Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra
This essay draws a comparison between two published memoirs of participants, both of them women writers, in the Hydra expatriate community of the 1950s and ’60s: Australian Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus, and Welsh artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain’s A Rope of Vines. As memoirs of female experi...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Association for the Study of Australian Literature
2019
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| Online Access: | https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/14110 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76757 |
| _version_ | 1848763752698085376 |
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| author | Genoni, Paul |
| author_facet | Genoni, Paul |
| author_sort | Genoni, Paul |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This essay draws a comparison between two published memoirs of participants, both of them women writers, in the Hydra expatriate community of the 1950s and ’60s: Australian Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus, and Welsh artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain’s A Rope of Vines. As memoirs of female experience on Hydra the two texts have elements in common, but the contrasts are also stark. Whereas Clift focused on family life, the bucolic harbourside agora and the boisterous life of the taverns and kafenia, Chamberlain represented herself as being alone and declared, ‘the port and the people on it do not interest me.’ For Chamberlain, the dockside was a place of ‘unreal glamour’ that deadened her creative spirit as surely as it deflected Hydra’s international visitors from understanding the true nature of the island they superficially embraced.
This essay discusses both Clift’s and Chamberlain’s responses to Hydra, examining how despite the differences in their memoirs, both writers can be seen to be working at a resolution of the conflicting aspects of Hydra the town and Hydra the island, as each woman struggles in her own way to realise the promise of ‘freedom. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:08:28Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-76757 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:08:28Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Association for the Study of Australian Literature |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-767572019-11-07T04:33:53Z Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra Genoni, Paul Expatriation Life writing Charmian Clift Brenda Chamberlain Greece Hydra 2002 - Cultural Studies 2005 - Literary Studies This essay draws a comparison between two published memoirs of participants, both of them women writers, in the Hydra expatriate community of the 1950s and ’60s: Australian Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus, and Welsh artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain’s A Rope of Vines. As memoirs of female experience on Hydra the two texts have elements in common, but the contrasts are also stark. Whereas Clift focused on family life, the bucolic harbourside agora and the boisterous life of the taverns and kafenia, Chamberlain represented herself as being alone and declared, ‘the port and the people on it do not interest me.’ For Chamberlain, the dockside was a place of ‘unreal glamour’ that deadened her creative spirit as surely as it deflected Hydra’s international visitors from understanding the true nature of the island they superficially embraced. This essay discusses both Clift’s and Chamberlain’s responses to Hydra, examining how despite the differences in their memoirs, both writers can be seen to be working at a resolution of the conflicting aspects of Hydra the town and Hydra the island, as each woman struggles in her own way to realise the promise of ‘freedom. 2019 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76757 https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/14110 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/au/ Association for the Study of Australian Literature fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Expatriation Life writing Charmian Clift Brenda Chamberlain Greece Hydra 2002 - Cultural Studies 2005 - Literary Studies Genoni, Paul Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title | Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title_full | Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title_fullStr | Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title_full_unstemmed | Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title_short | Charmian Clift, Brenda Chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of Hydra |
| title_sort | charmian clift, brenda chamberlain, and the dichotomous freedom of hydra |
| topic | Expatriation Life writing Charmian Clift Brenda Chamberlain Greece Hydra 2002 - Cultural Studies 2005 - Literary Studies |
| url | https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/14110 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76757 |