Charles Harpur

Harpur was born on 23 January 1813 at Windsor, New South Wales.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J. |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson|year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=1}} His parents were convicts. His father, Joseph Harpur, was originally from Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland. He had been sentenced to transportation for highway robbery in March 1800; at the time of Harpur's birth, he was parish clerk and master of the Windsor district school.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=2–6}} His mother, Sarah Chidley, was originally from Somerset, and had been sentenced to transportation in 1805.{{Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=harpur-charles-2158 |title=Harpur, Charles (1813–1868) |first=J |last=Normington-Rawling |volume=1 |year=1966 |access-date=2021-01-09}} Harpur presumably went to school in Windsor, but little information about his education is available. Later in life, he claimed that he taught himself the principles of English verse by obsessively reading William Shakespeare.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J. |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=26–27}}

In the early 1830s, Harpur seems to have moved between Sydney and the Hunter Valley, but by 1833 he had settled with his parents in Sydney.{{Cite book |last=Normtington-Rawling |first=J. |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=35}} At this time he began to publish his writings in newspapers. His earliest known publications were the poems 'An Australian Song' and 'At the Grave of Clements', which appeared in The Currency Lad on the 4th and 11 May 1833.{{Cite web |last=Harpur |first=Charles |title=An Australian Song (h018) |url=https://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview/?docid=english/harpur/poems/h018 |access-date=2022-11-19 |website=The Charles Harpur Critical Archive}}{{Cite web |last=Harpur |first=Charles |editor9-last=Eggert |editor9-first=Paul |title=The Grave of Clements (h158) |url=http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview/?docid=english/harpur/poems/h158 |access-date=2022-11-19 |website=The Charles Harpur Critical Archive}} In February 1835 he published parts of his first play, The Tragedy of Donohoe, in The Sydney Monitor, a radical newspaper edited by Edward Smith Hall.{{Cite book |last=Perkins |first=Elizabeth |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/21294844 |title=Stalwart the bushranger ; with, the tragedy of Donohoe |date=1987 |publisher=Currency Press in association with Australasian Drama Studies, St. Lucia |isbn=0-86819-184-1 |editor-last=Perkins |editor-first=Elizabeth |location=Sydney |pages=xxix-xxxii |chapter=Introduction |oclc=21294844}} Harpur would continue to publish in newspapers throughout his life, eventually publishing hundreds of works in this manner.[http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A6259?mainTabTemplate=agentWorksBy&sortWorksBy=byDateAsc Austlit – works by Charles Harpur]

In Sydney, Harpur worked as a clerk and letter-sorter in the Post Office,{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J. |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=54–55}} while pursuing a career in the theatre.{{Cite journal |last=Falk |first=Michael |date=2020 |title=Sad Realities: The Romantic Tragedies of Charles Harpur |journal=Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840 |volume= |issue=23 |pages=203 |doi=10.18573/romtext.65 |issn=1748-0116|doi-access=free }}{{Cite web |title=Contributor {{!}} Mr Charles Harpur |url=https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/491275 |access-date=2022-11-20 |website=Austage: The Australian Live Performance Database}} He acted in three plays at the Theatre Royal in October 1833: The Mutiny at the Nore by Douglas Jerrold, The Miller and His Men by Isaac Pocock, and The Tragedy of Chrononhotonthologos, a farce. His acting career ended ignominiously, when he unsuccessfully sued Barnett Levey, the proprietor of the Theatre Royal, for unpaid wages.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=40–41}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32145251 |title=Domestic Intelligence. |newspaper=The Sydney Monitor |volume=VIII |issue=628 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 December 1833 |accessdate=20 November 2022 |page=2 (AFTERNOON) |via=National Library of Australia}} His career at the Post Office ended equally poorly, after he quarrelled with the Postmaster-General.{{Cite book |last=Perkins |first=Elizabeth |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11425658 |title=The poetical works of Charles Harpur |date=1984 |publisher=Angus & Robertson |isbn=0-207-14772-8 |editor-last=Perkins |editor-first=Elizabeth |location=London |pages=xiv |chapter=Introduction |oclc=11425658}}

During these years, Harpur befriended many of Sydney's prominent literary and political figures, including Henry Parkes, Daniel Deniehy, and W. A. Duncan.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J |title=Charles Harpur: An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=73–74}} Looking back at the end of his life, Parkes traced the development of his radical politics back to this circle of friends:{{Cite journal |last=Falk |first=Michael |date=2018 |title=The Endless Forms of Things: Harpur's Radicalism Revisited |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/13026 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature|language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=1 |issn=1833-6027}}

I had now formed the acquaintance of two men of more than ordinary character and ability, Mr. Charles Harpur, one of the most genuine of Australian poets, and Mr. William Augustine Duncan, then proprietor and editor of the 'Weekly Register.' They were my chief advisers in matters of intellectual resource and enquiry, when the prospect before me was opening and widening, often with many cross lights and drifting clouds, but ever with deepening radiance.{{Citation |author1=Parkes |first=Henry |title=Fifty years in the making of Australian history |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3578896 |pages=8 |year=1892 |location=London |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co |id=nla.obj-3578896 |access-date=20 November 2022 |section= |via=Trove}}

Harpur had left Sydney two years before and was farming with a brother on the Hunter River. In 1850, he married Mary Doyle and engaged in sheep farming for some years with varying success.

