This intensely nostalgic medieval poem by E. J. Brady “is most distinctive for its unapologetic insertion of the chivalric into the local”, which becomes the source of unintended humour (Louise D’Arcens, Old Songs in the Timeless…
This engaging “McCrae-like medieval narrative ballad” (John B. Webb, “A Critical Biography of Edwin James Brady 1869-1952” PhD Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1972, p.95) concerns the fortunes of a triad of ill-starred…
The hero of this poem, as the name Sir Anopheles hints, is a mosquito. The author here humorously stages an encounter between man and mosquito as a drawn-out battle between a recumbent Ogre and an intrepid and undaunted medieval knight. It is clear…
This poem, which is best described as “an anti-nostalgic demystification of chivalric heroism” (Louise D’Arcens, Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840-1910, Turnhout, Brepols, 2011, p.143), draws…
At the time Victor Daley composed this poem, a debate had erupted over whether chivalry and romance, at least within the Australian context, were dead. That was certainly the argument put forward in an earlier poem, ‘Romance’ by L. D.,…
‘Rivals’ is an interesting attempt by medievalist writer Victor Daley to transform what must have been a fairly commonplace incident at that time into something more than it seems. The poem describes a young man, Sir Valour, taking leave…
A 2012 television advertisement for Suncorp Banking features a bank lender briefly appearing to a couple as their hero, a medieval knight wearing plate armour. He is literally a knight in shining armour as a halo appears around his upper body, and…
These light-hearted verses describe the endeavours of a motley band of ‘gallants’ with dubious social origins, who jostle and vie for the hand of Lady Podophylline Musa Miggs, daughter of the Baron of Potts Point, in Sydney. These are…