July 25, 2025 - English Studies

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson: A Critical Analysis

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson first appeared in The Bulletin on 28 February 1885.

Introduction: “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson first appeared in The Bulletin on 28 February 1885. This early anti-imperialist poem, written during the Mahdist War in Sudan, reflects Paterson’s opposition to colonial militarism and Australia’s involvement in foreign conflicts under British command. The poem did not appear in one of Paterson’s main published collections, but it remains significant as a political and rhetorical piece from his early career. Through the voice of the Mahdi—a Sudanese leader resisting Anglo-Egyptian rule—Paterson questions the motives behind Australia’s support for British imperial interests. He condemns the deployment of Australian troops to Sudan as morally unjust, characterizing the war as an effort “to crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong” and defend “the Puppet Khedive” and financial interests like “the Hebrew loan.” Paterson juxtaposes Australia’s identity as a land of “liberty and law” with its betrayal of those values by participating in “this unholy war.” The poem’s popularity stems from its bold critique of empire, its evocative moral stance, and its early expression of Australian national identity distinct from British colonial policy.

Text: “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

And wherefore have they come, this warlike band,

That o’er the ocean many a weary day

Have tossed; and now beside Suakim’s Bay,

With faces stern and resolute, do stand,

Waking the desert’s echoes with the drum —

Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?

To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne,

To strike a blow for tyranny and wrong,

To crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong!

Regardless of the hapless Fellah’s moan,

To force the payment of the Hebrew loan,

Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone?

And fair Australia, freest of the free,

Is up in arms against the freeman’s fight;

And with her mother joined to crush the right —

Has left her threatened treasures o’er the sea,

Has left her land of liberty and law

To flesh her maiden sword in this unholy war.

Enough! God never blessed such enterprise —

England’s degenerate Generals yet shall rue

Brave Gordon sacrificed, when soon they view

The children of a thousand deserts rise

To drive them forth like sand before the gale —

God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail.

Annotations: “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

Stanza	Simple English Annotation	Literary Devices	Examples & Explanations
1	The poem questions why Australian soldiers have traveled so far from home and now stand at Suakim’s Bay, ready for battle. It highlights the strangeness and moral confusion of their presence in a foreign desert.	❓ Rhetorical Question🌊 Imagery⚔️ Alliteration🎭 Irony	“Wherefore have they come” – emphasizes moral doubt and lack of reason.”Tossed o’er the ocean,” “Waking the desert’s echoes” – vivid sensory images of journey and setting.”Warlike band,” “faces firm” – reinforces tone and emotion.”Men of Australia, wherefore…” – irony in questioning a free nation’s support of empire.
2	The speaker accuses Australia of fighting not for justice, but to protect a corrupt ruler (Khedive), support oppression, ignore the suffering of the locals, and enforce foreign debt payments.	💥 Contrast🗣️ Allusion🩸 Simile😢 Emotive Language	“To crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong” – highlights injustice.”Puppet Khedive,” “Hebrew loan” – references to Egypt’s British-controlled ruler and foreign debts.”Like blood from out the stone” – shows the cruelty of extreme taxation.”Hapless Fellah’s moan” – evokes sympathy for Egyptian peasants.
3	Australia, known as a free and just country, has ironically joined Britain (“her mother”) in crushing freedom overseas. It abandons its own nation and values to fight a morally unjust war abroad for the first time.	🌏 Irony👩‍👧 Metaphor🗡️ Personification⚖️ Juxtaposition	“Freest of the free…against the freeman’s fight” – Australia betrays its values.”Her mother” = Britain – metaphor for colonial loyalty.”Flesh her maiden sword” – Australia’s first military involvement is personified.”Liberty and law” vs. “unholy war” – contrast between ideals and actions.
4	The speaker declares that God does not support this unjust war. British generals will regret sacrificing Gordon when desert fighters rise in rebellion and sweep them away. The poem ends with a call to religious and moral resistance.	⛔ Exclamation🌬️ Simile🕌 Religious Allusion⚰️ Historical Allusion	“Enough! God never blessed…” – moral rejection of the cause.”Like sand before the gale” – rebels will be powerful and unstoppable.”God and the Prophet!” – Islamic perspective of resistance.”Brave Gordon sacrificed” – refers to General Charles Gordon’s death in Sudan (1885).

Literary And Poetic Devices: “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

Device	Example from Poem	Explanation
⚔️ Alliteration	“faces firm” (implied)	Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words to create rhythm or emphasis.
📚 Allusion (Historical)	“Brave Gordon sacrificed”	Reference to General Charles Gordon, connecting the poem to real British imperial history.
🕌 Allusion (Religious)	“God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail”	Invokes Islam to give moral and spiritual legitimacy to the Mahdi’s resistance.
✝️ Appeal to Authority (God)	“God never blessed such enterprise”	Uses divine disapproval to judge and reject the war’s morality.
🎶 Assonance	“stone…moan…loan”	Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words to build musical effect and cohesion.
⚖️ Contrast / Juxtaposition	“freest of the free…to crush the right”	Shows moral contradictions between Australia’s ideals and its actions.
😢 Emotive Language	“hapless Fellah’s moan”	Words that stir feelings of pity and compassion toward the oppressed.
➡️ Enjambment	Used across lines throughout all stanzas	When a sentence runs onto the next line without a pause, speeding up the pace.
❗ Exclamation	“Enough!”	A dramatic punctuation that signals emotion, urgency, or command.
🔥 Hyperbole	“Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone”	Deliberate exaggeration to stress cruelty and oppression.
🌅 Imagery	“Waking the desert’s echoes with the drum”	Descriptive language that creates sensory experiences in the reader’s mind.
🎭 Irony	“Fair Australia…to crush the right”	A statement that contradicts expectations, showing Australia betraying its values.
🧠 Metaphor	“Puppet Khedive,” “flesh her maiden sword”	Direct comparison, suggesting Egypt’s ruler is controlled and Australia is inexperienced.
🔄 Paradox	“freest of the free…against the freeman’s fight”	A contradiction that reveals deeper truths about hypocrisy.
👤 Personification	“Flesh her maiden sword”	Australia is given human traits, portrayed as a young warrior.
🗳️ Political Critique	The entire poem	The poem critiques British imperialism and Australia’s blind support of it.
🔁 Repetition	“Wherefore have ye come?”	Repeating key phrases to emphasize moral questioning and criticism.
❓ Rhetorical Question	“Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?”	A question not meant to be answered; used to provoke reflection or challenge the audience.
🎯 Satire	“To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne”	Uses mocking tone to expose the absurd motives behind imperial actions.
🩸 Simile	“Like blood from out the stone,” “Like sand before the gale”	A comparison using “like” or “as” to create strong visual imagery.

