An Ambivalent Ground: Re-placing Australian Literature James Paull A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of New South Wales 2007 PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: PAULL First name: JAMES Other name/s: CAMPBELL Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD School: English, Media and Performing Arts Faculty: Arts Title: An Ambivalent Ground: Re-placing Australian Literature Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) Narratives of place have always been crucial to the construction of Australian identity. The obsession with identity in Australia betrays longstanding uncertainty. It is not difficult to interpret in this uncertainty a replaying of the deeper insecurities surrounding the settler community's legal and more broadly cultural claims to the land. Such insecurities are typically understood negatively. In contrast, this thesis accepts the uncertainty of identity as an activating principle, appropriate to any interpretation of the narratives and themes that inform what it means to be Australian. Fundamental to this uncertainty is a provisionality in the post-colonial experience of place that is papered over by misleadingly coherent spatial narratives that stem from the imperial inheritance of Australian mythology. Place is a model for the tension between the coherence of mythic narratives and the actual rhizomic formlessness of daily life. Place is the ‘ground’ of that life, but an ambivalent ground. An Ambivalent Ground approaches postcolonial Australia as a densely woven text. In this text, stories that describe the founding of a nation are enveloped by other stories, not so well known, that work to transform those more familiar narratives. “Re-placing Australian literature” describes the process of this transformation. It signifies an interpretative practice which seeks to recuperate the open-ended experience of place that remains disguised by the coherent narratives of nationhood. The process of “re-placing” Australian literature shifts the understanding of nation towards a landscape that speaks not so much about identity as about the constitutive performances of everyday life. It also converges with the unhomely dimension that is the colonist's ambiguous sense of belonging. We can understand this process with an analogy used in this thesis, that of music – the colonising language, and noise – the ostensibly inchoate, unformed background disruptive to cultural order yet revealing the spatial realities of place. Traditionally, cultural narratives in Australia have disguised the much more complex way in which place noisily disrupts and diffracts those narratives, and in the process generates the ambivalence of Australian identity. Rather than a text or a narrative, place is a plenitude, a densely intertwined performance space, a performance that constantly renders experience – and its cultural function – transgressive. The purpose of this thesis is not to displace stereotypical narratives of nationhood with yet another narrative. Rather, it offers the more risky proposition that provisionality and uncertainty are constitutive features of Australian social being. The narrative in the thesis represents an aggregation of such an ambivalent ground, addressing the persistent tension between place and the larger drama of colonialist history and discourse. Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. 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FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award: THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 2 INTRODUCTION 4 Making a Place 4 An Ambivalent Ground 8 Key Concepts in An Ambivalent Ground 16 a) Post-colonial Theory and Place 16 b) Ambivalence in the Work of Homi Bhabha 18 c) Modernity 19 d) The Poststructuralist Attention to Place 21 e) Spatial History 24 f) Australia and the Antipodes 25 1) THE PENAL COLONY: PRISON AND ESCAPE 29 Prison-house Beginnings/Prison-house Endings I 29 Prison-house Beginnings/Prison-house Endings II 43 2) THE ANTIPODES: ENCLOSURE AND COMMON 58 An Inversion in Nature 58 Grotesque and Melancholy in Colonial Writing 67 Re-placing the Boundaries of Power: The Contact Zone 74 3) FROM MUSIC TO NOISE 87 A Noisy Protest 87 From Music to Noise 92 Re-placing the Piano 98 4) THE 1890S: NARCISSUS AND ECHO 106 Approaching the 1890s: Arcadia and the Bush 106 A Man's Country 115 White Nation 121 (Mis)Reading the Country: Such is Life 131 a) The Bush Etiquette 132 b) In the Back Country 138 5) RE-PLACING NATION I 150 The Spirit of Place in an Ambivalent Land 153 Modernist Trajectories 168 The Poetic Challenge to History 179 6) RE-PLACING NATION II 190 Black Swans of Trespass 191 A Different Country 196 Roads and No Roads 217 CONCLUSION 230 BIBLIOGRAPHY 242 1 ABSTRACT Narratives of place have always been crucial to the construction of Australian identity. The obsession with identity in Australia betrays longstanding uncertainty. It is not difficult to interpret in this uncertainty a replaying of the deeper insecurities surrounding the settler community's legal and more broadly cultural claims to the land. Such insecurities are typically understood negatively; pronouncements are thrown to the public that affirm a more unified and positive sense of history. Rather than investigate this trend, this thesis accepts the uncertainty of identity as an activating principle, appropriate to any interpretation of the narratives and themes that inform what it means to be Australian. Fundamental to this uncertainty is a provisionality in the post-colonial experience of place that is papered over by misleadingly coherent spatial narratives that stem from the imperial inheritance of Australian mythology. Place is a model for the tension between the coherence of mythic narratives and the actual rhizomic formlessness of daily life. Place is the ‘ground’ of that life, but an ambivalent ground. The narratives of place in Australia, although they may oscillate widely between the utopian and dystopian, nevertheless typify experience in the way history organizes into a linear narrative the actual formlessness of this daily life. An Ambivalent Ground approaches postcolonial Australia as a densely woven text. In this text, stories that describe the founding of a nation are enveloped by other stories, not so well known, that work to transform those more familiar narratives. “Re-placing Australian literature” describes the process of this transformation. It signifies an interpretative practice which seeks to recuperate the open- ended and rhizomic experience of place that remains disguised by the coherent narratives of nationhood. In re-placing Australian literature, the thesis explores the interwoven nature of history, language and space, and demonstrates how this relationship transforms identity politically and poetically. The process of “re-placing” Australian literature shifts the understanding of nation towards a landscape that speaks not so much about identity as about the constitutive performances of everyday life. It also converges with the unhomely dimension that is the colonist's ambiguous sense of belonging. We can understand this re-placing of place with an analogy used in this thesis, that of music – the colonising language, and noise – the ostensibly inchoate, unformed background disruptive to cultural order yet revealing the spatial realities of place. Traditionally, cultural narratives in Australia have disguised the much more complex way in which place noisily disrupts and diffracts those narratives, and in the process generates the ambivalence of Australian identity. Rather than a text or a narrative, place is a plenitude, a densely intertwined performance space, a performance that constantly renders experience – and its cultural function – transgressive. The purpose of this thesis is not to displace stereotypical narratives of nationhood with yet another narrative. Rather, it offers the more risky proposition that provisionality and uncertainty are constitutive features of Australian social being. It tries to affirm cultural difference without reducing the term to the doctrinal assumptions associated with identity-politics. Thus, the landscape should not be understood as either the space of the penal colony or the space mapped by those convicts who escape its confines; rather, like 2 the relation between music and noise, it emerges through the oscillation between the two.