Works
One of his most famous poems is "Waltzing Matilda", which was set to music and became one of Australia's most famous songs. Others include "The Man from Snowy River", which inspired a movie in 1982 and inspired a TV series in the 1990s, and "Clancy of the Overflow", the tale of a Queensland drover.
In 1905 he published a collection of bush ballads entitled Old Bush Songs.
Paterson's poems mostly presented a highly romantic view of rural Australia. Paterson himself, like the majority of Australians, was city-based and was a practising lawyer. His work is often compared to the prose of Henry Lawson, a contemporary of Paterson's, including his work "The Drover's Wife", which presented a considerably less romantic view of the harshness of rural existence of the late 19th century.
Paterson authored two novels; An Outback Marriage (1906) and The Shearer's Colt (1936), wrote many short stories; Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917), and wrote a book based on his experiences as a war reporter; Happy Dispatches (1934). He also wrote a book for children The Animals Noah Forgot (1933)
Contemporary recordings of many of Paterson's well known poems have been released by Jack Thompson (actor), who played Clancy in The Man from Snowy River (1982 film).
Media reports in August 2008 stated that a previously unknown poem had been found in a war diary written during the Boer War.
Read more about this topic: Banjo Paterson
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don’t like. No other criterion exists for me.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Night and Day ‘ve been tampered with,
Every quality and pith
Surcharged and sultry with a power
That works its will on age and hour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)