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A Dictatorship of Taste A Dictatorship of Taste Cultural Nationalism and the Function of the Critic 1947-1961 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of The Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury By Anne-Maree Mills University of Canterbury 2009 In terms of some green myth, sailing or drowning, Each day makes clear a statement to the next; But to make out our tomorrow from its motives Is pure guessing, yesterday’s were so mixed. Sailing or drowning, the living and the dead, Less than the gist of what has just been said. (‘Sailing or Drowning’, Allen Curnow, 1940). Criticism is much criticised. But this logically establishes its title to exist. Criticism never decides anything. It is an argument. The argument goes on. (W. W. Robson, 1982:56) For New Zealand, then, these islands in the south-west Pacific, the growth of national feeling has meant a double exploration of the independence, in the region of politics – in the widest sense – and in the region of the mind. In either case, within the broad stream of the British tradition, the history of the country has been the history of its discovery – a discovery continuing still – of a tradition of its own. (‘The Development of New Zealand Nationality’, J. C. Beaglehole, 1954:122) i Contents Acknowledgements ii. Abstract iii. Introduction 1 Chapter One: An Absurd Ambition 12 1. Bread and butter criticism: ‘Bookmen’ and culture critics 2. Cultural Antennae: Phoenix and Tomorrow 3. The Centennial 4. Cultural authority and the professionalization of Librarianship 5. Heenan 6. The Antipodean Scholars i. J. C. Beaglehole ii. E. H. McCormick iii. M. H. Holcroft Chapter Two: Trying to think for ourselves 54 1. Bungalow Bourgeoisie 2. Fretful Critics Chapter Three: A shelter for the homeless imagination 72 1. ‘Toplofty’ by inclination 2. Visiting his Cultural Diocese 3. Lively Contempt 4. Making Landfall 5. State patronage: intellectual endowment or a dictatorship of taste? 6. Interior decoration for the mind: the changing definition of culture 7. Leading or stimulating opinion: Brasch and cultural authority 8. Conclusion Postscript 118 Works Cited 127 ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my supervisors; firstly Professor Mark Williams for his assistance and enthusiasm with getting this project underway, and Professor Patrick Evans whose good humour, fortitude and expertise saw this thesis through to completion. I would like to acknowledge the support my parents have expressed for all my academic endeavours and thank them for subscribing to the Listener during my childhood and therefore, fostering my ongoing interest in journals. I am grateful to Alison Grimshaw for her assistance with childcare in the early days of this project, especially with the ‘kindy run’ and for her more general support throughout. Lastly, I owe a large debt of gratitude to Grim for all the practical support and intellectual companionship and for understanding that the brain does not have an ‘off’ switch. To Harriet and Phoebe, two of the best conversationalists I know, thanks for hanging in there; this work is dedicated to you both. iii Abstract Although much has been written on the 1930s as a period of ferment and innovation in New Zealand’s literary culture, the immediate post-war period has remained largely unexamined. As an outcome, literary histories have tended to downplay the significance of the Centennial publications and overlooked the impact made by the literary-cultural periodical to the post-war literary economy. The formulation of a conversation within the pages of the journals and the associated creation of the culture-critic were central to the cultural nationalism of the period 1947-61. It is argued in this thesis that the ‘long fifties’, the years from the cessation of the Second World War through to the early sixties, were a discrete moment in New Zealand’s literary history. To understand the success of the journals as a form of intervention their founding needs to be traced not only to Phoenix and Tomorrow – journals of the thirties – but also to the programme of publishing that was part of the 1940 Centennial celebrations. Under the leadership of J. C. Beaglehole and E. H. McCormick, the Centennial publications contested the existing structures of cultural authority that lay with the amateur historian and the literary criticism of the ‘bookmen’. Beaglehole and McCormick professionalised the discourse of history writing and literary criticism through the introduction of academic practice, and, significantly, a rigorously critical engagement with the formation of national identity. Their critical engagement acted as an encouragement to the founding of the literary-cultural journal during the late 1940s: Landfall begun publishing in 1947 and Here & Now followed in 1949. This thesis argues, however, that alongside these two independent journals there needs to be placed the Listener under the editorship of M. H. Holcroft, and that these three publications created sites where the imaginative could sit next to the critical, and that this development was based