In 1858, he was appointed gold commissioner at Araluen with a good salary. He held the position for eight years and also had a farm at Eurobodalla. Harpur found, however, that his duties prevented him from supervising the work on the farm and it became a bad investment.

Two verse pamphlets, A Poet's Home and The Tower of a Dream, appeared in 1862 and 1865 respectively.

In 1866, Harpur's position was abolished at a time of retrenchment, and in March 1867 he had a great sorrow when his second son was killed by the accidental discharge of his own gun. Harpur never recovered from the blow. He contracted tuberculosis in the hard winter of 1867, and died on 10 June 1868. He was buried on his property, "Euroma", beside the grave of his son.{{Cite book |last=Normington-Rawling |first=J. |title=Charles Harpur, An Australian |publisher=Angus & Robertson |year=1962 |location=Sydney |pages=312}}{{Cite web |title=Charles Harpur |url=https://monumentaustralia.org.au/display/21160-charles-harpur- |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=Monument Australia}} He was survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. One of his daughters, writing many years later, mentioned that he had left his family an unencumbered farm and a well-furnished comfortable home.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16578201 |title=Charles Harpur: First Australian-born Poet: A Daughter's memories |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |first=M Araluen |last=Baldwin |date=24 August 1929 |accessdate=9 January 2021 |page=11 |via=Trove}}

In 1988, as part of Australia's bicentennial celebrations, a plaque was laid at the site of Harpur's grave ({{Coord|-36.139122|149.981022|name=Charles Harpur Bicentennial Monument}}), describing him as "Australia’s first native born poet".

Harpur continually revised, redrafted and republished his works throughout his life, creating an "editorial nightmare".{{Cite journal |last=Eggert |first=Paul |date=2016 |title=Charles Harpur: The Editorial Nightmare |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/11011 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=16 |issue=2 |issn=1833-6027}} In all he is credited with over 700 poems, which exist in some 2,700 distinct versions.{{Cite book |last=Eggert |first=Paul |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119537929 |title=The work and the reader in literary studies : scholarly editing and book history |date=2019 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-64101-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=94 |oclc=1119537929}} His major play, The Tragedy of Donohoe, exists in four distinct versions, with different titles, plots and names for the characters.{{Cite book |last=Perkins |first=Elizabeth |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/21294844 |title=Stalwart the bushranger ; with, the tragedy of Donohoe |date=1987 |publisher=Currency Press in association with Australasian Drama Studies, St. Lucia |isbn=0-86819-184-1 |editor-last=Perkins |editor-first=Elizabeth |location=Sydney |pages=xvii |chapter=Introduction |oclc=21294844}} Many of his works exist only in manuscript, or lie scattered among dozens of newspapers and journals. In the past, this hindered research into Harpur's work, because only a small portion was available in reliable and accessible texts.{{Cite book |last=Wright |first=Judith |title=Preoccupations in Australian Poetry |date=1965 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Melbourne |pages=2}}{{Cite journal |last=Eggert |first=Paul |date=2016 |title=Charles Harpur: The Editorial Nightmare |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/11011 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=1 |issn=1833-6027}} In the twentieth century, however, editors such as Charles Salier, Elizabeth Perkins and Michael Ackland greatly improved the situation, by publishing wide selections of Harpur's poetry in book form.{{Cite journal |last=Eggert |first=Paul |date=2016 |title=Charles Harpur: The Editorial Nightmare |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/11011 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=4–8 |issn=1833-6027}} In the twenty-first century, Paul Eggert embarked on an ambitious project to make every version of every Harpur poem available online, along with tools to examine Harpur's complex process of rewriting. The fruit of this project was the Charles Harpur Critical Archive, the first variorum edition of Harpur's poetry.{{Cite book |date=2019 |editor-last=Eggert |editor-first=Paul |title=The Charles Harpur Critical Archive |url=http://charles-harpur.org |publisher=Sydney University Press |isbn=9781743326831}}

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| quote = ... [T]he Poet, in picturing nature, should never pin himself to the particular, or to the locally present. ... [H]e should paint her primarily through his imagination; and thus the striking features and colors of many scenes, which lie permanently gathered in his memory, becoming, with their influences, idealised in the process, will be essentially transfused up a few, or even upon one scene—one happy embodiment of her wildest freaks, or one Eden-piece embathed with a luminous atmosphere of sentiment. ... Thus it is truth sublimated, compressed, epitomised ...

