A Colonial Curiosity: The Maori Poroaki as Victorian Dramatic Monologue

Abstract

One of the enjoyable things about doing Ph.D. research in literature is the fact that it gives the student the opportunity to get to know another period, another place or another writer very well. One sees, perhaps, how little human nature has changed – but one also realizes how greatly human culture, and its literary expression, have altered. This notion was reinforced for me recently when, as part of my Ph.D. research, I was sitting in the National Library in Wellington scanning colonial newspapers dating from the early 1860’s. Unlike their modern counterparts, which mention literature only rarely, and almost never print examples of it, the Taranaki Herald and its colleagues are full of readers’ compositions. Sonnets, odes, addresses and expostulations – they spring forth, if not on every page, then certainly in every issue. This was particularly true in times of war, when feelings ran high and frequently found their expression in literary form. Almost all these compositions are bad, needless to say – colonial New Zealand, alas, was no nursery of the Muses. The relative abundance of these compositions underlines, however, how differently literature was viewed a century and a half ago in this country: as something urgent, relevant and important.