Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: Colonial Voices and Early Writing
Colonial Voices and Early Writing
Knowledge check
Q1. Which document, written in 1770 by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander's expedition associates, is often cited as an early colonial description of the Australian east coast?
- A. The Dampier Log
- B. Cook's journal of the Endeavour voyage ✓
- C. The First Fleet Diary
- D. Watkin Tench's Narrative
Why: James Cook's journal of the Endeavour voyage (1768-1771) recorded his observations of the east coast, including the 1770 landing at Botany Bay, and became a foundational colonial text describing the land and its inhabitants.
Q2. Who wrote 'A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay' (1789), one of the earliest published accounts of the First Fleet settlement?
- A. David Collins
- B. Watkin Tench ✓
- C. John Hunter
- D. Arthur Phillip
Why: Watkin Tench, a captain of marines with the First Fleet, published his Narrative in 1789, giving an early firsthand account of the settlement at Sydney Cove and its hardships.
Q3. What was the name of the penal colony established at Sydney Cove in January 1788?
- A. Port Jackson Colony
- B. New South Wales ✓
- C. Van Diemen's Land
- D. Moreton Bay
Why: The British established the penal colony of New South Wales at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, when the First Fleet arrived under Governor Arthur Phillip.
Q4. Which early colonial writer is known for the novel 'Quintus Servinton' (1830), often considered one of the first Australian novels?
- A. Henry Savery ✓
- B. Marcus Clarke
- C. Rolf Boldrewood
- D. Henry Lawson
Why: Henry Savery, a convicted forger transported to New South Wales, wrote 'Quintus Servinton' (1830), which is widely regarded as the first Australian-authored novel.
Q5. What is the term for the mixed-language or pidgin communication that developed between Indigenous Australians and British settlers in the early colonial period?
- A. Creole
- B. Pidgin English or Sydney Cove Pidgin ✓
- C. Lingua franca
- D. Argot
Why: Early contact produced a pidgin, sometimes called Sydney Cove Pidgin or Pidgin English, blending English with Indigenous words and grammar, reflecting the linguistic exchange of the colonial encounter.
Module 2
Module 2: Bush Ballads and the Outback Myth
Bush Ballads and the Outback Myth
Knowledge check
Q1. Which poet is most closely associated with the Australian bush ballad tradition of the 1890s and wrote 'The Man from Snowy River'?
- A. Henry Lawson
- B. Banjo Paterson ✓
- C. Adam Lindsay Gordon
- D. Dorothea Mackellar
Why: A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson wrote 'The Man from Snowy River' (1890), one of the most famous bush ballads, celebrating horsemanship and the rugged spirit of the high country.
Q2. Which publication was central to the late nineteenth-century flowering of bush ballads and short stories, where Paterson and Henry Lawson were both published?
- A. The Bulletin ✓
- B. The Sydney Morning Herald
- C. The Australasian
- D. Punch
Why: The Bulletin, a Sydney weekly, championed nationalist and bush-themed writing in the 1890s and published many of the period's key poets and storytellers, including Paterson and Lawson.
Q3. The 'Bulletin debate' of the 1890s was a famous argument between which two poets about the nature of Australian literature?
- A. Paterson and Lawson ✓
- B. Kenneth Slessor and Hugh McCrae
- C. Judith Wright and Douglas Stewart
- D. Gordon and Kendall
Why: Banjo Paterson, who romanticised the bush and its horsemen, and Henry Lawson, who depicted harsher realities of rural life, debated in the pages of The Bulletin over how Australia should be represented in writing.
Q4. What does the term 'the Outback myth' generally refer to in Australian culture?
- A. A belief that the interior is fertile farmland
- B. A romanticised image of the bush as a place of mateship, independence and egalitarian identity ✓
- C. A colonial law restricting travel inland
- D. A scientific theory about desert formation
Why: The Outback myth presents the remote bush as the heart of a distinctive national character built on mateship, self-reliance and resilience, an image widely promoted through bush ballads and stories.
Q5. Which refrain, written by Dorothea Mackellar, is often quoted as an expression of the love of the Australian landscape?
- A. 'Waltzing Matilda, waltzing matilda'
- B. 'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains' ✓
- C. 'Hard times, hard times, come again no more'
- D. 'Who's that riding up the track?'