Themes: “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

⚔️ 1. Imperialism and Foreign Intervention: In “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops”, Paterson fiercely critiques the role of colonial powers, especially Britain and its dominions like Australia, in foreign imperialist ventures. The poem frames the Australian expedition to Sudan not as a noble act of duty, but as a shameful extension of British imperial greed. The speaker, in the voice of the Mahdi, scorns Australia for participating in a war to uphold the “Puppet Khedive”, a ruler installed by foreign powers. Paterson questions, “To strike a blow for tyranny and wrong…To force the payment of the Hebrew loan,” revealing that the war was more about protecting European political and financial interests than justice. The use of the term puppet implies a lack of legitimacy in local governance, manipulated by outside empires. This theme presents imperialism as morally corrupt and damaging to the people it claims to help.

🩸 2. Hypocrisy of Colonial Powers: Paterson highlights the hypocrisy of Australia and Britain, nations that pride themselves on values like liberty and justice, yet wage war against those fighting for freedom. The poet bitterly contrasts Australia’s national identity—“fair Australia, freest of the free”—with her actions, accusing her of joining with her colonial mother to “crush the right.” By describing Australia as having “left her land of liberty and law / To flesh her maiden sword in this unholy war,” the poem underscores the betrayal of foundational democratic ideals. This hypocrisy is especially potent because it is Australia’s first overseas military engagement, yet it is not a defense of liberty, but an attack on it. Through irony and contrast, the poem shows how rhetoric of freedom is often used to justify acts of aggression and subjugation.

🕊️ 3. Resistance and Moral Justice: The poem’s speaker—voicing the Mahdi—predicts a righteous uprising against colonial oppression. Paterson conveys the message that while imperial armies may seem powerful, they cannot suppress the spirit of a people fighting for their freedom. He warns that “The children of a thousand deserts rise / To drive them forth like sand before the gale.” This vivid simile reflects the unstoppable nature of grassroots rebellion, driven by a deep moral and spiritual conviction. The invocation of “God and the Prophet!” at the end transforms the conflict into a sacred cause, not just a political one. Paterson suggests that divine justice will ultimately prevail, and that history will not favor those who support conquest over liberty. This theme affirms the power and legitimacy of indigenous resistance movements.

🎭 4. Moral Disillusionment with War: Throughout the poem, Paterson expresses a deep disillusionment with war, especially when it is fought for unjust or unclear reasons. The opening rhetorical question, “Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?” introduces the tone of doubt and moral confusion. The poem does not glorify military action; instead, it exposes the hollowness of fighting a war “to crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong.” This critique extends beyond Australia to Britain’s entire imperial campaign, as Paterson laments that “England’s degenerate Generals yet shall rue / Brave Gordon sacrificed.” The war is portrayed as an unholy enterprise, driven by politics and profit rather than any noble cause. The poem’s voice—full of bitterness and condemnation—reflects a broader 19th-century skepticism toward colonial military adventures, a theme that resonates even today.

Literary Theories and “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

Literary Theory	Application to the Poem	Reference from the Poem
🌍 Postcolonial Theory	This theory examines the impact and legacy of colonialism. Paterson critiques British imperialism and Australia’s complicity in colonial warfare. The speaker voices the resistance of the colonized (the Mahdi), challenging the moral legitimacy of empire.	“To crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong!”“To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne” – emphasizes foreign control and native resistance.
💰 Marxist Theory	Focuses on power, class, and economic exploitation. The poem frames the war as a capitalist venture to protect elite financial interests (e.g., foreign loans), while the poor (“hapless Fellah”) suffer.	“To force the payment of the Hebrew loan”“Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone” – critiques economic oppression and financial motives of empire.
⚖️ Moral/Philosophical Criticism	Analyzes literature through ethical concerns. Paterson questions the morality of war, especially one waged by a “free” nation against people fighting for their freedom. He appeals to divine and moral judgment.	“God never blessed such enterprise”“Fair Australia, freest of the free…to crush the right” – moral contradiction and ethical judgment.
📢 Reader-Response Theory	Explores how a reader’s background affects interpretation. Australians at the time may have read this as unpatriotic; modern readers may view it as a bold anti-war statement. The poem invites strong personal reactions through rhetorical questions and irony.	“Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?” – provokes critical reflection from readers about national identity and military action.

Critical Questions about “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

❓ 1. How does the poem portray Australia’s national identity, and what contradictions does it reveal?

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson exposes a stark contradiction in Australia’s national identity. Paterson refers to Australia as “fair Australia, freest of the free”, evoking pride in its liberal democratic values and geographical distance from European conflicts. However, he contrasts this identity by showing Australia’s participation in an unjust colonial war—“to crush the right”—in support of the British Empire. This contradiction is intensified when Paterson writes, “Has left her land of liberty and law / To flesh her maiden sword in this unholy war”. Australia’s symbolic “maiden sword” implies innocence lost in a morally corrupt endeavor. Through these contradictions, Paterson suggests that the young nation, while founded on ideals of freedom, is betraying them through imperial obedience.

💰 2. What role does economic motivation play in the poem’s critique of war?

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson portrays economic exploitation as a central, corrupting force behind the Sudan campaign. The poem cynically highlights the war’s real purpose not as a fight for justice, but as an effort to secure financial interests: “To force the payment of the Hebrew loan / Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone”. This vivid simile reveals the brutal pressure placed on Egypt’s poor (the “hapless Fellah”) to repay debts to European financiers. Paterson condemns the manipulation of military force for profit, illustrating that the war is less about liberating the oppressed than it is about preserving the financial system of empire. This perspective positions the entire campaign as a form of economic imperialism, where the lives of locals are sacrificed to satisfy distant creditors.

⚔️ 3. How does Paterson use the voice of the Mahdi to challenge imperial narratives?

In “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops”, A.B. “Banjo” Paterson adopts the imagined voice of the Mahdi—a leader of anti-colonial resistance—to reverse the usual imperial perspective. Instead of glorifying the British Empire’s mission, the Mahdi condemns it as morally bankrupt, asking rhetorically: “Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?” This reversal of voice allows the colonized to question the colonizers, exposing the hypocrisy of their motives. Through lines like “To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne”, Paterson highlights how colonial powers impose illegitimate rulers to maintain control. The Mahdi’s final proclamation—“God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail”—turns the resistance into a sacred, unstoppable movement, thereby undermining imperial claims of civilization and righteousness. By doing this, Paterson invites readers to reconsider whose voices are heard in history and war.

🕊️ 4. What is the poem’s message about justice and divine authority in warfare?

“El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson presents war as unjust when motivated by empire rather than principle, and it asserts that divine authority does not bless such violence. The poem clearly disapproves of the war’s ethical basis, stating: “God never blessed such enterprise”. This line introduces a spiritual judgment that supersedes military or political logic. Paterson uses religion not to justify war—as was common in imperial rhetoric—but to oppose it. The Mahdi’s defiant closing—“God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail”—echoes this theme, positioning justice and divine will alongside indigenous resistance, not British conquest. In doing so, the poem challenges the reader to view the conflict not as a clash of empires, but as a moral struggle in which true justice lies with the oppressed.

