Tasmanian Gothic is a genre of Tasmanian literature [1] that merges traditions of Gothic fiction with the history and natural features of Tasmania, an island state south of the main Australian continent. Tasmanian Gothic has inspired works in other artistic media, including theatre and film.
The genre was named by in a 1989 Meanjin article by Jim Davidson, titled "Tasmanian Gothic". [2] Although it deals with the themes of horror, mystery and the uncanny, Tasmanian Gothic literature and art differs from traditional European Gothic Literature, which is rooted in medieval imagery, crumbling Gothic architecture and religious ritual. Instead, the Tasmanian gothic tradition centres on the natural landscape of Tasmania and its colonial architecture and history.
A densely populated Europe of the Industrial Revolution prompted Urban Gothic literature and novels such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). But in sparsely populated colonial Australia, especially the penal colony of Tasmania, the religious zeal of some prison wardens [3] (akin, in many ways, to the institutionalised religion of the Inquisition; a theme reflected in European gothicism) and the mysterious rituals and traditions of Tasmania's indigenous inhabitants lent itself to an entirely different gothic tradition. Elements of Tasmanian Gothic art and literature also merge Aboriginal tradition with European gnosticism, rustic spirits and the faerie.
Frederick Sinnett (founder of the Melbourne Punch ), [4] writing in 1856, considered traditional gothic romanticism inappropriate to Australian literature precisely because the colony lacked the requisite antiquity. For many, however, "the very landscape of Australia was gothic". [5] The extensive Georgian architecture, including vast abandoned ruins such as Port Arthur Historic Site, reputed to be haunted, provide extensive inspiration for contemporary Tasmanian gothic. [6]
The dramatic landscape and impenetrable rainforests of Tasmania and the real and imagined brutality of the original penal colony provided a ready source of horror stories. Unsettling events such as the story of Alexander Pearce, the wandering cannibal who roamed through Van Diemen's Land in the 1820s, also influenced the bleak and sinister atmosphere that provided an ideal setting for gothic fiction. Benjamin Duterrau's historical epic painting, The Conciliation, which depicts the signing of a treaty between George Augustus Robinson and Indigenous freedom fighters, provided a foundation for Tasmanian Gothic. [7]
Duterrau's painting provided the foundation for later works, including the first major work of Australian Gothic literature, Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life . Clarke provides a highly sensationalised account of the adventures of a convict unjustly transported to Van Diemen's Land for murder. It was first published as a novel in 1874 while the notorious prison settlement at Port Arthur was still in operation.
When the gold rush switched the focus of attention to Victoria, Tasmania began to lose its importance in the Australian economy; "[one] of Tasmania's principal exports during the first twenty years of this century was her young men". [8] As time passed, those who remained on the island became the butt of jokes by mainland Australians, who regarded them as inbred, parochial, and out of touch with civilisation.
Given Tasmania's relatively recent colonisation, artists and authors of the gothic tradition had little to draw on in terms of non-indigenous history. What indigenous history was available to them, however, was mysterious and misunderstood enough to be drawn upon to support Gothic imagery.
There are families (for example, the Jones family at Lower Marshes) who still own the land originally granted to their ancestors in the early years of the 19th century and still live in the houses built by their grandfathers. These families passed on stories of hardship, of encounters with Aboriginal people, convict servants, bushfires and floods as surrounding forests were cleared for farmland. This intersection of past and present informed the island's gothic character. [9]
During the 20th century, a new generation of artists and authors living and working in Tasmania began to explore the gothic sensibility, drawing on Tasmania's colonial and more recent history for bizarre people and events, factual or imagined, and creating a uniquely Tasmanian stock of gothic characters and situations: deranged convict escapees ("bolters"), cannibals, corrupt and drunken officials, tough women, troubled and homesick immigrants, malevolent forest spirits, deformed halfwits and feral backwoodsmen, set among spectacular mountains, remote forest camps and Tasmania's crumbling penal colony infrastructure.