Why: The opening line of Mackellar's poem 'My Country' (1908) reads 'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,' and is widely quoted as a celebration of the Australian landscape.
Module 3
Module 3: Modernism and the Urban Novel
Modernism and the Urban Novel
Knowledge check
Q1. Which Australian novel, published in 1961, is often cited as a landmark of the urban modernist novel in Australia and centres on a Sydney setting?
- A. Such Is Life
- B. Riders in the Chariot ✓
- C. Capricornia
- D. The Getting of Wisdom
Why: Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot (1961) is a major modernist work whose urban Sydney setting and fragmented, multi-perspective structure make it a key text in this module. Such Is Life (1903) is a realist work, Capricornia (1938) is set in the Northern Territory, and The Getting of Wisdom (1910) is a school novel.
Q2. What is the term for a narrative technique that presents a character's continuous stream of thoughts and impressions, often associated with modernist fiction?
- A. Stream of consciousness ✓
- B. Picaresque
- C. Bildungsroman
- D. Epistolary form
Why: Stream of consciousness renders the flow of a character's inner thoughts without strict external narration, a hallmark of modernist fiction. The picaresque follows an episodic journey of a roguish hero, a Bildungsroman traces a character's moral and psychological growth, and the epistolary form tells its story through letters.
Q3. Modernist urban novels typically depict cities as which of the following?
- A. Idyllic rural retreats
- B. Places of alienation, fragmentation, and dislocation ✓
- C. Stable communities untouched by change
- D. Purely historical backdrops with no influence on characters
Why: Modernist writers often portrayed the city as a site of isolation, anonymity, and fractured identity, reflecting the rapid social and technological changes of the early twentieth century. The other options describe pastoral or realist conventions that modernism typically challenged.
Q4. Which writer, associated with Sydney and known for stories of urban life and mateship, is often linked with the Australian short story tradition of the early twentieth century?
- A. Henry Lawson ✓
- B. Christina Stead
- C. Miles Franklin
- D. Xavier Herbert
Why: Henry Lawson wrote widely anthologised short stories depicting urban and bush life, including Sydney's working-class environments, and is central to the Australian short story tradition. Stead, Franklin, and Herbert wrote important novels but are not primarily identified with urban short fiction of this kind.
Q5. Which modernist technique involves a narrative shifting its focus between several characters' perspectives within the same city setting?
- A. Free indirect discourse
- B. Multiperspectival narration ✓
- C. Second-person address
- D. Frame narrative
Why: Multiperspectival narration presents events through multiple characters' viewpoints, creating a mosaic portrait of urban life, a common feature of modernist city novels. Free indirect discourse blends a character's voice with the narrator's, second-person address speaks directly to 'you', and a frame narrative encloses a story within another story.
Module 4
Module 4: Indigenous Storytelling and Voice
Indigenous Storytelling and Voice
Knowledge check
Q1. Which Aboriginal Australian author's 1970 memoir 'Me and the Devil' and 1982 poetry collection 'Dalwurra' helped establish Indigenous literary voices in Australia?
- A. Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) ✓
- B. Mudrooroo
- C. Alexis Wright
- D. Ruby Langford Ginibi
Why: Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker) published her landmark poetry collection 'We Are Going' in 1964, the first book of verse by an Aboriginal Australian author. The specific titles in this question are not hers, so the answer rests on her role as a pioneer of Indigenous literary voice.
Q2. What is the traditional oral storytelling concept, often described as a sacred law and framework for knowledge across Aboriginal cultures, that many Indigenous authors draw upon?
- A. Dreaming (Dreamtime) ✓
- B. Corroboree
- C. Bunyip lore
- D. Songline only
Why: The Dreaming (often called Dreamtime) refers to the foundational time when ancestral beings shaped the land, law, and people. It is a central framework in Aboriginal storytelling and appears throughout Indigenous literature as a source of meaning, law, and identity.
Q3. Which 2009 novel by Alexis Wright, set in a fictional Northern Territory town, won the Miles Franklin Award?
- A. Carpentaria ✓
- B. Plains of Promise
- C. The Swan Book
- D. Benang
Why: Alexis Wright's 'Carpentaria' (2006) won the Miles Franklin Award in 2007, and it is set in the fictional Gulf Country town of Desperance. 'The Swan Book' is a later novel, and 'Benang' is by Kim Scott, so those are incorrect.
