The wicked and the fair: changing perceptions of Terra Australis through the prism of the Batavia shipwreck (1629)

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Abstract

In 1971, the Australian novelist Randolph Stow published a provocative article on the history and myth of the Batavia shipwreck of 1629.1 Entitled ‘The South Land of Antichrist’, in this short piece Stow argued that the mythological history of European Australia contained an irreconcilable ‘element of self contradiction’, in which Australia appeared either as a prison, or as a paradise. The tension between these two visions, Stow argued, has pervaded nearly all attempts to engage with Australia’s historical meta-narrative. Stow himself turned to the tales of early European exploration to illustrate this point. He contrasted the transcendent utopian vision of a terra australis del spirito santo attached to the Southland by the Spaniard Fernández de Quirós, with the dystopia of Jeronimus Cornelisz’s kingdom on the Abrolhos in the wake of the Batavia wreck, an incident emblematic of a ‘southland of Antichrist.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEuropean Perceptions of Terra Australis
EditorsAnne M. Scott, Alfred Hiatt, Christopher Wortham
Place of PublicationFarnham UK
PublisherAshgate Publishing Limited
Pages247-272
Number of pages26
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9781317139454
ISBN (Print)9781409426059
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes

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