This paper will consider the relationship between Australian Literature and World Literature through the figures of the antipodes and the planet. It will suggest that a planetary configuration – two-thirds water, one-third land – changes the relationship between human constructions and natural entities. This introduces into discourse a kind of apophasis, a variant of negative theology, in which social meaning is always liable to be transposed or inverted. The ocean, in other words, enters into the dynamic of Australian literature and culture within form and language as well as through more overt environmental themes. This paper will consider how this complex aesthetic plays out in the representation of seascapes across a range of Australian painters (e.g. Tom Roberts) and writers, from Ada Cambridge in the late-19th century through to Kenneth Slessor in the modernist period along with Alexis Wright and Les Murray in the contemporary era.