Literary Works Similar to “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

“The White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling
↪ Similar in theme but opposite in tone, this poem promotes imperialism, offering a counterpoint to Paterson’s anti-colonial critique.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
↪ Shares Paterson’s condemnation of blind patriotism and glorified war, exposing its brutality and moral cost.
“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
↪ Like Paterson’s poem, this reflects on the futility and tragedy of imperial military ventures, though with more heroic framing.

“Recessional” by Rudyard Kipling
↪ A cautionary imperial poem warning Britain against arrogance, aligning with Paterson’s spiritual critique of empire.
“The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy
↪ Echoes Paterson’s anti-war sentiment by highlighting the absurdity and shared humanity behind colonial conflict.

Representative Quotations of “El Mahdi to The Australian Troops” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

🔖 Quotation	Contextual Explanation	Theoretical Perspective
❓ “Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?”	Opens with a rhetorical question that challenges the moral basis for Australia’s involvement in a foreign war.	Moral/Philosophical Criticism
🧵 “To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne”	Refers to the British-installed ruler of Egypt, portraying him as a mere tool of empire.	Postcolonial Theory
🩸 “Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone”	A violent simile condemning imperial economic exploitation of poor Egyptians.	Marxist Theory
⚖️ “Fair Australia, freest of the free”	Ironic praise that contrasts Australia’s democratic identity with its oppressive actions abroad.	Postcolonial Theory
🗡️ “To flesh her maiden sword in this unholy war”	Personifies Australia as inexperienced in war, and morally tainted by its first violent action.	Feminist & National Identity Theory
🕊️ “God never blessed such enterprise”	A strong moral judgment, suggesting the war lacks divine or ethical legitimacy.	Moral/Philosophical Criticism
🌪️ “To drive them forth like sand before the gale”	A simile predicting the uprising of local forces against British imperialists.	Postcolonial Theory
📿 “God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail.”	Ends with a spiritual and revolutionary call, legitimizing indigenous resistance through religion.	Postcolonial & Religious Criticism
💰 “To force the payment of the Hebrew loan”	Exposes the financial motives behind the war, hinting at capitalist and ethnic critiques.	Marxist Theory
🎭 “To crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong!”	Criticizes the betrayal of justice by imperial powers through stark moral inversion.	Ethical & Political Criticism

“A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson: A Critical Analysis

“A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson first appeared in The Bulletin in the late 19th century and was later included in his 1896 poetry collection A Long Way After Gordon.

Introduction: “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

“A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson first appeared in The Bulletin in the late 19th century and was later included in his 1896 poetry collection A Long Way After Gordon. This humorous and vivid poem captures the feverish excitement and chaos of Australia’s most famous horse race—the Melbourne Cup—through the surreal lens of a dream brought on by overeating. Paterson satirizes the national obsession with gambling and racing, portraying both the thrill and foolishness of punters driven by “the greed of the gain of gold.” The poem’s structure mimics the intensity of a race, accelerating with rhythmic energy and culminating in a comic twist where the dreamer awakens with indigestion and no winnings. Its enduring popularity lies in its blend of nationalism, sharp social commentary, and Paterson’s masterful use of larrikin wit and ballad form. With its vivid imagery—like the “hoofs… roar like a mighty drum” and the desperate shout of punters—Paterson captures a uniquely Australian cultural ritual while critiquing its excesses. The satirical depiction of shady bookmakers (“hook-nosed hog”), the mob mentality, and the dream’s anticlimax resonate with readers as both familiar and farcical, securing its place as a cherished piece of Australiana.

Text: “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

A Long Way After Gordon

Bring me a quart of colonial beer

And some doughy damper to make good cheer,

I must make a heavy dinner;

Heavily dine and heavily sup,

Of indigestible things fill up,

Next month they run the Melbourne Cup,

And I have to dream the winner.

Stoke it in, boys! the half-cooked ham,

The rich ragout and the charming cham,

I’ve got to mix my liquor;

Give me a gander’s gaunt hind leg,

Hard and tough as a wooden peg,

And I’ll keep it down with a hard-boiled egg,

‘Twill make me dream the quicker.

Now that I’m full of fearful feed,

Oh, but I’ll dream of a winner indeed,

In my restless, troubled slumber;

While the nightmares race through my heated brain

And their devil riders spur amain,

The trip for the Cup will reward my pain,

And I’ll spot the winning number.

Thousands and thousands and thousands more,

Like sands on the white Pacific shore,

The crowding people cluster;

For evermore it’s the story old,

While races are bought and backers are sold,

Drawn by the greed of the gain of gold,

In their thousands still they muster.

And the bookies’ cries grow fierce and hot,

“I’ll lay the Cup! The double, if not!”

“Five monkeys, Little John, sir!”

“Here’s fives bar one, I lay, I lay!”

And so they shout through the live-long day,

And stick to the game that is sure to pay,

While fools put money on, sir!

And now in my dream I seem to go

And bet with a “book” that I seem to know —

A Hebrew moneylender;

A million to five is the price I get —

Not bad! but before I book the bet

The horse’s name I clean forget,

His number and even gender.

Now for the start, and here they come,

And the hoof-strokes roar like a mighty drum

Beat by a hand unsteady;

They come like a rushing, roaring flood,

Hurrah for the speed of the Chester blood!

For Acme is making the pace so good

They are some of ’em done already.

But round the track she begins to tire,

And a mighty shout goes up: “Crossfire!”

The magpie jacket’s leading;

And Crossfire challenges fierce and bold,

And the lead she’ll have and the lead she’ll hold,

But at length gives way to the black and gold,

Which right to the front is speeding.

Carry them on and keep it up —

A flying race is the Melbourne Cup,

You must race and stay to win it;

And old Commotion, Victoria’s pride,

Now takes the lead with his raking stride,

And a mighty roar goes far and wide —

“There’s only Commotion in it!”

But one draws out from the beaten ruck

And up on the rails by a piece of luck

He comes in a style that’s clever;

“It’s Trident! Trident! Hurrah for Hales!”

“Go at ’em now while their courage fails;”

“Trident! Trident! for New South Wales!”

“The blue and white for ever!”

Under the whip! With the ears flat back,

Under the whip! Though the sinews crack,

No sign of the base white feather:

Stick to it now for your breeding’s sake,

Stick to it now though your hearts should break,

While the yells and roars make the grandstand shake,

They come down the straight together.

Trident slowly forges ahead,

The fierce whips cut and the spurs are red,

The pace is undiminished;

Now for the Panics that never fail!

But many a backer’s face grows pale

As old Commotion swings his tail

And swerves — and the Cup is finished.

And now in my dream it all comes back:

I bet my coin on the Sydney crack,

A million I’ve won, no question!

“Give me my money, you hook-nosed hog!

Give me my money, bookmaking dog!”

But he disappears in a kind of fog,

And I woke with “the indigestion”.

