Rosemary Dobson and David Campbell : an introduction

The early 1940s saw an impetus in poetry writing in Australia and two poets to emerge at that time, Rosemary Dobson and David Campbell, were seen as representative of the two min factions in Australian literature, the Nationalists and the Internationalists. Campbell, as a farmer, was considered by many to be in the vanguard of a new wave of parochial bush balladists. Dobson was a little more difficult to classify. She was quickly condemned as \bookish\" but due to her allusions to the European past was uneasily grouped with the Internationalist school. It took considerable time before it was realized that neither of these poets (nor many others who were being grouped under these labels) fitted into these categories. At this stage it would appear that Australian poets were well ahead of Australian critics for in both Campbell's and Dobson's work it can be seen that their interests lay well beyond geographical boundaries. Their poetry from the start moved towards a recognition and understanding of wide-ranging human values. Yet the ethos of each poet is in some sense peculiarly Australian. Despite their long standing as Australian poets Dobson's and Campbell's poetry has not received the critical attention or recognition that it deserves. 'Thus it is the intention of this thesis to provide an introductory critical evaluation to the work of these two Australian poets."