Informed by the environmental and material turn in the humanities and turning away from the purely psychological and ‘country of the mind’ readings of White’s novel, I explore Voss’s engagement with various non-realist traditions to open questions on how literature and the text might materialise new sources of intimacy and interconnection with the mineral realm. Cox,Ģ 2022 Abstract 'This article argues the final and arguably most permeable frontier Patrick White’s Voss sets out across is the material.

This discussion traces the influence of these works of Bedford and Barnard Eldershaw in Voss.' (Publication abstract) I'll Show You Love In a Handful of Dust Samuel J. There are resemblances with Voss’s Bonner family, including structural similarities in the contrast of the two principal female characters and their fates. They provide ample detail of architecture, furniture, and clothing in descriptions of the social and domestic life of the Hyde family and associates: sewing, paying formal calls, hosting dinners, concert- and theatregoing. Barnard Eldershaw absorbed references to historical events such as the gold rushes and Sydney landmarks like the convict-built Barracks and St Andrew’s Cathedral into their novel. Bedford, a granddaughter of Sir Alfred Stephen, Chief Justice of New South Wales from 1844 to 1873, drew on family papers to give a detailed account of the social life of the elite of Sydney from the 1840s to 1880s, commenting on the demands of household management on the women as well as describing picnics, balls, and dinners. Barnard Eldershaw’s prizewinning novel A House is Built (1929). White himself explicitly acknowledged the influence of two works by Australian women writers in his depiction of colonial society: Ruth Bedford’s family history, Think of Stephen: A Family Chronicle (1954), and M.

'Many literary sources have been suggested for Patrick White’s fifth novel, Voss, ranging from the surreal symbolism of Rimbaud’s poetry, to T.S. Literary Sources of Patrick White’s Voss : A House Is Built and Think of Stephen Margaret Harris,

Voss patrick white summary