Annotations: “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

Stanza	Simple Explanation	Literary Devices Used
Stanza 1	The speaker plans to eat a heavy meal to help him dream of the Melbourne Cup winner.	🍽️ Imagery, 💤 Irony, 🎵 Rhythm
Stanza 2	He eats strange, heavy, even unpleasant food, believing it will help him dream faster.	🍽️ Imagery, 🎭 Satire, 🎵 Rhythm
Stanza 3	He falls into troubled sleep filled with nightmarish racing images.	🌪️ Personification, 🐴 Symbolism, 🌀 Hyperbole
Stanza 4	Massive crowds attend the race, driven by greed and corruption in gambling.	🌀 Hyperbole, 🎭 Satire, 🐴 Symbolism
Stanza 5	Bookmakers loudly entice bettors while taking advantage of them.	🗣️ Dialogue, 🎭 Satire, 🎵 Rhythm
Stanza 6	He tries to bet on the winner but forgets everything about the horse.	💤 Irony, 🎭 Satire, 🌀 Hyperbole
Stanza 7	The race begins with intense energy and roaring hooves; Acme leads early.	🍽️ Imagery, 🎵 Rhythm, 🗣️ Dialogue
Stanza 8	Acme tires, Crossfire leads briefly, then is overtaken by another horse.	🗣️ Dialogue, 🎵 Rhythm
Stanza 9	Commotion takes the lead powerfully, thrilling the crowd.	🐴 Symbolism, 🌀 Hyperbole
Stanza 10	Trident emerges unexpectedly from behind, and fans cheer wildly for him.	🔁 Repetition, 🗣️ Dialogue, 🐴 Symbolism
Stanza 11	The race climax is fierce; horses are pushed to their limits, crowd roars.	🍽️ Imagery, 🗣️ Dialogue, 🎵 Rhythm
Stanza 12	Trident wins, Commotion fails, and many bettors are disappointed.	🐴 Symbolism, 🎵 Rhythm, 💤 Irony
Stanza 13	The speaker thinks he’s won big, but wakes up with indigestion and no winnings.	💤 Irony, 🎭 Satire, 🌪️ Personification

Literary And Poetic Devices: “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

Device	Explanation	Example from Poem	Line Reference
🍽️ Imagery	Descriptive language appealing to the senses	“Bring me a quart of colonial beer / And some doughy damper…”	Stanza 1
🎵 Rhyme Scheme	Repetition of similar sounds at the ends of lines	“Heavily dine and heavily sup / Of indigestible things fill up…”	Stanza 1
⏱️ Rhythm	The pattern of beats or meter in the verse	Galloping rhythm mimics the pace of a horse race	Throughout
🌪️ Personification	Giving human qualities to non-human elements	“Nightmares race through my heated brain / And their devil riders spur amain…”	Stanza 3
🌀 Hyperbole	Deliberate and extreme exaggeration	“Thousands and thousands and thousands more…”	Stanza 4
🐴 Symbolism	Objects or actions that represent deeper ideas	Horses symbolize ambition, risk, colonial identity	Multiple stanzas
🗣️ Dialogue	Quoted speech for realism and dramatic effect	“I’ll lay the Cup! The double, if not!”	Stanza 5
💭 Internal Monologue	Thoughts expressed directly by the narrator	“I must make a heavy dinner… I have to dream the winner.”	Stanza 1
💤 Irony	A twist between expectation and reality	Thinks he won a million, wakes with indigestion	Final stanza
🎭 Satire	Use of humor or exaggeration to expose societal flaws	Critiques gambling culture and deceitful bookies	Stanzas 4–6
🔁 Repetition	Repeated words or phrases for emphasis	“Trident! Trident! Hurrah for Hales!”	Stanza 10
👃 Olfactory Imagery	Descriptions that appeal to the sense of smell	“Half-cooked ham, the rich ragout…”	Stanza 2
🧠 Metaphor	Implied comparison without “like” or “as”	“Hoof-strokes roar like a mighty drum” (also a simile)	Stanza 7
🧩 Juxtaposition	Placing contrasting ideas side-by-side	Winning dream vs. waking up with indigestion	Final stanza
🎲 Theme	Central idea or message	Greed, risk, obsession with fortune	Entire poem
📜 Narrative Voice	Perspective from which the poem is told	First-person dream and commentary	Entire poem
🔊 Onomatopoeia	Words that imitate sounds	“The hoof-strokes roar like a mighty drum…”	Stanza 7
🧅 Enjambment	Continuation of a sentence across lines without a pause	Many stanzas flow line to line without punctuation	Throughout
🕳️ Anticlimax	A drop from intense to trivial outcome	“He disappears in a kind of fog, And I woke with indigestion.”	Final stanza

Themes: “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

🏇 Obsession with Gambling and the Illusion of Wealth: In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, one of the most prominent themes is the dangerous allure of gambling and the illusion of instant wealth. The narrator’s entire dream hinges on the hope of discovering the winner of the Melbourne Cup to make a massive profit. This fixation is captured humorously through exaggerated bets such as “A million to five is the price I get” (Stanza 6), and the chaotic scenes of punters shouting odds: “I’ll lay the Cup! The double, if not!” (Stanza 5). Paterson portrays gambling as not just a game but an obsession that overtakes reason, as the narrator forgets the horse’s name and gender in his dreamlike frenzy. The final anticlimax—“But he disappears in a kind of fog, And I woke with the indigestion”—underscores the hollowness of such dreams and mocks the gambler’s futile hope of easy fortune.

💰 Greed and Corruption in Society: In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, greed is not only personal but systemic, depicted through a society driven by profit and moral compromise. The crowds are described as countless, “Like sands on the white Pacific shore,” (Stanza 4) all drawn by “the greed of the gain of gold.” This imagery shows how greed fuels the spectacle, with backers being “sold” and races implied to be “bought.” The bookmakers, who yell outrageous odds and trap hopeful bettors, represent the corrupt forces manipulating the game. By personifying these figures as dishonest and almost inhuman—“Give me my money, you hook-nosed hog!”—Paterson reflects not only the narrator’s anger but a wider social critique of those who profit from others’ hope and desperation. The dream is thus more than fantasy; it’s a biting commentary on a morally compromised culture.

🤯 Disillusionment and the Collapse of Dreams: In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, the poem moves from ecstatic anticipation to a sudden fall into disappointment, exploring the theme of disillusionment. The narrator eats excessively just to dream of the Cup winner, believing that suffering will be worth it if the dream reveals success: “The trip for the Cup will reward my pain.” (Stanza 3). Yet, the dream’s confusion—forgetting the horse’s identity—and its eventual unraveling highlight the futility of relying on chance. The surreal climax where the narrator “woke with the indigestion” serves as an ironic wake-up call, turning the grand fantasy into a grim punchline. The dream ends not with glory but with discomfort, suggesting that aspirations built on fantasy, greed, or superstition are bound to collapse.

