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The Australian Tradition

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE, by H. M. Green; Melbourne University Press; 2/6,

(Reviewed by

A. R. D.

Fairburn

HIS book was written by Mr. Green at the request of the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria, who, "desiring to mark the first half century of the Commonwealth of Australia, felt that the best contribution they could make® to this historic occasion was to publish a Guide to Australian Literature since 1900." It contains a_ useful 16-page bibliography of ballad verse, and poetry, short stories, novels, drama, essays in many fields, magazines and " mewspapers, and works of general reference. It is preceded by a 38-page essay giving. a condensed account of the. rise of Australian literature. "Almost all that is distinctive and by far the most that really matters in Australian literature," Mr. Green begins by saying, "belong to the half-century that is. now ending; broadly speaking, that is, for it was with the later nineties that the period actually began. Before that there had been a few forerunners, but they had been isolated, in a society in which "a national literature would have, been ‘impossible because national characteristics, a "a unity, and a national

consciousness had not as yet been attained." Here we have Mr. Green’s major assumption, which is not seriously modified in what follows. He speaks throughout as if "national characteristics, national unity, and a national consciousness" had been attained. An outsider may grant the national -characteristics; but may he be forgiven for remarking on the curious texture of the Australian literary tradition, and for questioning whether it has in fact reached the degree of maturity Mr. Green seems to imply? I have for some time had a strong

impression (which Mr. Green’s essay aas done nothing to dispel) that. the dominant motive in Australian . literature, from almost the very beginning, has been a feverish pursuit of the ‘National unity and national consciousness" of which he speaks with such assurance; and that a ‘too great willingness to exhaust body and spirit in the chase has led to distor-

tions and compromises that. are possibly less apparent to Australians than to out siders. As in the ‘early development of American literature, the attempts to attain consciousness have been of two kinds-those based on the importation of an intellectyal fashion from Europe, and those attempting to exploit strictly local forms of life. Action and reaction have in this case been violent. The latest manifestation of this literary schizophrenia is seen in the emergence of the "Jindyworobaks" and the "Angry Penguins": on the one hand a despairing attempt ‘to get right back to aboriginal beginnings, and on the other a misguided effort to be more Parisian

than Paris. The Jindyworobak impulse is perhaps the most genuine and understandable that has arisen for many decades; but it, no less than the other, is evidence of that unease of the spirit, and the extreme self consciousness arising from _ it, which are so strongly characteristic of the Australian tradition. One finds a parallel at an earlier time, when imported

fauns and dryads inhabited the same earth as the sunburnt stockmen. If C. J. Brennan is’ Australia’s most significant poet, it is perhaps because he managed to cOntain the explosive mixture within his mind? The rise of Australian literature at the turn of. the century was, Mr. Green says, "stimulated by the renascence, as distinguished from the decadence, of the English ‘Nineties, and organised and guided by the Sydney Bulletin." In what follows, Mr. Green shows that he is not completely unaware of the limitations of the Bulletin, but I think he gives it credit for too much. On the whole it has exercised a distorting influence. In earlier days especially it did its best to nip in the bud any impulses towards self-criticism that may have been latent in the Australian mind: The best writers of this century have succeeded in spite of it, not because of it. The self-consciousness to »which [I have referred has, I think, two main causes. One is a sense of inferiority. C. J. Dennis, says Mr. Green, "based on the recently-discovered larrikin a sentimental and extremely amusing extravaganza that was enormously popular in its day." The glorification of local characteristics because they are local, and not because they are admirable, is found in even more aggressive form in certain other writers. (New Zealand has, perhaps, been passing. through a similar, though less intense, crisis in recent years.) The other cause of mental unease is the urban-rural split, which

always tends to produce a parody of | civilisation. Most of Australia’s popula- | tion is huddled in over-grown cities | around the coast. One can sympathise | with the feelings of the Jindyworobaks | on seeing Sydney become American- | cosmopolitan, and the outback farming | communities more and more like re-| mote social deserts ‘in the Middle West, | while hopes of attaining "national con- | sciousness" in any natural and genuine} sense grow dimmer. I am not suggesting that the whole | of Australian literature has been! blighted by this dialectic of self-con- | sciousness. For one thing, it has in itself produced some interesting, and occa- | sionally significant-although, I suspect, | not particularly viable-works. And for | another, there have always been writers who have remained more or less de-| tached from it. Two of them are among | the writers Mr. Green picks out as. being the most important--Henry Handel Richardson and Judith Wright. The, stature of these is unquestioned. And | this leads me to ask a question I do not intend to answer here and now, but upon which I would invite calm reflection. It is this: Is there any significance | in the fact that women occupy such a prominent place in the Australian literary tradition?

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19520118.2.25.1

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 12

Word count
Tapeke kupu
950

The Australian Tradition New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 12

The Australian Tradition New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 12

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