on the belief that the absence of a critical undertaking would stunt the growth of the culture’s imaginative and creative undertaking. During the period 1947-61 the development of a specific form of intervention in the writing of the culture-critic can be detected. The culture- critics sought to actively engage the reading public in a conversation; therefore, they wrote for the periodicals in a style that was accessible but discriminating; they understood that they had a specific function within society. Furthermore, the primacy attached to the cultural authority of Brasch and Landfall is contested, and it is instead iv claimed that an exclusive focus on Landfall distorts the overall temper of the post-war years. Landfall was but one site where the developing national consciousness was published and assessed; it was a disputatious time. 1 Introduction The ‘long fifties’,1 that period stretching from post-World War Two through to the early sixties, has remained one of the least examined periods in New Zealand literary history, and yet it was a potent cultural moment.2 The period 1947-1961 marks the time in which a permanent and substantial critical and imaginative contribution was made to New Zealand literature by the advent of the literary-cultural journal. This thesis argues that during that period the three journals Landfall, Here & Now and the Listener undertook to construct a critical conversation3 through the creation of the culture-critic. These culture-critics, it is argued, negotiated the gap between journalism and literature, creating audiences and insisting that critical reflexivity was crucial to the creation of excellence in literary endeavour. In a small nation such as New Zealand there is often a high degree of cross-over in cultural production: as Keeble states, ‘within the intellectual economy of modern societies, authors, editors, publishers, campaigners and academics are found regularly changing roles’ (2007:2). The contents of the three journals illustrate an intellectual community that was comparatively modest in size; the main protagonists knew each other intimately, and therefore, found themselves occupying several roles, sometimes simultaneously. These periodicals of the post-war era not only illustrate the conflation of both patron- editor and poet-professor but, significantly, the contest that surrounds cultural authority. 1 Stefan Collini in his history of the intellectual in Britain Absent Minds uses this phrase to describe the timeframe from 1946 to 1961 the period immediately post-war through until the advent of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ (2006:138). I have adopted this phrase as New Zealand has a similarly discrete cultural moment that I date from the advent of Landfall in 1947 through to the publication of Brasch’s Landfall Country: Work from Landfall 1947-1961 (1962), described by the publisher as a ‘book [that] forms a unique self-portrait of New Zealand since the war’. 2 Murray suggests that ‘it was really the processes of the 1940s, particularly the increased national cultural activity following the 1940 Centennial that formed what the 1930s would stand for’ (1998:18); the same I argue is true for the ‘long fifties’. 3 Denis Walker writes of the requirement for literary criticism to express an internal conversation, revealing continuities and exploring new directions (‘The Ethics of Place: Criticism, the Canon and the Literary Conversation of New Zealand’, Landfall 181, 1992. 65-73). I use the concept of conversation to argue that a significant development occurred as a result of the advent of literary-cultural periodicals that sought to construct a critical discourse during the post-war period to contextualise the Curnovian poetic and signpost future developments. This idea of a conversation is different to that of the mode of literary critique that James Smithies argues distinguishes the period 1940-1983. Furthermore, Patrick Evans in The Long Forgetting argues that the problem with recent criticism is that it reads as if the parameters for the conversation have already been settled, and that consequently a complete lack of contest exists (2007:11). 2 Cultural authority is one of the key concerns occupying the intelligentsia in New Zealand throughout the mid-twentieth century and is central to the cultural nationalism and the critical conversation that informs literary production throughout this period; cultural authority as formulated by the Centennial publications is the concept that links the actions of the writers of the thirties to the interventions of the culture-critics during the ‘long fifties’. Collini argues that for cultural authority to be successfully deployed by an individual there must be some pre-existing disposition toward it in the culture (2006:57). In this thesis I argue that the Centennial created this predisposition; the state, through sanctioning the writing of the nation’s history by university-educated professionals, assigned value not only to the figure of the professional historian but also endorsed the legitimacy of academic criteria.
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