🎭 Satire of Australian Sporting Culture and Colonial Identity: In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, the poet delivers a sharp satire of Australian sporting culture, particularly its obsession with horse racing and colonial identity. The Melbourne Cup is elevated to mythic proportions, with cheering crowds, patriotic slogans (“Trident! Trident! for New South Wales!”) and high-stakes wagers. Paterson parodies the grandiosity by exaggerating the characters and scenes, such as the “magpie jacket,” the “hook-nosed hog,” and the overblown betting hysteria. These caricatures expose the absurdity behind nationalistic pride tied to horses, states, and betting outcomes. The narrator’s desperate attempt to find meaning—and wealth—through a dream only reinforces the poet’s critique of a society caught in colonial mimicry of European elitism through its horse culture. Beneath the humor lies a subtle commentary on how national identity can be trivialized through spectacle.

Literary Theories and “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

Theory	Explanation of the Theory	Application to the Poem with References
🧑‍🌾 Marxist Theory	Focuses on class struggle, capitalism, and power dynamics in society.	The poem critiques capitalism and greed through betting culture: “Drawn by the greed of the gain of gold” (Stanza 4). Bookmakers profit while punters lose, reflecting class exploitation.
🎭 Satirical/Historical	Interprets literature in its historical and cultural context; satire mocks social trends.	Paterson mocks colonial Australia’s obsession with racing and gambling, exaggerating race day chaos and characters like “hook-nosed hog” (Stanza 13) and “a million to five” odds.
🤯 Psychoanalytic	Explores unconscious desires, dreams, and inner conflict (Freud, Jung).	The poem revolves around a dream induced by overeating. It portrays internal anxieties and repressed desires: “Nightmares race through my heated brain…” (Stanza 3).
🇦🇺 Postcolonial Theory	Examines the impact of colonization on culture and identity.	The race becomes a symbol of colonial mimicry—states like “Victoria” and “New South Wales” cheer their horses as a form of national pride, mirroring British cultural traditions.

Critical Questions about “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

❓ 1. How does the poem use humor to critique societal values?

In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, humor is central to the poet’s critique of Australian society’s obsession with horse racing and gambling. Paterson employs satire, irony, and absurd exaggeration to expose the foolishness of the narrator and, by extension, the culture he represents. The speaker deliberately eats a ridiculous amount of greasy, hard-to-digest food—“a gander’s gaunt hind leg” and “a hard-boiled egg”—to dream up the winner of the Melbourne Cup (Stanza 2). This absurdity is a comic reflection of how far people will go to gain a betting advantage. The climactic irony comes when the narrator dreams of winning “a million” but wakes up only to indigestion and no money (Final Stanza), poking fun at the false hopes fueled by gambling. Paterson uses comedy not just for entertainment, but to criticize the greed and gullibility embedded in racing culture.

❓ 2. In what ways does the poem reflect Australian national identity?

In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, the poet captures the essence of turn-of-the-century Australian identity through the lens of the Melbourne Cup—an event symbolic of unity, rivalry, and colonial heritage. Paterson references regional pride explicitly with lines like “Trident! Trident! for New South Wales! The blue and white forever!” (Stanza 10), evoking state-based loyalties in the form of horse racing. Moreover, the scene is vividly Australian, with damper, colonial beer, and large noisy crowds evoking a shared cultural image: “Thousands and thousands and thousands more, like sands on the white Pacific shore” (Stanza 4). The race becomes a metaphor for national celebration and chaos alike, where triumph and loss coexist. Paterson’s use of slang, the larrikin tone, and iconic references creates a poetic snapshot of a society trying to define itself through spectacle and competition.

❓ 3. What role does fantasy play in the narrator’s experience of the Melbourne Cup?

In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, fantasy plays a central role, revealing the gap between desire and reality. The narrator enters a self-induced dream state through excessive eating, hoping to receive a supernatural vision of the winning horse. This reliance on fantasy is made evident in lines like “Now that I’m full of fearful feed, Oh, but I’ll dream of a winner indeed” (Stanza 3), portraying the irrational belief that one can control chance through dreams. The dream itself is filled with magical realism: horses gallop with mythical energy, crowds roar endlessly, and odds appear impossible—“A million to five is the price I get” (Stanza 6). However, fantasy ultimately fails him. He forgets the horse’s name, loses the winnings, and wakes up with physical discomfort instead of riches. The poem uses fantasy to mock the escapist mentality of gamblers and how it leads to inevitable disappointment.

❓ 4. How does the structure of the poem mirror the race itself?

In “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, the poem’s structure mimics the dynamics of an actual horse race—starting with slow buildup, reaching a frenzied climax, and ending with a sudden, jarring stop. The early stanzas are slower and deliberate, focusing on food preparation and the absurd ritual of “dreaming the winner.” As the dream unfolds, the pace of the poem accelerates with fast rhymes and shorter, action-driven lines like “Under the whip! With the ears flat back…” (Stanza 11), which mirrors the energy and urgency of the race. The staccato rhythm and repetitions in “Trident! Trident!” (Stanza 10) heighten the emotional and competitive intensity. Then, in classic anti-climax, the final stanza brings everything to a halt: “And I woke with the indigestion.” This structural arc—from build-up to climax to collapse—not only reflects the experience of a race, but also the cycle of anticipation and letdown in gambling culture.

Literary Works Similar to “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

“The Man from Ironbark” – A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Shares Paterson’s satirical tone and use of Australian colloquial language to mock social customs, much like the absurdity of dreaming a Melbourne Cup winner.

“Clancy of the Overflow” – A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Explores the contrast between idealised dreams and everyday reality, echoing the narrator’s disillusionment after his fanciful betting dream.
“Said Hanrahan” – John O’Brien
Uses repetition, irony, and rural humor to expose cultural fatalism, similar to Paterson’s critique of betting and blind optimism.
“The Sick Stockrider” – Adam Lindsay Gordon
Celebrates the Australian spirit and bush endurance, aligning with the patriotic race-day fervour and regional pride in the Melbourne Cup.

“Mulga Bill’s Bicycle” – A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson
Tells a comic tale of inflated self-belief ending in failure, mirroring the poem’s theme of misplaced confidence in gambling outcomes.