| source = —Charles Harpur, Preface to "The Kangaroo Hunt" (1866-67){{Cite web |last=Harpur |first=Charles |title=The Kangaroo Hunt (h209-af) |url=https://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview/?docid=english/harpur/poems/h209-a&version1=/h209-af/layer-final |access-date=2022-11-27 |website=The Charles Harpur Critical Archive}}{{Cite journal |last=Ackland |first=Michael |date=2002 |title=From Wilderness to Landscape: Charles Harpur's Dialogue with Wordsworth and Antipodean Nature |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/victorian_poetry/v040/40.1ackland.html |journal=Victorian Poetry |language=en |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=24 |doi=10.1353/vp.2002.0001 |s2cid=170165396 |issn=1530-7190}}

}}

Many of Harpur's poems describe the Australian bush. Scholars have praised the accuracy and variety of his natural descriptions, while also critiquing his tendency to 'gothicise' the Australian landscape.{{Cite journal |last=Webby |first=Elizabeth |date=2013 |title=Representations of 'The Bush' in the Poetry of Charles Harpur |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/10266 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=2}}{{Cite journal |last=Van Toorn |first=Penny |year=1992 |title=The terrors of Terra Nullius-. Gothicising and De-Gothicising aboriginality |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449859208589194 |journal=World Literature Written in English |language=en |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=87–97 |doi=10.1080/17449859208589194 |issn=0093-1705}}{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Vivian |title=The Cambridge History of Australian Literature |date=2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-88165-4 |editor-last=Pierce |editor-first=Peter |location=Cambridge |pages=79 |chapter=Australian colonial poetry, 1788–1888: Claiming the future, restoring the past |quote=Harpur’s nature, landscape and narrative poems, in which he tries to come to terms with the Australian environment, are still his most widely read. Many later writers have focused on the monotony of the Australian landscape, merging their sense of its social and cultural limitations with the sense of the repetitive sameness of the land. Harpur emphasises its picturesque and dramatic qualities, his verse enlivened by a sense of discovery and revelation.}} In 'gothicising' poems such as "The Creek of the Four Graves", Harpur depicts the Australian landscape as dark, strange, wild and exotic. Some scholars argue that this gothic depiction of the Australian landscape implies that Australia was a terra nullius, and that Harpur's poetry therefore supports the expropriation of Aboriginal lands.{{Cite journal |last=Falk |first=Michael |date=2018 |title=The Endless Forms of Things: Harpur's Radicalism Revisited |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/13026 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |page=9 |issn=1833-6027 |quote=The notion of terra nullius haunts much of Harpur’s poetry, despite his attempts to present indigenous perspectives. There was ‘solitude profound’ in Australia before the Europeans came, even if birds, dingoes, kangaroos and people were present.}} In other poems, however, Harpur presents a more positive view of the Australian bush. In "The Kangaroo Hunt," Harpur invokes an Aboriginal deity as his Muse, while in "Aboriginal Death Song", he makes explicit reference to Aboriginal sovereignty over land within their "borders".{{Cite journal |last=Ackland |first=Michael |date=2002 |title=From Wilderness to Landscape: Charles Harpur's Dialogue with Wordsworth and Antipodean Nature |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/victorian_poetry/v040/40.1ackland.html |journal=Victorian Poetry |language=en |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=25 |doi=10.1353/vp.2002.0001 |s2cid=170165396 |issn=1530-7190}}{{Cite journal |last=Falk |first=Michael |date=2018 |title=The Endless Forms of Things: Harpur's Radicalism Revisited |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/13026 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=4 |issn=1833-6027}} Observing these different strains in his poetry, some scholars argue that Harpur's nature poetry is ironic; rather than describing nature from his own perspective, Harpur's poetry describes how nature appears from the point of view of different characters.{{Cite journal |last=Falk |first=Michael |date=2018 |title=The Endless Forms of Things: Harpur's Radicalism Revisited |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/13026 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=2–6 |issn=1833-6027}}