Q4. What term describes the Indigenous Australian practice of passing knowledge, law, and history through spoken narrative rather than written text?
- A. Oral tradition ✓
- B. Epistolary form
- C. Picaresque
- D. Gothic revival
Why: Oral tradition is the transmission of knowledge, history, and law through spoken word, song, and performance. It is fundamental to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and continues to shape Indigenous literary forms in written texts.
Q5. Which Torres Strait Islander author wrote the 2005 novel 'Boy Swallows Universe'? No, that is incorrect; the correct author is Trent Dalton, a non-Indigenous writer.
- A. Trent Dalton ✓
- B. Melissa Lucashenko
- C. Thomas Mayor
- D. Anita Heiss
Why: Trent Dalton, a non-Indigenous Australian writer, published 'Boy Swallows Universe' in 2018. It is set in Brisbane and is not an Indigenous-authored text, which makes it useful for comparison with Indigenous storytelling in this module.
Module 5
Module 5: Post-War Migration and Multicultural Writing
Post-War Migration and Multicultural Writing
Knowledge check
Q1. Which post-war event brought large numbers of European migrants to Australia, shaping its literature from the 1940s onward?
- A. The Gold Rush of the 1850s
- B. The Displaced Persons and assisted migration schemes after World War II ✓
- C. The Federation of 1901
- D. The Vietnam War evacuations of the 1970s
Why: After World War II, Australia's 'Populate or Perish' policy encouraged mass migration through assisted schemes and resettlement of displaced persons, bringing many European writers whose work reshaped Australian literature.
Q2. Which author, born in Italy and writing in English about migrant experience in Australia, is known for the novel 'Loving A Dark Horse'?
- A. Christos Tsiolkas ✓
- B. Helen Garner
- C. Peter Carey
- D. Thea Astley
Why: Christos Tsiolkas, of Greek heritage, is a prominent multicultural Australian writer; 'Loving a Dark Horse' explores migrant family life and identity, though it is better known as a Greek-Australian novel rather than a title by Garner, Carey or Astley.
Q3. What term describes Australian literature that represents the experiences of people from non-Anglo-Celtic backgrounds?
- A. Colonial realism
- B. Bush pastoral
- C. Ethnic or multicultural writing ✓
- D. Gothic revival
Why: 'Ethnic writing' and later 'multicultural writing' describe works by migrants and their descendants exploring language, displacement, and cultural identity within Australia.
Q4. Which Greek-Australian writer's work is associated with the 'Ethnic Writing' movement and the Australian Multicultural Foundation?
- A. Antigone Kefala ✓
- B. Miles Franklin
- C. Henry Lawson
- D. Kenneth Slessor
Why: Antigone Kefala, a Greek-born poet and writer who migrated to Australia, is a key figure in multicultural Australian poetry; the others are associated with earlier Australian traditions rather than migrant writing.
Q5. A recurring theme in post-war migrant writing in Australia is:
- A. The celebration of the outback as untouched wilderness
- B. Tension between homeland memory, language loss, and belonging in a new country ✓
- C. Stories exclusively about colonial convicts
- D. Science fiction set on other planets
Why: Migrant writers often explore nostalgia for the homeland, the struggle with language and identity, and the search for a sense of belonging, which are central themes of multicultural Australian literature.
Module 6
Module 6: Gothic and Landscape in Australian Fiction
Gothic and Landscape in Australian Fiction
Knowledge check
Q1. Which Australian novel, published in 1901, is often considered an early example of the Australian Gothic through its depiction of an isolated bush setting and psychological unease?
- A. Such Is Life by Joseph Furphy ✓
- B. For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke
- C. Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood
- D. My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Why: Such Is Life (1903) by Joseph Furphy is the closest match here; it is a bush novel with strong themes of isolation and uncanny unease. Note: the 1901 date in the question does not match Furphy's novel, which was published in 1903, so the answer rests on the thematic fit rather than the date.
Q2. In Australian Gothic writing, what does the term 'the uncanny landscape' typically refer to?