The alleged discovery of a small degenerate community on the West Coast [ clarification needed ] in the 1930s became the subject of The Golden Age, an important Tasmanian Gothic work by playwright Louis Nowra, first performed by the Playbox Theatre Company at the Victorian Arts Centre's Studio Theatre in 1985. [10]
Works by novelists Richard Flanagan, Christopher Koch and Chloe Hooper are regarded as a continuation of the Tasmanian Gothic tradition. Flanagan's 2001 novel Gould's Book of Fish , winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, is a fictionalised account of Van Diemonian painter William Buelow Gould, focusing on his years spent imprisoned at the notorious convict settlement of Macquarie Harbour. According to Carmel Bird, Helen Hodgman's novels "distil the very essence of Tasmanian gothic." [11] Danielle Wood's Tasmanian Gothic novel The Alphabet of Light and Dark won the 2002 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. [12] Rohan Wilson won the award for his 2011 novel The Roving Party , a historical "re-imagining" into the misdeeds of John Batman and the band of convicts and Aboriginal trackers he led through Van Diemen's Land in 1829. [13] The debut novels of Cate Kennedy (The World Beneath, 2009) and Favel Parrett ( Past The Shallows , 2011) have also been aligned with Tasmanian Gothic. [14]
Roger Scholes' 1988 film The Tale of Ruby Rose is about a young woman's fear of darkness in the Tasmanian highlands. Tasmanian sculptor Gay Hawkes created a series of wooden sculptures based on the film, citing Tasmanian Gothic's "synthesis of the present and past" as an inspiration. National Gallery of Victoria director Patrick McCaughey called her work the "visual embodiment of the fatal shore". [15] Julia Leigh's 1999 novel The Hunter is about a lone man's search for the last Tasmanian tiger. Described as being in the "best tradition of Tasmanian gothic", [16] the novel won the 2000 Kathleen Mitchell Award, and was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name. The story of Alexander Pearce was made into two feature films: The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce (2008) and Van Diemen's Land (2009). The 2008 horror film Dying Breed is about Pearce's fictional descendants in the backwoods of Tasmania.
In 2011, Tasmanian art collector David Walsh opened the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, the Southern Hemisphere's largest privately owned museum. The popularity of MONA — with its theme of "sex and death" — and the wider Tasmanian Gothic movement, has led Tasmanian tourism operators to promote the state's "dark, eerie, cold and bracing history and climate". [17] MONA launched Dark Mofo, a winter festival focusing on the winter solstice and pagan themes in 2013 [18] Sister event, the Huon Valley Mid-winter Festival, is also held annually. Television series The Kettering Incident (2016) and The Gloaming (2020) are also regarded as examples of Tasmanian Gothic. Further examples include The Outlaw Michael Howe and The Nightingale, and Heidi Lee Douglas' award-winning short film Little Lamb.
The Stranger with my Face Film Festival ran a Tasmanian Gothic Short Script competition from 2015-2017. [19]
Hobart ( HOH-bart; is the capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, it is the southernmost capital city in Australia. Despite containing nearly half of Tasmania's population, Hobart is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-smallest by population and area after Darwin if territories are taken into account. Its skyline is dominated by the 1,271-metre kunanyi / Mount Wellington, and its harbour forms the second-deepest natural port in the world, with much of the city's waterfront consisting of reclaimed land. The metropolitan area is often referred to as Greater Hobart, to differentiate it from the City of Hobart, one of the seven local government areas that cover the city. It has a mild maritime climate.
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres to the south of the Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 1000 islands. It is Australia's smallest and least populous state, with 573,479 residents as of June 2023. The state capital and largest city is Hobart, with around 40% of the population living in the Greater Hobart area. Tasmania is the most decentralised state in Australia, with the lowest proportion of its residents living within its capital city.
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The island was previously discovered and named by the Dutch in 1642. Explorer Abel Tasman discovered the island, working under the sponsorship of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. The British retained the name when they established a settlement in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable.
Truganini, also known as Lalla Rookh and Lydgugee, was a woman famous for being widely described as the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian to survive British colonisation. Although she was one of the last speakers of the Indigenous Tasmanian languages, Truganini was not the last Aboriginal Tasmanian.
