The Woman at the Washtub
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| "The Woman at the Washtub " | |
|---|---|
| by Victor Daley | |
| First published in | The Bulletin |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 29 November 1902 |
| Lines | 56 |
| Full text | |
"The Woman at the Washtub" (1902) is a poem by Australian poet Victor Daley.[1]
It was originally published in The Bulletin on 29 November 1902,[2] and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.[1]
In a lecture titled "Literature in the Eighteen Nineties in Australia", delivered in 1956, critic G. A. Wilkes noted that "literature inspired by national sentiment or by the zeal of the reformer is artistically the most insecure of all, and in Australian literature in the nineties, this insecurity is always present." He chose this poem as an example of that sentiment, continuing: "This is a piece of social commentary which Daley does not intend to be comic, but the poem can hardly be read with a straight face."[3]