Mary Gilmore
Mary Gilmore, often referred to as the "grand old lady of Australian letters," was a prominent poet, author, and journalist whose life spanned from 1865 to 1962. Born Mary Jean Cameron in New South Wales, she was deeply engaged in literature, politics, and social justice throughout her lengthy life. Gilmore's early career as a teacher saw her compose poetry that resonated with her experiences and social ideals. Notably influenced by utopian socialist William Lane, she contributed to the establishment of a socialist commune in Paraguay, even editing a publication to express her views.
Returning to Australia in 1903, Gilmore's poetry often grappled with themes of love, loss, and the complexities of societal injustices, reflecting on the tumultuous times she lived through, including two world wars. Despite her socialist beliefs, she exhibited a sense of patriotism during World War II, which presented a fascinating contradiction in her work. Her final poetry collection, "Fourteen Men," released when she was ninety, won the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society, though it stirred controversy among readers. Upon her passing, Gilmore was honored with a state funeral, highlighting her significant contributions to Australian literature and society.
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Subject Terms
Mary Gilmore
Australian socialist, poet, and journalist.
- Born: 1865
- Birthplace: New South Wales, Australia
- Died: December 3, 1962
- Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Known as the “grand old lady of Australian letters,” the poet Mary Gilmore experienced the fullness of a life devoted to literature, politics, and social causes well into her nineties. A Dame of the British Empire when she died at the age of ninety-seven, Gilmore had been an ardent socialist, teacher, expatriate, feminist, defender of Aboriginal peoples, and commentator on nine decades of change within society and the arts. Born Mary Jean Cameron in 1865 in New South Wales, Gilmore had a thirst for reading and learning from an early age at a time when young, educated women were expected to become schoolteachers. While teaching in her first position, which was in an isolated outback mining town, she composed poems that would find their way into print when she was in her early twenties. After the school board sent her to Sydney, Gilmore met the utopian socialist, William Lane, a man who led his followers to establish a socially and politically conscious commune. In 1893, Lane led these people to Paraguay, a country desperate for settlers, where they established their idealistic, socialist community. Because she was single, Gilmore could not accompany them. Instead, she wrote for and became editor of The New Australian, a publication in which she could press her socialist views.
Gilmore also published her poetry in a number of journals, sometimes using the pseudonyms Emma Jacy or Rudione Calvert. In 1895, Lane requested that she join their group, now established at Colonia Cosme, Paraguay. She did, and two years later she married William Gilmore, an Australian laborer. Gilmore would continue to be interested in Latin American literature and culture throughout her life, and she translated poetry and wrote about her experiences. Not long after returning to Australia in 1903, Gilmore and her husband separated. Two poems in particular reflect her disappointments in marriage, although she found the emotions too complex adequately to portray that relationship or her feelings: “Contractual,” from The Passionate Heart (1918), and “In Life’s Sad School,” from Battlefields (1939). She defended her husband but used her poetry to assuage her difficulties with marriage.
As one might expect, Gilmore wrote about the loves lost to distance and wars, and to the injustices caused by both society and loveless unions; she was, after all, a woman who had lived through two world wars, the Spanish civil war, and South American rebellions. The concept of destruction (found especially in her poems on passion) and the intemperance of nationalism also find expression in works about the environment and rural life. However, these varied impulses also present contradictions and difficulties, and it is sometimes difficult to reconcile Gilmore’s socialist beliefs with the patriotism she exhibited during World War II. In 1954, her final collection of poems, Fourteen Men, appeared; Gilmore was ninety years old. The collection won the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. Ironically, the poem’s subject matter caused disquietude among its readers rather than admiration for a national treasure: The title refers to an incident in which fourteen men were hanged. Gilmore claimed she had witnessed the event as a child, though it occurred several years before she was born. Upon her death, Gilmore received a state funeral from a grateful nation.
Author Works
Nonfiction:
Hound of the Road, 1922
Old Days, Old Ways: A Book of Recollections, 1934
More Recollections, 1935
Letters of Mary Gilmore, 1980 (W. H. Wilde and T. Inglis Moore, editors)
Poetry:
Marri'd, and Other Verses, 1910
The Passionate Heart, 1918
The Tilted Cart: A Book of Recitations, 1925
The Wild Swan, 1930
The Rue Tree, 1931
Under the Wilgas, 1932
Battlefields, 1939
The Disinherited, 1941
Selected Verse, 1948
Fourteen Men, 1954
All Souls, 1954
Mary Gilmore, 1963
Bibliography
Sheridan, Susan. "Conflicting Discourses on Race and Nationalism in Mary Gilmmore's Poetry." Social Alternatives, vol. 8, no. 3, 1989, pp. 23–25. Presents literary criticism of Gilmore's work that focuses on the paradoxes present in her public views of race and racism and how these concepts are portrayed in her work.
Tsokhas, Kosmas. "Romanticism, Aboriginality and National Identity: The Poetry and Prose of Mary Gilmore." Australian Historical Studies, vol. 29, no. 111, 1998, pp. 230–47. Literary analysis of Gilmore's work that argues that Gilmore's concept of national identity was contradictory.
Whitehead, Anne. Bluestocking in Patagonia: Mary Gilmore's Quest for Love and Utopia at the World's End. Profile Books, 2003. Whitehead details the period of Gilmore's life after her failed trip to Paraguay as a socialist experiment and her subsequent time spent in South America waiting to return to Australia.
Wilde, W. H. Courage a Grace: A Biography of Dame Mary Gilmore. Melbourne UP, 1988. Detailed biography of Gilmore's life, which spanned almost a century.
Wilde, W. H. "Gilmore, Dame Mary Jean (1865–1962)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1983, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilmore-dame-mary-jean-6391. Accessed 26 June 2017. An overview of Gilmore's life and work.