AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

Literature written by English-speaking inhabitants of the continent of Australia.

Australian literature has developed certain well-defined qualities: a love of the vast, empty land, with its unique flora and fauna, a compelling sense of the worth of the common people, and freedom from the bondage of European traditions. Although the English language has not been radically transformed in Australia, it has undergone distinctive changes of style with colorful additions to vocabulary, about which Australians were once apologetic but which are now regarded as a dynamic and valuable contribution to the language. Indeed, several studies of Australian transformations of the English language have appeared. Some of these are short vocabulary lists, with a history of the first appearance and subsequent usage of a certain word or phrase; others are studies of the pronunciation or intonation that is peculiarly Australian.

Poetry.

Among the earliest poetry published in Australia was First Fruits of Australian Poetry (1819) by Barron Field (1786–1846), an Englishman serving in the Australian judiciary. Four years later the founder of Australian colonial self-government, William Charles Wentworth, a native-born Australian, published a single poem, “Australasia, an Ode,” which is invariably cited as the first poetic expression of a national spirit.. The first volume of poetry by a native-born Australian was Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel (1826) by Charles Tompson (1806–83), who spent the greater part of his life as a government official. Charles Harpur (1817–68), also a native-born government employee and a farmer as well, was the author of Thoughts: A Series of Sonnets (1845). He continued to publish occasionally during the rest of his life and was the earliest poet of merit. It was not, however, until the time of Henry Clarence Kendall (1841–82), an Australian by birth, and Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–70), an English immigrant, that Australian poetry really became significant. Gordon’s sporting poems and narratives, which had great popularity, are at their best in Sea Spray and Smoke Drift (1867) and Ashtaroth (1867). Kendall, often called the national poet, developed a personal idiom equipped to deal with Australian subjects in Leaves from an Australian Forest (1869) and Songs from the Mountains (1880); he was especially successful in describing the scenery of the wooded valleys along the Pacific coast.

These pioneers prepared the ground for a number of poets whose work shows greater distinction. Bernard (Patrick) O’Dowd (1866–1953), a lawyer by profession, was a didactic poet of wide learning who published verses in pamphlet form after 1903. Little emotion is displayed in his work; he is rather a rhetorician of ideas, notably of the belief that Australia has the opportunity to build a nation free from such evils of European culture as economic, political, and social inequities. The classical scholar Christopher (John) Brennan (1870–1932) was the most learned poet Australia produced at this time. His work, largely in the symbolist tradition, is characterized by depth of feeling and force of imagery. Not popularly known, Brennan’s poetry is esteemed by a small group of discriminating readers. (John) Shaw Neilson (1872–1942), who is considered by some critics to be the best poet of his era, reflects the experience of ordinary people in the simple lyricism of his verse.

C. J. Dennis (1876–1938) was a popular versifier who expressed in dialect the feelings and experiences of the “dinkum Aussie bloke,” or true Australian guy, notably in The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915). The journalist and lawyer Andrew Barton Paterson (1864–1941) gave the greatest literary development to the bush ballad, a kind of popular poem about life in the outback, the scrub country of the interior. His ballad “Waltzing Matilda” (1917), which was sung by Australian troops in both world wars, gained great popularity among all English-speaking people. The Man from Snowy River contains Paterson’s best ballads.

A number of 20th-century Australian poets have written works of the highest distinction. Notable among them were Kenneth Slessor (1901–71) and Robert FitzGerald (1902–87). The work of Slessor, written between 1919 and 1939, ranges from examples of pallid aestheticism to amusing realistic sketches of historical characters done in a variety of forms. FitzGerald’s long, semiphilosophical discourses in verse blend themes of Australian experience with those of more universal interest. Other distinguished poets include A. D. Hope (1907– ); Douglas Stewart (1913–85), the author of verse drama; Judith Wright (1915– ), who established an international reputation; and Les Murray (1938– ), a versatile, inventive writer. A sampling of Australian poetry, beginning with the work of Harpur, is in A Book of Australian Verse (1956; 2d ed. 1968), edited by Wright. More recently, Murray edited The Oxford Book of Australian Verse (1986).

Early Fiction.