Representative Quotations of “A Dream Of The Melbourne Cup” by A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

Quotation	Contextual Interpretation	Theoretical Perspective
🥩 “Bring me a quart of colonial beer / And some doughy damper to make good cheer”	Opens with humorous excess; sets the stage for the absurd ritual of eating to induce visions.	Psychoanalytic
🌙 “Next month they run the Melbourne Cup, / And I have to dream the winner.”	Reveals the narrator’s irrational hope to predict the race through dreaming.	Marxist
😵 “Stoke it in, boys! the half-cooked ham, / The rich ragout and the charming cham”	Comically exaggerated consumption mocks superstition and desperation.	Satirical/Historical
🧠 “While the nightmares race through my heated brain / And their devil riders spur amain”	Vivid dream imagery symbolizes internal chaos and fear.	Psychoanalytic
💸 “Drawn by the greed of the gain of gold, / In their thousands still they muster.”	Critiques societal greed and the mob mentality surrounding betting culture.	Marxist
🎲 “A million to five is the price I get — / Not bad!”	Ridicules overconfidence and blind betting in a hyperbolic fantasy.	Irony/Satire
🔊 “Trident! Trident! Hurrah for Hales!”	Reflects collective hysteria and regional patriotism in racing.	Postcolonial
🐎 “Carry them on and keep it up — / A flying race is the Melbourne Cup”	The fast-paced rhythm mirrors the excitement and intensity of the Cup.	Formalist
😠 “Give me my money, you hook-nosed hog! / Give me my money, bookmaking dog!”	Exposes themes of betrayal and prejudice within the chaotic world of gambling.	Satirical/Historical
💥 “And I woke with the indigestion.”	A flat, comic ending highlighting the futility of the entire fantasy; no glory, just discomfort.	Irony/Structuralism

“Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele: Summary and Critique

“Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan and Kathrin Thiele first appeared in 2020 in the Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (pp. 1–8).

Introduction: “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele

“Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan and Kathrin Thiele first appeared in 2020 in the Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (pp. 1–8), and offers a foundational rethinking of contemporary politics through a feminist and queer lens by bringing together the interrelated frameworks of biopolitics, necropolitics, and cosmopolitics. Published online on December 15, 2019, the article interrogates the contemporary socio-political landscape, especially amid the European refugee crisis, global populism, and systemic marginalization, using interdisciplinary methods to explore how certain lives are cultivated while others are marked for death. Drawing from thinkers like Michel Foucault and Achille Mbembe, the authors delineate how biopower governs populations by “making live and letting die,” while necropolitics more radically examines how power “makes die” and sustains death-worlds. Importantly, they expand the conversation by incorporating Isabelle Stengers’ concept of cosmopolitics, which resists universalism and invites multiple worldviews into the political realm, thus challenging exclusionary logics of liberal humanism. The introduction is pivotal for literary and cultural theory, as it proposes a new ethical-political paradigm that refuses indifference and instead calls for nuanced engagement with life, death, and coexistence beyond the human. Through references to cultural texts like Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, and by integrating affect theory, posthumanism, queer of color critique, and decolonial feminism, Quinan and Thiele argue for a reworlding politics — one that reimagines recognition, relationality, and justice outside neoliberal and necropolitical constraints. Their work has since become a cornerstone for scholars examining intersections of power, embodiment, race, and more-than-human agencies in contemporary literary and political theory.

Summary of “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele

🔍 1. Introduction: Framing the Political Through Film

The authors open with Those Who Feel the Fire Burning (Knibbe, 2015) as an affective and poetic lens into the European refugee crisis.
Key Quote: The film “blurs existential boundaries… between life and death, truth and fiction… or subjectivity and objectivity” (p. 2).

This cinematic metaphor introduces the bio/necro/cosmopolitical triad by revealing “the matter of life and death in this contemporary climate” (p. 2).

⚖️ 2. Biopolitics: Managing Life

Rooted in Foucault’s theories, biopolitics is the modern state’s power to “make live and let die” (Foucault, 2003).
It regulates populations and disciplines bodies through diffuse mechanisms of control.

Key Quote: Biopolitics governs “a new body, a multiple body… that cannot necessarily be counted” (Foucault, 2003, p. 245; cited on p. 3).

💀 3. Necropolitics: The Power to Let Die

Building on and critiquing biopolitics, Mbembe’s necropolitics centers the state’s power “to make die,” especially through warfare and border control.
Key Quote: Necropolitics creates “death-worlds… forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life” (Mbembe, 2003, p. 40; cited on p. 4).

Exposes racialized, gendered, and class-based “zones of abandonment.”

🌀 4. Cosmopolitics: Beyond the Humanist Political

Borrowed from Isabelle Stengers, cosmopolitics challenges liberal, anthropocentric definitions of politics and knowledge.
Key Quote: Cosmopolitics emphasizes “the unknown constituted by the multiple, divergent worlds and to the articulations of which they could eventually be capable” (Stengers, 2005, p. 995; cited on p. 5).
It refuses easy political solutions and calls for thinking with complexity and indeterminacy.

🌍 5. Feminist and Queer Interventions

The article brings queer and feminist theory into biopolitical and necropolitical discourse.
It foregrounds marginalized bodies excluded from normative political life: “those who do not – or cannot – conform to a white, middle-class, heteronormative… existence” (p. 5).
Key Quote: “Biopolitics and necropolitics are not opposites. Rather, they are ‘two sides of the same coin’” (Braidotti, 2013, p. 122; cited on p. 4).

🔗 6. The Role of Race, Affect, and Assemblage

Authors highlight the work of:
- Kyla Schuller (2018): Biopolitics shaped through race and sentimental regulation.
- Alexander Weheliye (2014): Racializing assemblages differentiate full humans from not-quite-humans.
- Mel Y. Chen (2012): The animacy hierarchy interrogates who/what counts as living.
Key Quote: “Race… disciplines humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans and nonhumans” (Weheliye, 2014; cited on p. 4).

🏳️‍🌈 7. Queer Necropolitics and Trans Resistance

The issue builds on Jasbir Puar’s (2007, 2017) analysis of queer necropolitics and how LGBTQ+ visibility coexists with systemic violence.

Trans and queer bodies, particularly of color, are exposed to intensified state violence while being instrumentalized by neoliberal tolerance.
Key Quote: “Queer subjects invited into life and queerly abjected populations marked for death” (Haritaworn et al., 2014, p. 2; cited on p. 4).

🌌 8. Cosmopolitics as Posthumanist and Decolonial Intervention

Cosmopolitics is presented as a posthumanist and decolonial reorientation of politics.

It disrupts modernity’s claim to objectivity, allowing for relational, more-than-human ways of knowing and being.
Key Quote: “Equality does not mean… all have the same say… but that they all have to be present in the mode that makes the decision as difficult as possible” (Stengers, 2005, p. 1003; cited on p. 5).

📚 9. Contribution of the Special Issue

The issue collects interdisciplinary works bridging literary analysis, posthumanism, environmental justice, and queer of color critique.

Examples include:
- Yoon on “cosmo-poetics” via Margaret Rhee’s poetry.
- Tai on environmental illness and decolonial healing.
- Marten and Cielemęcka on biodiversity, gender, and ecological purity.
- Tucker on homonationalism in South Africa.
- Winnubst on anti-Blackness and neoliberal fungibility.
Each article explores forms of resistance to biopolitical/necropolitical violence and gestures toward cosmopolitical futures.

🕯️ 10. Concluding Thought: The Specter of Haunting

Quinan and Thiele return to the ghost metaphor from Those Who Feel the Fire Burning and Avery Gordon’s (2008) Ghostly Matters.

