The Family Face: Martin Boyd’s Art of Memoir
Abstract
In his last essay, 'De Gustibus', Martin Boyd reiterates his belief that what gives greatness to a poem or a novel is 'its wisdom, its humanity and moral depth'. It is the suggestion of this essay that there has been in his work, a continual search for a form of fiction appropriate to the fullest expression of his moral and spiritual vision; 'It is myself that I remake' wrote W.B. Yeats, and indeed Martin Boyd's career shows just such a continual reweaving of himself into the 'backcloth', as he calls it, of childhood memory and of 'the souls of the dead from whom we spring'
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Published 1 May 1976 in Volume 7 No. 3. Subjects: Memoirs, Martin Boyd.
Cite as: Gould, Warwick. ‘The Family Face: Martin Boyd’s Art of Memoir.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 1976, doi: 10.20314/als.a57d97a3d1.