Abstract
In order to better understand and respond to the tropics as part of the global environment, we need to accept the unique features of the regional weather, such as cyclones, and be prepared to embrace their larger meaning for life in the tropics. In a physical landscape impacted by some 207 tropical cyclones since 1858, Queensland writers have attempted to incorporate both the terror and the sublime of the cyclone into their sense of place as they have attempted to find context for the unpredictable, chaotic and destructive tropical cyclone within their ostensibly tamed and ordered natural landscape. Consequently, the cyclone has become a defining symbolic metaphor of not only physical but also of literary tropical Queensland.Some Queensland writers have perceived within cyclones the Burkean sublime or personal revelation, while others have seen it as motivation for community strength, cooperation and compassion. For some, the purpose of the cyclone is divine retribution, but to others it’s an apocalyptic event revealing a rare second chance for revelation and renewal. This paper will examine a range of such perceptions within Queensland literature as part of the search for meaning within cyclonic chaotic events.
Highlights
Some Queensland writers have perceived within cyclones the Burkean sublime or personal revelation, while others have seen it as motivation for community strength, cooperation and compassion
Occurring with cyclical seasonal regularity, such storms are historically endemic to the tropical region and have been integrated into its life, culture and literature
North Queenslanders necessarily established an early, significant and personal relationship with this unique weather event, such that tropical cyclones have become an integral aspect of the history, culture and the literature of the region
Summary
In Meteorologica, Aristotle theorized that there were only two habitable areas of the earth: one near the northern pole region and the other near the southern pole. North Queenslanders necessarily established an early, significant and personal relationship with this unique weather event, such that tropical cyclones have become an integral aspect of the history, culture and the literature of the region. Cyclones, by their very nature unpredictable, uncontrollable and unavoidable, are part of coastal Queensland life. ‘Banjo’ Patterson’s The Ballad of the Calliope (1902), and Caribbean poet Kamau Braithwaite’s Shar: Hurricane Poem (1990) While these works are well known in the international literature of storms, no comprehensive research has yet been carried out in Queensland to identify literary works that feature cyclonic storms and so recognize the significance and continuity of the cyclonic trope within Queensland literature, a number of Queensland writers since Wragge have sought to incorporate cyclones into the literary landscape and the Queensland sense of place. Those caught up in the cyclone seek the meaning of it and in it as they seek to integrate the experience as part of their lives
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