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Imagining New Zealand: Literary Critique and Cultural Redefinition 1940-1983

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Imagining New Zealand: Literary Critique and Cultural Redefinition 1940-1983 IMAGINING NEW ZEALAND: LITERARY CRITIQUE AND CULTURAL REDEFINITION 1940-1983 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the University of Canterbury by James D. Smithies University of Canterbury 2002 La critique est aisee, et l 'art est difjicle 1 IFr. "Criticizing is easy, but art is difficult" CONTENTS Chapter Page List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................... 1 Abstract. ......................................................................................................................... 2 Prealnble ........................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction: 'The Significance of an Invisible Tradition' ........................................... 6 Part One: The Global Mirror Chapter One: 'A Cultural Genealogy and a Modal Typology' .................................... 16 i] 'Literary Critique: FonD and Function' ............................................................ 16 ii] 'Interim Mechanisms: Culture and the Institutionalisation of English Studies' ..................................................................... 22 iii] 'Cultural Roots: The TelTible Learning of Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, and Lionel Trilling' .................................. 29 iv] 'Keynote: Salient Features of the Mode and a Cattlecall' ......................... 53 v] 'The New Zealanders' ............................................................................... 59 Part Two: The New Zealanders Chapter Two: 'A Critical Triumvirate: The Development of New Zealand Literary Critique 1940-1945' ................................................................ 7 5 i] E. H. McCormick, Letters and Art in New Zealand, 1940 ............................... 77 ii] M. H. Holcroft, The Deepening Stream: Cultural Influences in New Zealand, 1940 ............................................... 99 iii] Allen Curnow, A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923-1945, 1945 ............ 118 Chapter Three: 'The Splintering of Opinion 1945-1970' .......................................... l39 i] Robert Chapman, 'Fiction and the Social Pattern: Some Implications of Recent New Zealand Writing', 1953 ....... ) ......... 142 ii] James K. Baxter, 'The Fire and the Anvil', 1954 ................................. 154 iii] Kendrick Smithyman, 'Post-War New Zealand Poetry', 1961-1963 .. ) ...... 170 iv] Bill Pearson, 'The Maori and Literature 1938-1965',1969 ..................... 196 Chapter Four: 'The Triumph ofIndividualism 1970-1983' ...................................... .210 i] Wystan Curnow, 'High Culture in a Small Province', 1973 ..................... 211 ii] C. K. Stead, 'Preliminary - From Wystan to Carlos: Modem and Modernism in Recent New Zealand Poetry', 1979 ............. .232 iii] Keri Hulme, 'Mauri: An Introduction to Bicultural Poetry in New Zealand', 1981 .............................................................. 247 iv] Roger Horrocks, 'The Invention of New Zealand', 1983 ........................ 266 Conclusion: 'Imagining New Zealand: Literary Critique 1940-1983' .................... .288 i] 'Overview' .............................................................................. 288 ii] 'Salient Features: Juxtaposing the Local and the Global' ........................ 289 iii] 'A Site-Specific Mode: Dominant Themes' ........................................ 292 Bibliography ... , ................ " ................................................................ 298 Acknowledgtnents .............................................................................. 316 1 List of Illustrations Figure 1: "Primaeval New Zealand', in David Goldblatt, Democracy at Ease: ANew Zealand Profile (London: Pall Mall Press, 1957), pA. Figure 2: "Suggested Cultural Regions of New Zealand", in William J. Cameron, New Zealand (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965), p.75. Figure 3: Les Gibbard, "Up Himself', in Austin Mitchell, The Half-Gallon, Quarter­ Acre Pavlova Paradise (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, 1972), p.139. Figure 4: GalTY Conner, "Ready- Coming In", And 1 (1983), p.210. Figure 5: "Authorial Perspectives", p.290. 2 Abstract This thesis is a cultural history with a strong literary focus. Its central argument is that the eleven New Zealand essays examined herein demand to be recognised as a distinct mode of writing oflocal significance. New Zealand literary critique has a genealogy that moves back through the writing of Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, and Lionel Trilling during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, towards the development of the essay form in renaissance times and the bilih of the poet-critic in antiquity. The mode developed in New Zealand during World War Two as a means of both appraising the (nascent) state of New Zealand literature and criticising the culture whence it sprang. In line with its genealogy, the mode has a strong romantic ~.