Key Quote: “Haunting… registers the harm… and produces a something-to-be-done” (Gordon, 2008, p. xvi; cited on p. 7).
The articles respond to this haunting, insisting that we cannot remain indifferent.

Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele

📌 Term/Concept	📖 Explanation	🎯 Example/Usage in Article
🧬 Biopolitics	A mode of power that regulates life through population management, health, reproduction, and norms.	Foucault’s idea of “making live and letting die”; used to explain how the modern state governs bodies and life (p. 3). Refugee border control is an example of biopolitical regulation.
⚰️ Necropolitics	A power structure that determines who must die; the politics of death and exposure to death.	Coined by Achille Mbembe: “the power to make die”; evident in refugee deaths in the Mediterranean and racialized state violence (pp. 3–4). It highlights “death-worlds” where people live under conditions of social and physical death.
🌌 Cosmopolitics	A politics that includes multiple worldviews, resisting universalism; embraces indeterminacy.	From Isabelle Stengers: “the unknown constituted by multiple, divergent worlds” (p. 5). Rejects traditional cosmopolitanism in favor of plural ontologies. Applied to reimagine politics beyond humanist norms.
💥 Death-Worlds	Social contexts where people are exposed to persistent threats, reducing them to the “living dead.”	Refugee camps, war zones, and impoverished regions where people are left to die by neglect (Mbembe, 2003, p. 40).
🧠 Affect	Pre-personal forces that shape emotional responses and political action.	Explored through Knibbe’s film Those Who Feel the Fire Burning—the ghost-narrator stirs affect to provoke empathy and reflection (p. 2).
🧬 Racializing Assemblages	A framework to understand how race shapes who counts as human.	Alexander Weheliye’s term: Race disciplines subjects into “full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans” (p. 4). Useful in queer of color critique.
⚙️ Animacy Hierarchy	A ranked system of what is considered animate or valuable.	Mel Y. Chen’s concept: challenges divisions between living/dead, toxic/alive. Example: differential value assigned to disabled, queer, or racialized bodies (p. 4).
🏳️‍🌈 Queer Necropolitics	Examines how queer subjects are differently exposed to death within state logics.	Puar et al.: “queer subjects invited into life and queerly abjected populations marked for death” (Haritaworn et al., 2014, p. 2; cited on p. 4). Highlights tension between visibility and vulnerability for queer/trans people.
🌍 Cosmopoetics	A poetic practice that listens to difference and embodies cosmopolitics.	In Hyaesin Yoon’s article, Rhee’s Kimchi Poetry Machine is a “diasporic feminist technology of listening to difference” (p. 5).
🧪 Bioresistance	Acts that resist or subvert biopolitical regulation and control.	In Sikora’s analysis of David Wojnarowicz, queer art is seen as a form of bioresistance that “expands possible lifeworlds” and escapes disciplinary norms (p. 6).
⌛ Slow Death/Slow Violence	Gradual, often invisible harm caused by systemic neglect or environmental destruction.	Berlant and Nixon’s terms: used to describe how neoliberal neglect kills over time—especially in poor, racialized, and nonhuman populations (p. 4).
🧠 Posthumanism	A theoretical approach that critiques human exceptionalism and centers more-than-human entanglements.	Employed to rethink subjectivity and politics in planetary, ecological, and technological terms (p. 5). Example: transcorporeality between human and land in Tai’s article.
🔗 Fungibility	The interchangeable value of human life, especially in racial capitalism.	Explored by Winnubst: “anti-Blackness as the ontological grounding” of neoliberal order; lives reduced to exchangeable commodities (p. 6).

Contribution of “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele to Literary Theory/Theories

📚 1. Contribution to Biopolitical Literary Theory

Integration of Governance and Narrative: The article shows how biopolitics shapes the stories we tell and whose stories are told in literature and culture.

Key Quote: “Biopolitics governs ‘a new body, a multiple body’… a social subject who willingly self-implements the basic rules of Law” (Foucault, 2003, p. 245).
Literary Impact: Encourages close reading of characters and populations in texts as biopolitically regulated subjects—e.g., whose lives are managed or surveilled by systemic power.

⚰️ 2. Contribution to Necropolitical Literary Criticism

Reframing Death in Literature: It extends literary analysis to account for how death and dying are politically structured, particularly in marginalized communities.

Key Quote: “Necropolitics uncovers how certain bodies are cultivated for life and others are systemically marked for death” (p. 4).
Literary Impact: Promotes attention to death-worlds in literature, such as refugee narratives, racialized death, and queer precarity—as seen in ghostly narrators and post-apocalyptic figures.

🌌 3. Cosmopolitics and Posthumanist Literary Theory

A Non-Human-Centric Approach to Literary Worlds: The text reorients literary theory away from Enlightenment humanism toward more-than-human entanglements.

Key Quote: “A cosmos detached from politics is irrelevant… a politics not attached to a cosmos is moot” (Stengers, 2005, p. 995).
Literary Impact: Invites literary scholars to read for planetary relationality, multispecies entanglements, and poetic indeterminacy, especially in eco-criticism and speculative fiction.

🏳️‍🌈 4. Queer Theory and Queer Necropolitics

Challenging Homonormative and Homonationalist Narratives: The article highlights the contradictions between queer visibility and queer disposability.

Key Quote: “Queer necropolitics as a tool to make sense of the symbiotic co-presence of life and death” (Haritaworn et al., 2014, p. 2).
Literary Impact: Supports readings of literature that interrogate how queer and trans characters are either integrated into neoliberal celebration or sacrificed within narrative logics of violence.

🧬 5. Critical Race Theory and Racializing Assemblages

Race as a Structuring Principle in Literature: The article draws on Alexander Weheliye’s concept of “racializing assemblages” to show how race configures subjectivity.

Key Quote: “Race disciplines humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans and nonhumans” (Weheliye, 2014; p. 4).
Literary Impact: Enables literary critics to analyze how racialized bodies are rendered legible or illegible in texts, especially through embodiment, law, and death.

🌿 6. Environmental Humanities and Eco-theory

Cosmopolitics and Environmental Illness: Through discussions of healing, ecology, and transcorporeality, the article contributes to reading environments as politicized spaces.

Example: Aurora Levins Morales’s writings are analyzed as “cosmopolitical re-worlding” (p. 5).
Literary Impact: Deepens the ecological reading of texts by centering affective and embodied relationships between bodies and land, pollution, or toxicity.

🧠 7. Affect Theory in Literary Studies

Affect as Aesthetic and Political Force: Emphasizes how cinema and literature provoke affect as a means of critique and transformation.

Key Quote: “Affect… is intimately tied up in the film experience… as that which forces us to feel” (p. 2).
Literary Impact: Invites analysis of emotional responses in literature—not as private feelings but as political and embodied affects shaped by structures of power.

🧪 8. Posthumanism in Literary Theory

Undoing the Human as Literary Norm: The article contributes to posthuman literary studies by troubling Enlightenment views of humanity and rational subjectivity.