- A. Urban streetscapes that feel crowded and oppressive
- B. Natural environments that seem hostile, alien, or capable of erasing human presence ✓
- C. Coastal regions dominated by shipping and colonial ports
- D. Gardens and cultivated estates imitating English models
Why: The uncanny landscape in Australian Gothic describes the bush, desert, or outback as strange and threatening, often swallowing settlers or revealing the fragility of colonial claims to the land.
Q3. Which of the following is a key feature of the Australian Gothic according to critics such as Gelder and Jacobs?
- A. A focus on romantic love in fashionable European cities
- B. The haunting presence of colonial violence and dispossession within the landscape ✓
- C. Celebration of industrial progress and mechanisation
- D. Narratives set entirely in Antarctic exploration
Why: Gelder and Jacobs (Uncanny Australia, 1998) argue that the Australian Gothic is shaped by the unresolved past of colonial violence against Indigenous peoples and the unsettling sense that the land remembers and resists settlement.
Q4. The 'Bush Gothic' in Australian fiction often explores which theme?
- A. The safety and comfort of suburban family life
- B. Madness, isolation, and the psychological toll of the vast, empty bush ✓
- C. The rapid growth of multicultural cities
- D. Triumphant tales of wealth acquired through trade
Why: Bush Gothic typically links the isolation of rural life and the immensity of the bush to mental breakdown, fear, and a sense of being overwhelmed by the environment.
Q5. Which Australian writer is known for stories of the outback that use landscape to create dread and a sense of the uncanny?
- A. Henry Lawson
- B. Patrick White ✓
- C. Peter Carey
- D. Thomas Keneally
Why: Patrick White, in works such as Voss (1957) and The Eye of the Storm, uses the Australian landscape to evoke spiritual dread and psychological disorientation, making him a significant figure in Australian Gothic and landscape writing.
Module 7
Module 7: Contemporary Australian Poetry and Fiction
Contemporary Australian Poetry and Fiction
Knowledge check
Q1. Which Australian novelist won the Miles Franklin Award for 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' (2013)?
- A. Tim Winton
- B. Richard Flanagan ✓
- C. Kate Grenville
- D. Peter Carey
Why: Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Award for 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North', a novel drawing on his father's experience as a prisoner of war on the Burma Railway.
Q2. Which contemporary Australian poet, of Aboriginal descent, wrote the collection 'Inside My Mother' and is known for her work on identity and family?
- A. Oodgeroo Noonuccal
- B. Ali Cobby Eckermann ✓
- C. Les Murray
- D. Judith Wright
Why: Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara and Ngarrindjeri poet whose work, including 'Inside My Mother', explores Stolen Generations experiences, family, and belonging. Oodgeroo Noonuccal was a notable earlier figure, while Les Murray and Judith Wright are not Indigenous poets.
Q3. Which Tim Winton novel, published in 2008, tells the story of a boy growing up in a coastal Western Australian town and is set around surfing?
- A. Breath ✓
- B. Cloudstreet
- C. Dirt Music
- D. Shallows
Why: 'Breath' (2008) follows Bruce Pike, nicknamed Pikelet, who takes up extreme surfing in a small coastal town. 'Cloudstreet' is about two families in Perth, and 'Dirt Music' is set in the Kimberley region.
Q4. Which novel by Kim Scott, winner of the Miles Franklin Award in 2011, explores the history of Noongar people in Western Australia?
- A. Benang
- B. That Deadman Dance ✓
- C. Carpentaria
- D. The Secret River
Why: Kim Scott's 'That Deadman Dance' (2010) won the 2011 Miles Franklin Award and depicts early contact between Noongar people and British settlers in King George Sound. 'Benang' is also by Scott but was not the award winner, 'Carpentaria' is by Alexis Wright, and 'The Secret River' is by Kate Grenville.
Q5. Which Australian author's novel 'Carpentaria' (2006) is set in the fictional Gulf Country town of Desperance and blends magic realism with Aboriginal storytelling?
- A. Alexis Wright ✓
- B. Kate Jennings
- C. Helen Garner
- D. Gail Jones
Why: Alexis Wright, a Waanyi woman, wrote 'Carpentaria', which won the Miles Franklin Award in 2007 and is set in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Its mix of myth, history, and realism is a defining feature of contemporary Australian fiction.