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‘The Ballad of Sir Anopheles’, The Bulletin, 18 June 1908
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…
‘Rivals’, The Bulletin, 14 July 1900
‘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…
‘On Tapestry’, The Bulletin, 14 July 1910
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…
‘On Keira’, The Bulletin, 16 June 1910
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…
‘Melbourne Investiture: Honours Conferred with Sword’, The West Australian, 6 November 1937
This article from The West Australian in 1937 reports on a number of new knighthoods awarded as part of the King’s Coronation Honours. For the first time, the article informs readers, the recipients were ‘dubbed’ by the…
‘Chivalry’, The Bulletin, 15 September 1904
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.,…
‘As it is in the Days of Now’, The Bulletin, 12 March 1908
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…