Rollo Hesketh
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Rollo Hesketh ‘In Search of a National Idea’ Australian Intellectuals and the ‘Cultural Cringe’ 1940 – 1972 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney December 2018 Statement of Originality I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. The thesis has not been submitted for any other degree or any other purpose. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Rollo Hesketh, 28 April 2018 Statement of Attribution Parts of the Introduction and Chapter 1 of this thesis have been published as ‘A.A. Phillips and the ‘Cultural Cringe’: Creating an ‘Australian Tradition’, in Meanjin, volume 72, number 3, Spring 2013, pages 92–103. I researched and wrote, and am the sole author, of both the magazine essay and the thesis chapters. Statement of Lodgement with the University Librarian If my candidature is successful, I understand that the thesis will be lodged with the University Librarian and made available for immediate public use. 2 ABSTRACT The ‘cultural cringe’ was a powerful force shaping Australian ideas in the post-war years. Struggling with both the heavy cultural shadow of Britain and the brutal apathy of Australian philistinism, intellectuals tried to find ways to escape the colonial rut of a meagre, material culture. This thesis will, for the first time, place together the work of eleven writers and explore their responses to a cultural insecurity they all felt with peculiar intensity. Ultimately, it will be argued that the ‘cultural nationalists’ – A.A. Phillips (who coined the term ‘cultural cringe’ in a 1950 essay), Clem Christesen, Nettie and Vance Palmer, Brian Fitzpatrick and Russel Ward – failed in their quest to define and celebrate a distinctive cultural tradition unique to Australia, free of the tentacles of Britishness. Others such as Manning Clark and Bernard Smith created powerful visions of Australia, but struggled to make these resonant or relevant in an Australia that by the 1960s was changing rapidly. Donald Horne and Patrick White despised cultural nationalism, seeking other ways to ‘create’ Australia; but it was Judith Wright who came closest to the successful realisation of an original idea of Australia, incorporating the Aboriginality of the continent, and in so doing a successful refutation of the hated cringe. 3 4 “One is given the place one is born into, but first and last one is a human being. And the humanity is much more interesting than the locality or nation.” John McGahern, The Guardian, 2002 “Before long we’ll think up a way of being somehow begotten by an idea.” Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, 1864 “You academic types sure know how to make a simple thing complicated.” Gerald Murnane, Sydney Review of Books, 2018 5 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mark McKenna, who has provided so much help and inspiration over the long gestation of this thesis. He gently pushed me in the right direction when required, and always provided insightful commentary and ideas. I could not have wished for a better supervisor, and I consider myself very lucky. I would also like to thank my associate supervisor, James Curran, who has provided invaluable guidance, especially in 2011, when Mark was in Dublin. When I first came up with the idea for this thesis, way back in 2009, Martin Thomas helped me get my ideas in order and write my proposal. He was to be my supervisor, but left for the ANU, but I still remember, and am thankful for, his help at that early stage. I would also like to acknowledge the late John Hirst, who ran wonderful seminars for Sydney post-graduate research students in the early years of my thesis. Those seminars were loved and appreciated by all. I owe a great deal to many other members of the Department of History at the University of Sydney. Mike McDonnell, Frances Clarke and Thomas Adams, in their roles as post-graduate co- ordinators, have read my chapters and provided much in the way of helpful advice and feedback, especially during the end game of the last year. I have had many interesting conversations with Sheila Fitzpatrick, who provided insights about the whole period of the 1940s and 50s, and about her father Brian in particular. Julia Horne was also generous with her time, and happy to discuss her father with me; and Warwick Anderson has provided useful advice. And I must thank my fellow post-graduate research students, too many to mention by name, whose company and lively discussions I have appreciated and enjoyed, especially in the varied and many seminars I have attended over the years, dashing across Sydney to get there