Studies on Kate Jennings in the Process of Internationalization of Australian Literature

Abstract

During the process of the internationalization of literature, there arise many famous writers in literary world, who have accelerated this process. Kate Jennings is one of them. Born in New South Wales, Australia, she was firstly famous for an incendiary speech given before a Vietnam Moratorium march in 1970, which is credited as signaling the beginning of the second wave of feminism in Australia. With distinguished gifts for writing, she has created some famous literary works. Later in 1979, Kate Jennings moved to New York City, continuing her literary career in the melting pot of America, which has publicized in the international world. This paper aims at undertaking a little deeper study about this pioneer of feminism, and probing her great contributions to the internationalization of literature. Index Terms - literature, the process of internationalization, Kate Jennings 1. The Internationalization of Literature As a new branch of world literature, originated from Anglo-Saxon literature, flourishing with the infiltration of Euro-American literature, economy, politics and culture. From the very beginning of British settlement in Australia in 1788, the settlers from Britain has begun their own literary histroy in the new continent. Compared with her counterparts of British and American literature, unfortunately, the process of literary development was quite slow and lagged behind, and it was not until 1890s that began to form its own peculiar characteristics. By 1960s, Sydney University originally established the post of literary professor, and subsequently, many universities begun to offer the course of literature (1); thus, has been on the way of catching up with the development of world literature, and on its way to the internationalization, being recognized by the whole world. In 1973, Patrick White received the Nobel Prize in Literature, accelerating the internationalization speed of literature. From then on, foreign critics have regarded with special esteem, and their interests in studying have been on the rise. One American critic comments: What Australia is most proud of is that it has the most distinguished novelist and poet who uses English language to create works for the recent 25 years of the 20 th centuary. (2) Patrick White's winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature has further consolidated literature's position in the world literature, and has finished the most crucial step of the internationalization of literature. The history of Australia is the history of Anglo-Saxons who settled down, exploited and established the colony of Australia, and eventually integrated with the whole world. It is the same with the history of literature, with three stages experienced. As what has been put by Huang Yuanshen, Australian has undergone three stages, namely, the stages of colonization, nationalization and internationalization.(3) Compared with the various works created in the former two stages, which have contributed greatly to the establishment of and the formation of its national features, the literary works produced in the stage of internationalization have achieved great success and drawn more attention from the world. These works adopt varieties of genres, subject matters and ways of narration, with multiple perspectives of perception employed. This period has seen numerous distinguished writers in the literary world of Australia. It is a floruit, with numerous green-hand writers emerging and varied excellent works produced. Many