-~----.~~-~ orientation - an aspect that has provided a topic of endUling interest for writers across --_._- -- - --- the late twentieth centUl"y: The central conclusion of the thesis is that the authors of New Zealand literary critique have presented the country with a body ofliterary­ cultural essays that comment upon their nation in not only literary and cultural, but also philosophical terms. The ongoing problem of romanticism is identified and argued to be a central issue in attempts to formulate a local aesthetic. I suggest that the circumstances of settlement during the VictOlian era have presented theorists with an over-riding issue that can only be resolved through attention to global attempts to deal with the self-same problem. The global minor reflects New Zealand's own local problematic. 3 There is a certain type of essay that gives the impression of bursting at the seams because it wants to argue with our whole culture, our whole set of artistic habits and values ... 1 lRoger Horrocks, 'An Essay About Experimental Films That Ended Up As An Essay About New Zealand', Parallax 1:1 (Spring 1982), p.87. 4 Preamble Figure 1 "Primaeval New Zealand" This, then, is the basic fact of our history - an age of silence. While the countries of Europe and Asia felt the movement of tribes and the growth of nations; while the classic civilizations were tumultuously taking their shape in the Mediterranean basin; while barbaric empires developed, with splendous [sic] of mythology and ritual, in the broad lands of South America; while the dream of spirit in nature was creating the colourful but passive culture of India: the islands of New Zealand were outside the mind of the world, intact and pure amid the flow of winds which brought only the sound and the distilled moisture ofthe sea.2 2M. H. Holcroft, 'The Memory ofa Voyage', in M. H. Holcroft, The Waiting Hills (Wellington: The Progressive Publishing Society, 1943), p.59. 5 From the perspective of an artist, New Zealand during the second half of the twentieth century could be an unforgiving place in which to live and work. Faced with a mode of secular puritanism that demanded confonnity and adherence to a passionless life, many New Zealand atiists experienced ostracism and even ridicule as they tried to search themselves for a meaning that their fellows could share. Such people often attempted to transcend their society with dreams of the untouched environment that existed before the European invasion of the nineteenth century, etiolating their art and forcing themselves into a life of sublime wonderment at the possibilities inherent in their young nation. This thesis recounts the attempts by eleven writers to cut through the shallow materialism and rigid denials of their contemporaries - effOlis to force New Zealanders to face up to the mistakes and misapprehensions of one hundred and fifty years of cultural development. Between 1940 and 1983 these writers wrote forcefully, refusing to be lulled into blind obligation to a society essentially at odds with their own beliefs. Sometimes harsh but always direct, the authors of literary critique have presented New Zealanders with a body of work that demands to be read and shared. Aversion is often a natural outgrowth oflove. Although angered and frequently embattled, the writers who engaged in literary critique during late twentieth century New Zealand all shared a deep respect and commitment to their country and its inhabitants, to the point where they each made a stand - a statement of intent and practice that aimed to reveal New Zealanders to themselves regardless of the consequences. As is to be expected, they did not always agree about the salient features of New Zealand culture and what implications these held for its people. While some asserted the need for psychological progression, others demanded a spiritual awakening or a greater level of sociological awareness; others again, a declaration of intellectual independence. The central theme in all of the essays was the utility ofliterature as a means of both bringing important topics to the surface and effecting a future change in the cultural pattem. Literature (and poetry in particular) was viewed by all the authors as a cathartic exercise that could prompt a redefinition ofthe very grounds of their culture and society. In New Zealand, literary critique stands alone as a mode of writing that comments upon literature in its deepest relation to the parent culture. 6 Introduction: 'The Significance
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