after work. 7 I owe a lot to my colleagues in the History Department at Sydney Grammar School, who have supported me in my research from the start. I am particularly grateful to the support of successive Heads of Department, the late David Patrick, Alan Dearn and Sally Cove, and to my great friend Robert Loeffel, who has been an inspiration and support over many years. I would also like to thank the Headmasters of Sydney Grammar School, John Vallance and Richard Malpass, who have supported me in my endeavours, not least financially when I have undertaken research trips. I owe a big debt to the librarians and archivists of the National Library of Australia in Canberra, the Mitchell Library in Sydney, the State Library of Victoria, and the University of Melbourne Archives at the Baillieu Library. I have spent countless fruitful and enjoyable hours in those libraries over the past eight years, digging in the manuscripts of the subjects of this thesis, and the staff have always been very helpful and generous with their time. I would also like to thank the librarians of the Fisher Library at the University of Sydney and of the Banjo Paterson Library at Sydney Grammar School, two institutions much patronised by me over the years. Umberto Eco says that ‘a person who asks a librarian for help makes the librarian happy’ – and I hope this has been the case! Finally, and most importantly, I thank my wife Isabel, who has put up with a lot in the name of this thesis, and who has supported me in so many ways, not least with her superb proof-reading. When I started work we were just married. Since then we have had three children and our lives have become very full. That I have managed to complete the thesis with three little daughters at home, and whilst holding down a full-time job, is testament to your support, help and love, Isabel, and I am so grateful. This thesis is for you, and for Jemima, Clemmie and Phoebe. With love. Rollo Hesketh, November 2018 8 CONTENTS Statements 2 Abstract 3 Epigraphs 5 Acknowledgements 7 INTRODUCTION ‘The Endless Seminar’ 13 CHAPTER 1 A.A. Phillips and the ‘Cultural Cringe’: Creating an ‘Australian Tradition’ 43 i) ‘Cultural nationalism’: Striving for ‘Australian arts of vigour, confidence and maturity’ 43 ii) Finding ‘the intellectual courage to be ourselves’ 49 iii) ‘The levelling tendency’ and ‘the challenge of the actual’: The Australian Tradition 58 iv) ‘Through a glass absurdly’: The problem with cultural nationalism 65 v) Conclusion 72 CHAPTER 2 Clem Christesen: ‘The Wound as the Bow’ 75 i) Introduction: ‘The liberal intellectual in isolation’ 75 ii) A ‘difficult customer’: Editor, encourager, cajoler 79 iii) ‘Starve the vanguard!’: Battles and campaigns 91 iv) Conclusion: ‘A man is not born in his native country for nothing’ 104 CHAPTER 3 Nettie and Vance Palmer: ‘The Watch-Dogs of Australian letters’ 107 i) Introduction 107 ii) ‘Symbols of Australian literature’ 110 iii) ‘How can we open our ears?’ 117 iv) ‘Only what is national in art ever became international’ 121 v) Dolia Ribush: ‘Bringing something living out of the void’ 125 vi) Disillusion 129 vii) Conclusion 137 9 CHAPTER 4 Manning Clark: Writing the ‘National Book’ 139 i) Introduction: ‘I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for’ 139 ii) In search of ‘the something more’ 142 iii) ‘What holds the world together in its innermost parts?’ 147 iv) Epiphanies: ‘Literature is life, and life is literature’ 156 v) The shaman in the ‘weird’ landscape 164 vi) Conclusion 170 CHAPTER 5 Brian Fitzpatrick: ‘The Origins of the People are not in the Library’ 173 i) Introduction 173 ii) An iconoclast on the margins 176 iii) The ‘situation’ of the Australian writer: ‘The trade in literature’ 181 iv) ‘Australian Renaissance’ 188 v) The primacy of experience: ‘Only idealists, fools and unprincipled careerists become disappointed radicals’ 194 vi) Conclusion 201 CHAPTER 6 Russel Ward: The Colonial Stain 203 i) Introduction 203 ii) Making the myth: Ward’s folk idea 206 iii) ‘Demographically unbearable’? – the Legend and reality 214 iv) ‘Community of sentiment’ or ‘community of interest’? 219 v) Conclusion 226 CHAPTER 7 Bernard Smith: ‘Imagining Australia’ 231 i) Introduction 232 ii) ‘The radical vision of hope’ 234 iii) ‘Cultural Activist’ 243 iv) ‘Antipodean’ 254 v) Conclusion 267 10 CHAPTER 8 Donald Horne’s Sceptical Voice: Towards a New ‘National Self-Definition’ 269 i) Introduction: ‘An urbane approach to a sophisticated Australia’ 269 ii) Andersonianism: ‘A thirst for the acerbic’ 273 iii) Public intellectuals: The need for an ‘articulate intellectual opposition’ 278 iv) Asia and the ‘New Nationalism’: ‘Australia’s great