"Nationality" is a poem by Australian poet Mary Gilmore. It was first published in Australian Poetry 1942, edited by Robert D. Fitzgerald in 1942, and later in the poet's collection Selected Verse, and other Australian poetry anthologies.
Outline The poem examines the conflicting emotions raised by war: the love of one's own people, and the desire for an international sense of brotherhood.
Analysis The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature states that in this poem Mary Gilmore "while conceding the need for internationalism, acknowledges the pre-eminent claims of race and blood".The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature edited by Wilde, Hooton and Andrews, 2nd edition, p510
In her collection of critical essays on Australian literature, Australian Classics: 50 great writers and their celebrated works, Jane Gleeson-White found the poem is "a concentration of intense and conflicting emotion in two stanzas." She concluded that the poem "has the force of truth."Australian Classics: 50 great writers and their celebrated works by Jane Gleeson-White, p54-58
Writing about the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems editor Geoff Page called it "political poetry at its best." He went on to conclude that even "if the concept of 'nationalism' were to disappear from the human vocabulary, we'd still need Gilmore's poem to remind us of what it had been."60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009, pp32-34
Further publications Selected Verse by Mary Gilmore, 1948 The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, Oxford University Press, 1950 An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1952 Fourteen Men by Mary Gilmore, 1964 A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1956 New Land, New Language : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1957 The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958 From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964 Mary Gilmore : A Tribute edited by Barrie Ovenden, Dymphna Cusack, and T. Inglis Moore, 1965 Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, 1976 The White Chrysanthemum : Changing Images of Australian Motherhood edited by Nancy Keesing, 1977 The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Melbourne University Press, 1980 The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981 The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984 Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984 Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry edited by Les Murray, Collins Dove, 1986 Peace and War : A Collection of Poems edited by Michael Harrison, 1989 The Oxford Book of Australian Women's Verse edited by Susan Lever, 1995 Family Ties : Australian Poems of the Family edited by Jennifer Strauss, Oxford University Press, 1998 Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998 Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, Gary Allen, 2007 60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009 The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009 Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011
See also 1942 in poetry 1942 in literature 1942 in Australian literature Australian literature
References