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Barron Field in New South Wales

The Poetics of Terra Nullius
Format: Paperback / softback
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Asked to determine whether Governor Macquarie had authority to impose taxes in New South Wales, Barron Field issued a fateful judgement that established, for the first time, what is now called terra nullius. This book is an extraordinary reconstruction of the circumstances and implications of Field’s actions.

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On 24 February 1817, Barron Field sailed into Sydney Harbour on the convict transport Lord Melville to a ceremonial thirteen-gun salute. He was there as the new Judge of the Supreme Court of Civil Judicature in New South Wales – the highest legal authority in the turbulent colony.

Energetic and gregarious, Field immediately set about impressing his vision of a future Australia as a liberal and prosperous nation. He courted the colony's leading figures, engaged in scientific research, and even founded Australia's first bank.

He also wrote poetry: in 1819, he published First Fruits of Australian Poetry, the first book of poems ever printed in the country. In England, Field had been the theatre critic for The Times and a friend of major Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt. In New South Wales, he saw the chance to become a major figure himself, someone who could shape culture and society in enduring ways.

Founding Australian poetry was part of that ambition; so too was law. Asked to determine whether Governor Macquarie had authority to impose taxes in the colony, Field issued a fateful judgement that established, for the first time, what is now called terra nullius.

Barron Field in New South Wales by Justin Clemens and Thomas H Ford is an extraordinary reconstruction of the circumstances and implications of Field's actions in New South Wales using an original and revealing method: the close reading of his poetry.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780522878783

Publisher: Melbourne University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 07 March 2023

Country: Australia

Imprint: Melbourne University Press

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 272g

Pages: 224

About the Author

Thomas H. Ford is a Senior Lecturer in English at La Trobe University. His previous titles include How to Read a Poem- Seven Steps (Routledge, 2021) and the prize-winning Wordsworth and the Poetics of Air- Atmospheric Romanticism in a Time of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Justin Clemens has published extensively on the relationships between poetry, psychology and philosophy in Romantic and post-Romantic writing, including Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). He is an Associate Professor in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

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