Backbencher

In lecture 8 titled bush ballads to bulibasha Professor Isern reminisced to us about the folk songs(bush ballads) of Australia and also the art of Austaralia and New Zealand. With the music of these lands we talked about Banjo Paterson, who not only wrote songs, but also was a famous Bush Poet and wrote poems about the wilderness and wilds of the Australian outback. Another person we talked about was Henery Lawson, who just happened to be a favorite of Manning Clark, Lawson who wrote the story His Father's Mate. Both Lawson and Paterson had many of their works published in the Sydney Bulletin for many years. Now as Far as New Zealand goes they had their fair share of notable poets and song writers. Two of the most notable were David Wright McKee who wrote the Station Days in Maoriland, and Jim Morris who wrote Different Worlds. Now both countries have their culture engrained in the artistic works of authors and musicians with Austraila choosing to glorify the outlaw mentality and New Zealand glorifying the mateship metality. An interesting note to me was the fact that authors and songwriters tend to be immortalized in these two countries by being put on stamps and currency, which is very different than what we do in this country with immortalizing our presidents on money and honoring patriotism with stamps, so in a sense this a contrasting disparity between our nation and Australia and New Zealand. Id say the most entertaing and humorous part of this entire lecture was the singing by Professor Isern and his rendition of Waltzing Matilda, whic he did a very good job on by the way, but the interesting part about this song is the fact it uses english words but you have to have an understanding of the culture to understand exactly what it means. Overall this was a great lecture as it provided some interesting facts about stuff you wouldnt expect to learn about in a normal history class.

Matt Liese