THE ARTISTIC POETICS OF MURRAY BAIL'S EUCALYPTUS

Abstract. This article examines the artistic poetics of Murray Bail’s Eucalyptus as a distinctive contribution to contemporary Australian fiction. The study argues that the novel’s poetics emerge through the interaction of taxonomy, spatial precision, fairy-tale structure, and narrative self-consciousness. Rather than representing the Australian landscape as merely hostile, sublime, or burdensome, Bail transforms it into a field of naming, classification, and imaginative contest. The article focuses on three major dimensions of the novel: the poetics of taxonomy, the aesthetic function of landscape, and the tension between patriarchal order and storytelling freedom. It is argued that Eucalyptus constructs a literary world in which scientific classification and imaginative narration do not simply oppose one another; instead, they produce the novel’s central artistic energy. Bail’s prose is also notable for its formal restraint, visual clarity, and ironic reworking of inherited narrative patterns. Through these features, Eucalyptus reshapes the Australian novel by combining botanical discourse, romance, metafiction, and cultural reflection into a highly original poetic form.

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