The Gordon cult

The rise and fall of an Australian literary icon

Featured in

  • Published 20240806
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-98-6 
  • Extent: 216pp
  • Paperback, ePUB, PDF

ON 30 OCTOBER 1932, about 2,000 people gathered to celebrate the unveiling of a monument to Adam Lindsay Gordon at the intersection of Spring and Macarthur Streets in Melbourne.It depicts the poet in riding boots with his sleeves rolled up, clutching, somewhat disconsolately, a book in one hand and a pencil in the other. A passage from the poem ‘Ye Wearie Wayfarer’ appears on the column’s base: 

Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Into the swamp

Non-fictionSome versions of environmentalism understandably encourage an almost Swiftian misanthropy, with the ecological collapse framed as the inevitable response of nature to a pestiferous humanity, the only species that, by its very existence, destroys all that it touches. But maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be that way.

More from this edition

The inspirations of radical nostalgia

Non-fictionEnvironmentalism, like history, is a civic discourse that critically engages with change in the world, contemplates the nature of limits and challenges ahistorical self-absorption. Like all good historians, environmentalists create recognition that the structures and conditions of today are not natural, inevitable or preordained but thoroughly contingent. The study of history and ecologically motivated advocacy also both demand reasoned scepticism towards the ideological claims of the powerful.

Healthcare is other people

Non-fiction IN 1977 A gastroenterologist named Franz Ingelfinger had cancer, a cancer that originated in his gastroenteric tract. He was perhaps the most informed patient...

Drowning in a puddle

Non-fictionThe thought of being accepted is terrifying when you’re so used to not being accepted. You expect the worst because the worst is what you’ve become accustomed to. The people in that meet-up group will become your closest friends for the next year. You’ll come to understand that they worry about the same silly little things you do. But those silly little things aren’t so silly and they’re not so little. We just designate them as such because that’s how we’ve been taught by some of the people around us – who expect us to behave in the exact same way they do. But life just doesn’t work like that. Different experiences create different strengths and weaknesses in all of us.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.