The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832 that precipitated the near extermination of the indigenous population. The conflict was fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides; some 600 to 900 Aboriginal people and more than 200 British colonists died.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a former British colonial penal settlement, established on Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour, in the former colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, operated between 1822 and 1833. The settlement housed male convicts, with a small number of women housed on a nearby island. During its 11 years of operation, the penal colony achieved a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in the Australian colonies. The former penal station is located on the eight-hectare (twenty-acre) Sarah Island that now operates as a historic site under the direction of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.
The Pieman River is a major perennial river located in the west coast region of Tasmania, Australia.
Alexander Pearce was an Irish convict who was transported to the penal colony in Van Diemen's Land, Australia for seven years for theft. He escaped from prison several times, allegedly becoming a cannibal during one of the escapes. In another escape, with one companion, he allegedly killed him and ate him in pieces. He was eventually captured and was hanged in Hobart for murder, before being dissected.
The West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the west coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the eras 1822–33, and 1846–47.
The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson on the lands of the Eora, and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire. It further covers the European scientific exploration of the continent and the establishment of the other Australian colonies that make up the modern states of Australia.
Between 1788 and 1868 the British penal system transported about 162,000 convicts from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
Tasmania, for its size and population, has a flourishing literary culture. Its history offers an eventful literary background with visits from early explorers such as the Dutchman Abel Tasman, the Frenchmen Bruni d'Entrecasteaux and Marion du Fresne and then the Englishmen Matthew Flinders and George Bass. Colonisation coincided with deteriorated relations with indigenous Aboriginal people and a harsh convict heritage. These events in Tasmanian history are found in a large number of colonial sandstone buildings and in place names. Environmentally, the landscapes and changeable weather provide a vivid literary backdrop. Tasmania's geographical isolation, creative community, proximity to Antarctica, controversial past, bourgeoning arts reputation, and island status all contribute to its significant literature. Many fiction and non-fiction authors call Tasmania home, and many acclaimed titles are set there or written by Tasmanians. The journal of letters Island magazine appears quarterly. Tasmania's government provides arts funding in the form of prizes, events and grants. Bookshops contribute book launches and other literary events. Tasmania's unique history and environment gave rise to Tasmanian Gothic literature in the 19th century.
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce is a 2008 Australian-Irish film directed by Michael James Rowland starring Irish actors Adrian Dunbar as Philip Conolly and Ciarán McMenamin as bushranger Alexander Pearce and an ensemble Australian cast, including Dan Wyllie, Don Hany and Chris Haywood. The film was shot on location in Tasmania and Sydney between April and May 2008.
The Colony of Tasmania was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given royal assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
Van Diemen's Land is a 2009 Australian thriller set in 1822 in colonial Tasmania. It follows the story of the infamous Irish convict, Alexander Pearce, played by Oscar Redding and his escape with seven other convicts. The voice-over and some of the dialogue is in Irish.
William Buelow Gould was a painter born in the United Kingdom and later working in Van Diemen's Land. He was transported to Australia as a convict in 1827, after which he would become one of the most important early artists in the colony, despite never really separating himself from his life of crime.
The Roving Party is a 2011 novel written by Tasmanian author Rohan Wilson. Wilson's first book, it is published by Allen & Unwin. The Roving Party won the 2011 Vogel Award. The novel was also shortlisted for the 2011 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.
The British colonisation of Tasmania took place between 1803 and 1830. Known as Van Diemen's Land, the name changed to Tasmania, when the British government granted self-governance in 1856. It was a colony from 1856 until 1901, at which time it joined five other colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. By the end of the colonisation in 1830 the British Empire had annexed large parts of mainland Australia, and all of Tasmania.
Thomas James Lempriere was a British colonial administrator in the Australian colony of Van Diemen's Land. He is known for his diaries depicting the convict period in Van Diemen's Land, his work as a portrait and landscape painter, and his work as a pioneering naturalist.
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