Harpur underpinned his nature poetry with a sophisticated theory of natural description. This theory relied on two central principles.{{Cite journal |last=Ackland |first=Michael |date=2002 |title=From Wilderness to Landscape: Charles Harpur's Dialogue with Wordsworth and Antipodean Nature |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/victorian_poetry/v040/40.1ackland.html |journal=Victorian Poetry |language=en |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=24 |doi=10.1353/vp.2002.0001 |s2cid=170165396 |issn=1530-7190}} The first principle was personal experience: in his poetry, Harpur describes the Australian bush based on his own observations and interactions with Aboriginal people. He accurately describes the appearance and behaviour of many bird species in his poetry, for example, and refers to animals by their Indigenous names.{{Cite journal |last=Dixon |first=Robert |date=1980 |title=Charles Harpur and John Gould |journal=Southerly |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=315–329 |issn=0038-3732}}{{Cite journal |last=Webby |first=Elizabeth |date=2014 |title=Representations of 'The Bush' in the Poetry of Charles Harpur |url=https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/10266 |journal=Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature |language=en |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=4–6 |issn=1833-6027}} The second principle was "sublimation" or "compression": rather than describing a particular scene, the poet should combine many observations together to give a complete picture of nature at different times. Through such "sublimation" or "compression", the poet could reveal the workings of the human mind, and expose the spirital or divine aspect of the natural world.{{Cite journal |last=Ackland |first=Michael |date=1984 |title=God's Sublime Order in Harpur's 'The Creek of the Four Graves' |journal=Australian Literary Studies |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=355–370}}{{Cite journal |last=Ackland |first=Michael |date=1983 |title=Charles Harpur's "the bush fire" and "a storm in the mountains": Sublimity, cognition and faith |journal=Southerly |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=459–474 |issn=0038-3732}}

• Thoughts: A Series of Sonnets (1845)
• The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853)

• Songs of Australia (1850)
• A Poet's Home (1862)

• Poems (1883)
• Selected Poems of Charles Harpur (1944)
• Rosa: Love Sonnets to Mary Doyle (1948)
• Charles Harpur edited by Donovan Clarke (1963)
• Charles Harpur edited by Adrian Mitchell (1973)
• Early Love Poems (1979)
• The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins (1984) {{ISBN|0207147728}}
• Charles Harpur, Selected Poetry and Prose edited by Michael Ackland (1986) {{ISBN|9780140075885}}
• Stalwart the Bushranger, with, The Tragedy of Donohoe edited by Elizabeth Perkins (1987) {{ISBN|0868191841}}
• A Storm in the Mountains and Lost in the Bush (2006) {{ISBN|0977575845}}
• Charles Harpur Critical Archive edited by Paul Eggert (2019) {{ISBN|9781743326831}}

• "Andrew Marvell" (1845)
• "The Beautiful Squatter" (1845)
• "The Creek of the Four Graves" (1845)
• "A Mid-Summer Noon in the Australian Forest" (1851)
• "The Anchor" (1855)
• "A Similitude" (1855)
• "A Storm in the Mountains" (1856)
• "A Coast View" (1857)
• "To My Infant Daughter 'Ada'" (1861)
• "Love" (1907)
• "Words" (1907)

Nature

• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article64985886 The Cloud (1857)]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article685267 To an Echo on the Banks of the Hunter (1846)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h352 On Leaving x x x, after a residence there of several Months.]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h057 The Bush Fire]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h677 The Scenic Part of Poetry]

Indigenous Australians

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview/?docid=english/harpur/poems/h003&version1=/h003a/layer-final A Wail from the Bush (1845)]

Poetic craft

• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60266395 The Nevers of Poesy (1857)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h681 The Poverty of Greatness (1845)]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61325318 On Completing a Book (1851)]

Politics

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h160 The Great Change (1850)]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article685477 The Tree of Liberty (1846)]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32149790 Australia, Huzza! (1833)]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31738715 A War-Song for the Nineteenth Century (1843)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h588 This Southern Land of Ours (1855)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h536 Is Wentworth a Patriot? (1845)]

Love

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h283 The Lass of Eulengo]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h243 Love is simple]
• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article667033 The Tortures of Love (1844)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h039 To Ellen (1856)]

Religion

• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61325318 Trust in God (1853)]

Teetotalism

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h557 The Spirit of the Bowl (1854)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h288 The Merit of Sobriety (1857)]

Ballads

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h008 Alan of the Mill]

Epigrams

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h598 To a Girl Who Stole an Apple Tree]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h675 Whatever is, is Right(?)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h394 The World's Way]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h329 Neither will do]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h132 Finish of Style]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h121 Evasion]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h500 Shortness of Life (1856)]

Unusual subjects

• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h042 The Beautiful (1857)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h129 Farewel (1846)]
• [http://charles-harpur.org/View/Singleview?docid=english/harpur/poems/h196 The Infinite in Space (1866)]

{{Reflist}}

{{Wikisource author|wslink=Charles Harpur|title=Charles Harpur}}

• [http://charles-harpur.org/ The Charles Harpur Critical Archive]
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Charles Harpur}}
• {{Librivox author |id=1610}}
• [http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/set0001 The Bushrangers: A play in five acts] at University of Sydney
• [http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/v00003 Poems] at University of Sydney

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harpur, Charles}}

Category:1813 births

Category:1868 deaths

Category:Colony of New South Wales people

Category:19th-century Australian poets