The Spirit of the Creative Word in Patrick White's 'Voss'

This chapter originates from an interdisciplinary non-binary critical approach, which applies Riane Eisler’s partnership model to World literary texts. By analysing the works of authors writing in the varieties of English, including those of indigenous populations where the dynamics at work are caring and sharing rather than exploiting and dominating, the coloniser’s word is explored in its creative potential to transform the dominator values of colonisation and globalisation into cooperative and partnership codes. More specifically, as Raimon Panikkar points out, the modern degeneration of the word, stripped of its dialogical power and reduced to a mere term, has a devastating effect, for it becomes a simple transferring of notions, devoid of a deeper meaning (Panikkar 2007). Patrick White's novel 'Voss' is an invaluable exaple of this dialogic dialogue.