23/11/2008 - FOREWORD

An entirely successful literary/critical biography can never be written, if the numerous theoretical points-of-view on the subject are to be believed. This site will try to explain the joys and difficulties of an attempt to recover a life - that of Melinda Kendall, mother of Henry Kendall, celebrated nineteenth century Australian poet, and a published writer in her own right - using her body of work as a way of informing a biographical representation, as well as utilising archival and biographical information to inform an analysis of her work. Though this process may seem to bring two methods / theories of literary criticism - New Historicism and Cultural Materialism - into conflict, the resultant two-way flow between non-literary, archival material and Melinda Kendall's creative output could prove valuable in an attempt to represent a life made almost invisible by the glow of Henry Kendall's celebrity. Many factors have contributed to Melinda Kendall's exclusion from Australian literary history, including her geographic isolation in the Illawarra, her position as a woman in nineteenth-century patriarchal society, and her relegation to the margins of her more-famous son's story. This site will be dedicated to describing an attempt at inclusion.