Australian History

Imagining the Pacific in the Wake of the Cook Voyages by Bernard Smith

Item: Imagining the Pacific in the Wake of the Cook Voyages
Author: Jonathan Holmes

by Jonathan Holmes •

December 1992, no. 147

Melbourne University Press, $59.95 hb

Australian History

Imagining the Pacific in the Wake of the Cook Voyages by Bernard Smith

by Jonathan Holmes •

December 1992, no. 147

At the conclusion of the fascinating essay ‘Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and Cook’s Second Voyage’ in his recently published book Imagining the Pacific: In the wake of the Cook voyages, Bernard Smith writes:

The most carefully planned and the most scientifically and efficiently conducted expedition ever made up to its time in the realm of reality provided the poet with a world of wonder and a nucleus of recollections from whence emerged in its own good time the most romantic voyage ever undertaken in the realm of the imagination.

Jonathan Holmes

Jonathan Holmes taught art history and theory at the University of Tasmania's School of Art for thirty-five years until his retirement in 2012. His research interests include the history and curating of contemporary Australian art, wilderness and natural environment issues in relation to the visual arts, and nineteenth century French art and criticism.