THE RECOGNITION OF NATIONAL LITERATURES: THE CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN EXAMPLES by Alan John Lawson, B.A. (N'cle, NSW), M.A. (ANU) being a thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English, University of Queensland, January 1987. I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original, except where acknowledged in the text, and that the material has not been submitted, either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or at any other university. .................. (Alan John Lawson) 2 ABSTRACT Leonie Kramer has noted that 'literary commentary . is a powerful influence on notions of what constitutes a particular reality'. But literary commentary does not act alone: it also intersects with other discursive acts that together produce a dominant ideology, participating with them in the construction of 'a particular reality'. This thesis demonstrates, for the period since 1940, how arguments about the nature of Canadian and Australian Literatures in English are part of that ideological process. It therefore interrogates the kinds of 'national interests' which the discussions of the national literatures serve. Acknowledging that such debates are conducted as being 'in the interest' of the nation but are in fact in the domain of particular institutions, it enquires into the sources and relations of power within those institutions (and other cultural formations), and the ways in which that power is enhanced by the discussions of the national literatures. While it is true that the question, 'Is there any?' continued to be used as a dismissive topos in some polemics well into the period covered, this thesis argues that in the significant debates about Australian and Canadian Literatures, and in most of the public use of them, the issues that are engaged are rather 'What is it?' and, implicitly at least, 'What may be done with/to it?' That last question discloses that the debate is about authority. The thesis argues that the attempts to define national literatures have been attempts to privilege the position of the definer. It proposes that the visibility of national literatures, the general acknowledgement of their 'presence', depends not on the adventitious .pn iv production of particular literary works -- the epic, a 'masterpiece', the Great Canadian/Australian Novel -- or on the 'mastery' of particular literary material -- the vernacular, indigenous peoples, the natural environment -- but rather on the establishment of the institutions of literary culture. It further argues that, despite the considerable achievements of individuals, this is not a history of individual heroism any more than it is a matter of reaching a quota of quality, quantity, or content. The 'actions' of those notable individuals are subject to, and are often precipitated by, institutional, political, and economic forces such as those examined in Chapters Five and Six. One premise of this thesis is that in Post-Colonial cultures, the 'presence' of history, ideology, and discourse is especially 'marked', and that, for an understanding of the development of literary culture, an examination of the economies of public/ation, of the relation to public policy, is not only necessary but inevitable. The proof of the existence of a national literature is, indeed, the existence of its infrastructure -- the institutions of writing, teaching, scholarship, and publishing. But a crucial cause seems to be the precipitation of a polemic -- a 'timely' debate about the literature. Equally, the maintenance of a cultural nationalism depends not on the 'existence' of a national culture but upon the promotion of a problematic -- a rhetoric of crisis. In this, Canada has been more prominent than Australia. It is worth noting that the 'crisis' in Canadian culture in the nineteen seventies was especially closely tied to the focussing upon the national in 1967 (the Centennial), upon internal threats to its survival (the 'Quebec crisis'), and the external threats to its survival (American economic domination of Canadian industry and consequently of Canadian culture): the debate about Canadian culture was a metaphor and a metonymy for each of these. While it has become axiomatic to observe that Canadian society is pluralist (the mosaic) and Australian society is assimilationist (the monolith), this thesis nevertheless shows that the coherence of Canadian society is in many ways more apparent. This is especially true of the cultural articulations of that society, its concern for principles (rather than Australian pragmatism), its impetus towards defining issues (rather than the Australian dealing with problems), and its concern with self- knowledge. However, in working comparatively with Canadian and Australian literatures this thesis departs from the customary