When Robert Frost began a famous poem with the words, “Th e land was ours before we were the land’s,” he touched on a problem common to settler colonial societies from New Brunswick to New South Wales, from New Mexico to New Zealand.1 Th e pioneers who came to settle these “new” worlds were unable— so their descendants would allege— to establish an imaginative foothold in the land their labors had so comprehensively transformed. True belonging, and a deeper discovery of place, had been impeded by their practicalmindedness and attachment to old world ways.2 As Frost puts it:

中文翻译：

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超越占有：威拉凯瑟殖民小说中的动物和礼物

当罗伯特·弗罗斯特 (Robert Frost) 以一首著名的诗开头时，“在我们成为土地之前，土地是我们的，”他提到了从新不伦瑞克到新南威尔士，从新墨西哥到新西兰的殖民社会普遍存在的问题。 1来到这些“新”世界定居的先驱者无法——他们的后代会声称——在他们的劳动已经如此全面改变的土地上建立一个富有想象力的立足点。真正的归属感和对地方更深层次的发现受到了他们的实用主义和对旧世界方式的依恋的阻碍。 2 正如弗罗斯特所说：