The Specificity of Postcolonial Text of Settler Societies in Australia and New Zealand: A Comparative Aspect

A brief comparative review of English-language literatures of Australia and New Zealand is given in the article. The aim of the article is to highlight the similarities and differences at the stages of the literary process development from the point of view of post-colonial studies. The historical genesis specificity of the region and the uniqueness of national identity formation at the juncture of colonial and colonized cultures stipulate the definition of Australia and New Zealand as settler societies. Tasks needed to be resolved are to disclose the notion "settler societies", to determine common characteristics of the studied national literatures as postcolonial ones, to give their comparative outline, to make a textual analysis of a number of literary works which are indicative for each stage of the literary process development. In the course of the study, the authors refer to a comparative historical method of scientific enquiry to highlight similarities in the literary process development and the degree of influence of metropolitan literature on it. They also use a sociological method to estimate the impact of the settler societies development on the literary process and a hermeneutic interpretative method in textual analysis to interpret the transformation of a typical hero at various stages of the literary process in Australia and New Zealand. The article is divided into theoretical and practical parts. In the theoretical part, the authors define "settler societies", overview the place of "settler" countries in the postcolonial space, and note factors allowing to review the national literatures comparatively as postcolonial ones. In the practical part, the authors characterize three stages of the literary process development observed in the national literatures of Australia and New Zealand, conduct an interpretative analysis of the works in which the prolific features of a typical hero are shown. On conducting the research the authors come to the following conclusions. The national literatures of Australia and New Zealand are under the influence of the metropolitan culture and literaturel, but the relation started to loosen at a contemporary stage of the literary process development due to the formation of the national identities of Australians and New Zealanders. The impact of colonized indigenous peoples' cultures on the literary process defines the difference between the national literatures. For the countries, the national identity formation is characteristic in the cultural sphere, which makes the further study of identification processes presentation in literary text promising.

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