An early Australian fictional work is Tales of the Colonies (1843) by Charles Rowcroft (1781?–1850); but the most frequently reprinted is Geoffrey Hamlyn (1859) by Henry Kingsley (1830–76), brother of the English novelist Charles Kingsley. Kingsley originated the novel of Australian pastoral life. His main characters are, however, Englishmen who come to Australia for colonial experience and then return to England, as he did. Two fairly prolific early novelists were Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke (1846–81) and Thomas Alexander Browne (1826–1915), the latter of whom wrote under the name of Rolf Boldrewood. Clarke is most famous for his classic story of the convict era, For the Term of His Natural Life (1874), which exploits the horrors of convict life in the heightened realistic manner of Charles Dickens. Browne’s reputation rests on Robbery Under Arms (1888), a classic story of bushranging. It may be described as an Australian Western, a narrative full of vivid adventures.

Two important early works on Australian themes, both on the borderline between fiction and reportage, came to notice in the 1950s. These are Ralph Rashleigh (1952), probably written in the early 1840s by James Tucker (1808–66?), but belatedly discovered, and Settlers and Convicts (1852), written under the pen name “An Emigrant Mechanic” by Alexander Harris (1805–74).

Henry Lawson (1867–1922) was a prolific writer of sketches that ranged from sentimental vignettes to strongly realistic studies. Poorly educated, he identified with working people and wrote about them and their attitudes toward Australia. His best writing appeared during the 1880s in the weekly newspaper The Bulletin. Perhaps his most widely read work is While the Billy Boils (1896; reprinted in Traveller’s Library, 1927). Miles Franklin (full name Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin; 1879–1954) is best known for her feminist novel My Brilliant Career (1901); an unsparing portrait of outback life and a woman writer’s beginnings, it was later made into a highly successful film. Franklin also wrote a sequel, The End of My Career, which was not published until 1946. The basic attitudes of 19th century Australians are superbly expressed in Such Is Life (1903) by Joseph Furphy (1843–1912), who used the pen name Tom Collins. Furphy’s life was spent as a farmer and driver of bullock teams before the days of the railroad. His book, written in diary form, is a compound of episodic adventures, philosophic and literary opinions, and homely observations about people and conditions in Australia. Katharine Susannah Prichard (1884–1969) interpreted Australian life in terms of class struggle. Her work began to appear before World War I in such novels as The Pioneers (1915). Her best fiction is contained in Working Bullocks (1926), a story of lumbering in western Australia, and Coonardoo (1930), a study of intermarriage.

Later Fiction.

One of the finest craftsmen of Australian fiction was Frank Dalby Davison (1893–1970), known mainly for his animal stories. The most distinctive, Man-Shy, was published in the U.S. as Red Heifer (1934). It is a subtly conceived story of a maverick on a Queensland cattle station. Davison is as discerning in his character studies, as in his novel of pre-World War II suburban life in Sydney, The White Thorn Tree (1968). Xavier Herbert (1901–84) showed his passionate concern for the plight of the aborigines in such novels as Capricornia (1938). Eleanor Dark (1901–85) wrote excellent historical novels, especially The Timeless Land (1941), which is about the founding of Australia; she also wrote novels of contemporary life. Both types of her fiction are distinguished by psychological perception and brilliant descriptions of the landscape.

The Australian writer of the middle generation who was best known abroad was Henry Handel Richardson, the pen name of Ethel Florence Robertson, née Richardson. Her earliest novel of note was Maurice Guest (1908), an autobiographical story of an Australian studying music in Germany, but her trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1917, 1925, 1929), is by far her most widely appreciated work. The trilogy, based on the life of the author’s father, begins with the gold rushes of the 1850s and then penetratingly describes various aspects of Australian life in later decades. The main character is an unstable Irish-born physician who intensely dislikes Australian life; he is considered one of the major creations of Australian literature. With profound insight, Richardson developed Australian themes in the European tradition of psychological realism. Another novelist who gained a reputation abroad was Kylie Tennant (1912–88), whose first novel, Tiburon (1935), was recognized as a distinguished achievement. Among her other major works are The Joyful Condemned (1953), a novel about working women in the Sydney slums, and The Battlers (1954), a novel of caravan life in southwestern Australia. Tennant’s nonfiction includes Australia: Her Story; Notes on a Nation (1953).