Key Quote: Cosmopolitics demands “a most complex constellation of various participating perspectives and (non-)agencies” (Stengers, 2005, p. 1003).
Literary Impact: Enriches readings of literature that feature machines, animals, ghosts, or spirits as narrative agents or ethical participants.

🔗 9. Feminist Literary Criticism and Decolonial Theory

Foregrounding Marginalized Voices and Ways of Knowing: The article mobilizes Black feminist thinkers like Sylvia Wynter and Hortense Spillers.

Key Quote: “Participating politically in a foundationally bio- and necropolitically structured world requires complicating the political equation” (p. 5).
Literary Impact: Supports readings of feminist and decolonial literature that challenge Eurocentric and patriarchal ideas of universality and linear progress.

Examples of Critiques Through “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele

📚 Work	⚙️ Theoretical Lens	🔍 Critique Based on Quinan & Thiele	🧵 Thematic Focus
📘 Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart, 2020)	⚰️ Necropolitics	Highlights how working-class, queer bodies in Thatcher-era Glasgow are exposed to state abandonment. Shuggie’s life is shaped by the slow death of poverty, alcoholism, and social neglect — echoing Mbembe’s “death-worlds” and Berlant’s “slow death” (Quinan & Thiele, p. 4).	Queer precarity, social death, economic collapse
📘 Girl, Woman, Other (Bernardine Evaristo, 2019)	🧬 Biopolitics + 🧠 Cosmopolitics	Explores how Black British women’s lives are managed through institutions (education, class, sexuality). The novel resists a singular subjectivity and aligns with Stengers’ cosmopolitics by portraying divergent worldviews and temporalities (Quinan & Thiele, p. 5).	Intersectionality, queer Black feminism, multiplicity
📘 Brexit and British Politics (Geoffrey Evans & Anand Menon, 2017)	⚙️ Biopolitics	Offers material for critique rather than a literary work itself; the authors describe state control and manipulation of populations via economic promise and fear. From Foucauldian biopolitics, the Brexit state “makes live and lets die” based on national inclusion/exclusion (Quinan & Thiele, p. 3).	Nationalism, migration, sovereignty
📘 The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson, UK release: 2021)	🌌 Cosmopolitics	Though an American author, this UK-distributed novel envisions a global rethinking of politics across species and planetary systems. Resonates with Stengers’ call for posthumanist and cosmopolitical assemblages—multiple agencies shaping futures (Quinan & Thiele, p. 5).	Climate crisis, planetary justice, speculative futures

Criticism Against “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele

⚖️ 1. Over-Expansion of Theoretical Scope

The essay attempts to weave together biopolitics, necropolitics, and cosmopolitics alongside feminist, queer, decolonial, and posthumanist critiques.

Critique: This ambitious synthesis may result in conceptual dilution, where none of the frameworks is fully developed or deeply interrogated in its contradictions.

🔁 2. Lack of Concrete Political Praxis

While the text calls for “different engagements” and “less indifferent” approaches, it remains primarily theoretical.
Critique: Critics might argue the article lacks specific action-oriented strategies, leaving it open to accusations of academic abstraction in the face of urgent political violence.

💬 3. Ambiguity in the Concept of Cosmopolitics

Isabelle Stengers’ cosmopolitics is framed as a mode of indeterminacy and openness to the unknown.
Critique: Some may see this as intellectually evasive, offering “no ‘good’ definition” (Stengers, 2005) and thus hard to operationalize in literary, activist, or policy contexts.

🔍 4. Limited Engagement with Global South Contexts

The piece is centered on European border crises and Western theoretical traditions (Foucault, Mbembe, Stengers).

Critique: Despite referencing decolonial thinkers like Wynter and Weheliye, it could be seen as Eurocentric in emphasis, with less engagement with non-Western ontologies or Southern feminist voices.

🧩 5. Inaccessibility of Language

The text frequently employs dense theoretical language and intertextual references across disciplines.
Critique: It risks being inaccessible to non-specialist readers, including activists, students, or marginalized communities it aims to empower.

🏳️‍🌈 6. Tension Between Queer Inclusion and Queer Erasure

The article praises queer inclusion in resistance, but also acknowledges co-option into neoliberal state projects (e.g., homonationalism).
Critique: Some may argue the text doesn’t fully resolve this tension, leaving unclear where queer theory should position itself in relation to biopower and necropolitics.

⏳ 7. Limited Temporal Depth

The piece emphasizes current crises (migration, neoliberalism) but is short on historical genealogies of these power formations.

Critique: Critics might note a lack of historical depth, especially regarding colonial legacies, early feminist movements, or the longue durée of racial capitalism.

Representative Quotations from “Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Cosmopolitics – Feminist And Queer Interventions: An Introduction” by Christine Quinan And Kathrin Thiele with Explanation

🔢 #	🗣️ Quotation	💡 Explanation
1️⃣	“This deadly dynamic also changes the world and who we are in it.”	Refers to the normalization of necropolitical violence in border regimes, and how it shapes both subjectivity and political reality.
2️⃣	“Biopolitics and necropolitics are not opposites. Rather, they are ‘two sides of the same coin.’”	Citing Braidotti, the authors show how life and death governance work together under contemporary regimes of power.
3️⃣	“Cosmopolitics ‘happens in the mode of indeterminacy’.”	Refers to Stengers’ notion of cosmopolitics as a space of uncertainty and multiplicity — an alternative to universalist political projects.
4️⃣	“Who gets to live and who must die – or who must live and who is let die.”	From Mbembe’s necropolitics, this quotation reveals the asymmetrical control over life and death that defines modern governance.
5️⃣	“Haunting…is distinctive for producing a something-to-be-done.”	Borrowing from Avery Gordon, the authors argue that political violence continues to haunt societies, demanding ethical and political action.
6️⃣	“Refugees are attempting to survive in Europe, a purgatory-like space situated somewhere between living and dying.”	Describes the refugee condition as a liminal state, invoking necropolitical governance that renders lives ‘ungrievable’ or suspended.
7️⃣	“Affect…is intimately tied up in the film experience.”	Emphasizes the political role of cinema and affect theory, showing how emotions are tools for activating political consciousness.
8️⃣	“Equality does not mean that they all have the same say…but that they all have to be present in the mode that makes the decision as difficult as possible.”	Stengers’ radical cosmopolitical ethic: everyone must be accounted for, even if they do not hold power. Politics becomes an uncomfortable reckoning.
9️⃣	“Neoliberalism both appropriates and positively values social difference as celebration of life and diversity…”	Quoting Winnubst, the authors highlight how diversity discourse in neoliberalism masks deeper systemic anti-Black violence.
🔟	“We offer cosmopolitics…to envision a move towards otherwise feminist and queer futures…”	The ultimate aim of the article — to reimagine political and ethical futures beyond biopolitical and necropolitical domination.

Day: July 25, 2025