Australian-Canadian strategy of distinguishing between the two literatures with the implied object of judging the two cultures. Its aim, rather, is to pursue an understanding of the development and workings of national literary cultures. It therefore considers not only the particular histories of literary criticism and literary history, and those of the various cultural institutions, but also endeavours to analyse their sociologies as well. The effects, then, of the particular modes of operation of the institutions (and even individuals) in Canadian and Australian literary culture upon the representation and recognition of those 'Literatures' are considered in some detail in the process of examining the range of social and cultural domains that must be analysed if the stories of national literary cultures are to be made intelligible. Publications Relevant to the Subject of this Thesis (by Alan Lawson) (with S.A. KRIMMER), eds. Barbara Baynton. Portable Australian Authors. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1980. (with F.P. LOCK). Australian Literature: A Reference Guide. (1977) 2nd ed. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1980. 'White for White's Sake: Studies of Patrick White's Novels.' Meanjin Quarterly, 32 (1973), 343-49. 'Unmerciful Dingoes? The Critical Reception of Patrick White.' Meanjin Quarterly, 32 (1973), 379-92. 'Desiderata in Australian Literary Bibliography.' In Seven Essays on Australian Subject Bibliography. Ed. D. H. Borchardt. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1977, pp. 32-38. 'Meaning and Experience: A Review-Essay on Some Recurrent Problems in Patrick White Criticism.' Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21, (1979), 280-95. 'Australian Literary Bibliography: Some Proposals. ACLALS Bulletin, Fifth Series, No. 2, (1979), pp. 61-72. 'Acknowledging Colonialism: Revisions of the Australian Tradition.' In Australia and Britain Studies in a Changing Relationship. Ed. A. F. Madden and W. H. Morris-Jones. Sydney: Sydney University Press in association with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London; London: Frank Cass, 1980, pp. 135-44. 'Going Over the Terrain with a Guide.' New Literature Review, No. 12, (1983), pp. 36-45. 'Patterns, Preferences and Preoccupations: The Discovery of Nationality in Australian and Canadian Literatures.' In Theory and Practice in Comparative Studies: Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Papers from the First Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Canadian Studies held at Macquarie University, Sydney, August 1982. Ed. Peter Crabb. Sydney: ANZACS, 1983, pp. 193-206. 'Australian Literature since 1950 and its Study: A Bibliographical Survey.' Rajasthan University Studies in English, 15 (1982-83), 88-99. '"Countries of the Mind": Place as Value in Canadian and Australian Critical Discourse.' In Regionalism and National Identity: Multi- Disciplinary Essays on Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ed. .pn vii Reginald Berry and James Acheson. Christchurch: Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand, 1985, pp. 579-86. 'Creative Criticism.' Rev. of A Place to Stand On: Essays by and about Margaret Laurence, ed. George Woodcock. CRNLE Reviews Journal, No. 1 (1986), pp. 37-41. Rev. of Canadian Writers in 1984: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue of Canadian Literature, ed. W. H. New. ARIEL, 17, No. 3 (July 1986), 122-26. 'Values and Evaluation.' Rev. of Canadian Literature in English, by W. J. Keith. Canadian Literature, No. 110 (Fall 1986), pp. 111-13. Forthcoming. 'Australian Language and Literature: Annotated Bibliography and a Bibliographical Essay. Australians: A Guide to Australian History Sources. Sydney: Fairfax, Syme, Weldon Associates, 1986-87. 'Comparative Australian/Canadian Literary Studies: A Bibliography.' In Australian/Canadian Literatures in English. Ed. Russell McDougall and Gillian Whitlock. Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986. '"There is Another World but it is in this One": A Cultural Paradigm for the Second World.' Paper presented at Interculture/Intertext: The Badlands Conference on Canadian and Australian Literatures, University of Calgary, Alberta, 29 August 1986. Forthcoming in Proceedings. CONTENTS Abstract 3 Publication Relevant to this Thesis 6 Preface 9 PART ONE. SOME STRATEGIES OF COMPARISON Chapter One. The Discovery of Nationality in Australian and Canadian Literatures: The Basis for a Comparison of the Literary Cultures 22 Chapter Two. Attitudes to Past and Present: Literary Historical Strategies in Canada and Australia 65 Chapter Three. The Road Not Taken: Internationalism and the End of Ideology. A. D. Hope and George Woodcock: A Case Study 116 PART TWO. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SUBJECT