In 1973 Patrick White became the first Australian to win a Nobel Prize in literature. His novels include Happy Valley (1939), Tree of Man (1954), Voss (1957), and The Eye of the Storm (1973). White wrote with imaginative boldness in a highly individual style; his fiction is often set in the Australian bush country. Among other moderns, Jon Cleary (1917– ), author of The Sundowners (1952), scored notable commercial success. John O’Grady (1907–81), under the pen name Nino Culotta, wrote They’re a Weird Mob (1957), a popular comic novel. Morris West (1916– 99) also won worldwide fame with such popular novels as The Devil’s Advocate (1959) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963).

Christina Stead (1902–83) lived abroad (principally in Great Britain) for most of her life. She was relatively unknown in Australia until 1965, when a revised edition of her novel, The Man Who Loved Children (1940), was published there. One of the few novels she wrote with an Australian setting was Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934). Randolph Stow (1935– ) has written distinguished poetry as well as novels. His works include A Counterfeit Silence: Selected Poems (1969) and the novels The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965) and Visitants (1979). Thomas Michael Keneally (1935– ) has received acclaim for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) and other works; his Schindler’s Ark (1982; U.S. title, Schindler’s List) won the prestigious Booker Prize in England and was made into a highly acclaimed film—the 1993 Academy Award-winning motion picture. Peter Carey is known for his short stories, collected in The Fat Man in History (1974), and for such novels as Bliss (1981), Illywhacker (1985; shortlisted for the Booker Prize that same year), and The Tax Inspector (1991). Carey is only the second author—the South African writer J. M. Coetzee is the other—to have been honored with the Booker Prize twice, winning for his novels Oscar and Lucinda, in 1988, and True History of the Kelly Gang, in 2001. (Oscar and Lucinda was later made into a motion picture, in 1997). The Thorn Birds (1977), a family saga by Colleen McCullough (1937– ), became an international best-seller and a television drama. David Malouf (1934– ) is known for his poetry and his novels. His fiction includes An Imaginary Life (1978), cited by the National Book Council as one of Australia’s Ten Best Books of the Decade, and The Great World (1991), a psychologically probing saga of two war veterans. Barbara Hanrahan (1939– ), a well-known artist, is the author of The Frangipani Gardens (1980) and other novels. Elizabeth Jolley (1923– ) is an Englishwoman who moved to Australia in 1959. Miss Peabody’s Inheritance (1984) is her best known work.

Other Genres.

Although the theater has flourished in Australia since the earliest days and Australian actors have made brilliant stage careers at home, in New York City, and in London, dramatists comparable in outlook and skill to the poets and fiction writers have been scarce. Louis Esson (1882–1943) is usually cited as the Australian writer who most consistently devoted himself to drama, but many others before and since have also helped to build a theatrical tradition. In 1954 Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, by Ray Lawler (1921– ), a drama of workers on a sugarcane plantation, with authentic vernacular dialogue, scored a resounding success and was produced in New York City on Broadway (1956) and off-Broadway (1968), and as a film, Season of Passion (1961). Since World War II, important plays by native authors have been produced successfully on the Australian stage; the growing interest in drama paralleled the significant resurgence of Australian filmmaking that began in the late 1970s. Among the important playwrights who came to maturity during this period are Jack Hibberd (1940– ), author of Dimboola (1969) and other plays; David Williamson (1942– ), whose first full-length production was Stork (1970); and Alexander Buzo (1944– ), whose play Rooted was performed in the U.S., in 1972.

The writer A. G. Stephens (1865–1933) had a reputation as a literary critic, and the Scottish-born educator and anthologist Walter Murdoch (1874–1970) was known as an essayist.

Contemporary literary quarterlies include Overland of Melbourne and Southerly of Sydney. A weekly journal of opinion, The Bulletin, has been an important force in Australian literature for more than a century. Australian literature is now a recognized academic subject in educational institutions. The scholarly journal Australian Literary Studies is an adjunct to such courses. In addition, many popular periodicals carry reviews and articles on contemporary publications and literary developments. C.H.G., C. HARTLEY GRATTAN, D.Litt.