 Engage this roving treacherous heart,
Great God! to choose the better part;
To scorn the trifles of a day,
For joys that none can take away.

Then let the wildest storms arise,

Let tempests mingle earth and skies;
No fatal shipwreck shall I fear,
But all my treasure with me bear.

If Thou, my Jesus, still art nigh,

Cheerful I live, and cheerful die;
Secure, when mortal comforts flee,
To find ten thousand worlds in Thee.
Doddridge.

Think’st thou the man whose mansions hold

The worldling’s pomp, and miser’s gold,
Obtains a richer prize
Than he, who, in his cot at rest,
Finds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast
Of treasure in the skies.
Mrs. Sigourney.
What are they?—gold and silver,
Or what such ore can buy?
The price of silken luxury—
Rich robes of Tyrian dye?
Guests that come thronging in
With lordly pomp and state?
Or thankless liveried serving men,
To stand about the gate?

Or are they daintiest meats,

Sent up on silver fine?
Or golden cups o’er brimm’d
With rich Falernian wine?
Or parchments, setting forth
Broad lands our fathers held?
Parks for our deer, ponds for our fish,
And woods that may be fell’d?

No, no! they are not these! or else

God help the poor man’s need!
Then, sitting ’mid his little ones,
He would be poor indeed!
They are not these—our household wealth
Belongs not to degree:
It is the love within our souls—
The children at our knee!

My heart o’erfloweth to mine eyes

When I see the poor man stand,
After his daily work is done,
With children by the hand:—
And this he kisseth tenderly,
And that sweet names doth call;
For I know he has no treasure
Like those dear children small!
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