A History of Australian Literature by Leonie Kramer
Published 1981 · 90,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is A History of Australian Literature to read?
A History of Australian Literature scores 57 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
- Lucid, formal critical prose; no jargon but requires familiarity with literary and cultural references.
- Sentence structure: 54 out of 100
- Abstraction: 68 out of 100
- Argues for aesthetic and cultural value judgments about the canon; more evaluative than theoretical.
- Information density: 74 out of 100
- Dense with biographical, historical, and critical information about a large number of writers and works.
- Narrative indirection: 13 out of 100
- Primarily direct critical exposition organized chronologically.
- Symbolic density: 14 out of 100
- Landscape and colonial experience recur as symbolic reference points in discussions of individual writers.
- Ironic distance: 14 out of 100
- Kramer applies dry critical irony to Australian literary mythology and nationalist hagiography.
- Resolution withholding: 11 out of 100
- Critical judgments are stated clearly; the evaluative stance is one of the book's defining features.
- Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
- Organized chronologically by period; the architecture is clear and conventional.
How A History of Australian Literature is regarded
A History of Australian Literature holds a literary regard score of 79 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.