Australian Literature

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. It has been described as an ironical commentary on Australian literature that the first writer on the subject should have borne the name of Barron Field. It is true, however, that when Field (he will be remembered as Charles Lamb's friend who emigrated to Australia and became judge of the supreme court of New South Wales) gathered to gether his First Fruits of Australian Poetry (1819) English civili zation in Australia was scarcely more than 5o years old. With the early settlers in the late i8th century literature was, naturally, a slow growth, and when it did break into bud it was, equally naturally, with English soil clinging to its roots. The highly pol ished models of the i8th century and those of the romantic revival seem to have suffered little or no sea-change in transportation. The early Anglo-Australian versifiers adopted them as a matter of course. It was left to later poets, such as Charles Harpur and Adam Lindsay Gordon, to give the bush a place in literature, to experiment with new rhythms.

Poetry.

Throughout the short history of literature in Aus tralia we find poetry predominating with history and topography coming after. Charles Harpur (1813-68) may be regarded as the first Australian poet of any distinction. He was strongly influ enced in his earlier work by Wordsworth and Shelley, and is now chiefly remembered for his Creek of the Four Graves, in which we see the bush vividly pictured for the first time. Very different, both as a man and as a poet was the once famous Richard Henry Horne (1803-84), that wild young Londoner, friend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who ran away from home to enlist in the Mex ican navy and arrived in Australia in middle age to seek his for tune digging for gold. His contemporaries hailed Horne, in their excitement over his four poetic plays (The Death of Marlowe is the best known), as a new Elizabethan, but it is probably only for his narrative poem Orion that he is remembered to-day. Sold first at a farthing a copy, this blank-verse story of the loves of Orion for Merope, Artemis and Eos, contains many passages of sustained beauty, as well as some of the flattest lines in English literature. It was largely thanks to Horne that Henry Kendall (1841-82) received recognition during his life-time. The son of one of the earliest missionaries to New Zealand (an exceptionally intelligent and inquisitive cleric who compiled the first gram mar of the Maori language) Kendall, at the age of 28 resigned his position in the colonial secretary's office to devote himself entirely (and, alas! unsuccessfully) to literature. He was rescued from poverty by the kindness of his friends, and though he died at 45, he lived long enough to write a considerable bulk of poetry (largely narrative) which was to rank in the judgment of later Australian readers beside that of his unfortunate friend Adam Lindsay Gordon. Kendall's best poem is his "Araluen," a poignant elegy on his daughter, though his "Hy-Brasil," "Cooranbean" and "After Many Years" still occupy an important position in Australian literature. He was one of the earliest Australian poets to receive recognition from England where many of his poems were printed in the Athenaeum.

The most eminent figure in Australian literature is undoubtedly Adam Lindsay Gordon (q.v.), whose romantic career is by now almost too well known to need re-telling. Born in the Azores in 1833, he was educated in England, but at the age of 20 was packed off to Australia in disgrace. His early occupations there included those of police constable and steeplechaser. After a variegated career he married, inherited a fortune of £ 7,000 and began his short-lived career as a politician by being elected in 5864 to the South Australian parliament. He resigned his seat after a few years, became the manager of a livery stable at Ballarat (he won three steeplechases in one day) and took up free-lance journal ism, writing among other things, racing tips in rhyme. In 1867, he published his first book of verse Sea Spray and Smoke Drift, this was followed by Bush Ballads. In 1870 after having impover ished himself by his claims to the estate of Esslemont in Scot land (he believed himself to be the head of his branch of the Gordon clan), he corrected the proofs of his Bush Ballads and shot himself. Before he died, Gordon instructed a friend to burn a trunk containing all his remaining mss., and the instructions, unfortunately, were obeyed to the letter. In his verse, Gordon was strongly influenced by Byron, and, later, by Swinburne. In spite of this, however, and in spite of a remarkable memory (he was able to quote whole pages of Horace, Macaulay, Browning, and, much to the annoyance of his fellow members in parliament, Lempriere's Classical Dictionary), Gordon struck an original note in poetry. In such famous poems as "The Sick Stockrider" and "How we beat the Favourite" he has recaptured the joy of his favourite sport of steeplechasing and given us something of its rhythm. And yet in such a poem as "Whisperings in Wattle Boughs," while still maintaining his Swinburnisms, he can write movingly of his regrets for England and for the life of his boy hood. Gordon has had many imitators in Australia, but none has surpassed him for his unerring rhythms, his infectious delight in physical achievements and in the open air. It was most probably his bad sight which prevented him from giving us those touches of observation with which lesser poets have delighted us.

Since Gordon's time poetry in Australia has flourished, though we still wait for its full flowering. James Brunton Stephens, the author of a long narrative poem, "Convict Once," and of The Dominion of Australia, a fine piece of patriotic literature, was a Scot who came to Australia in 1866. His humorous poems, such as "Universally Respected" and "To a Black Gin" have caused him to be described as the Bret Harte of Australia. Equally pa triotic, but considerably more sensitive, was George Essex Evans (1863-1909), the author of The Australian Symphony, and The Repentance of Magdalene Despair, who successfully experimented with new metres. The 'eighties and 'nineties saw a renaissance in Australian poetry, with such men as Barcroft Boake (1866-92), a poet of the bush, strongly influenced by Gordon (his best known poem is "A Vision out West") ; Victor James Daley (1858-1905), who reflects something of the glamour of the Celtic Twilight in his At Dawn and At Dusk and Wine and Roses; Andrew Barton Paterson (b. 1864) , famous as "Banjo" Paterson for his swing ing ballads and lyrics; Henry Lawson (1867-1922), regarded by some as the national poet of modern Australia; Bernard O'Dowd, more severely disciplined than any of his forerunners, whose "The Bush" (1912) is full of fine imagery; John Farrell (1851 1904) author of "How he died" and "Australia to England"; and George Gordon McCrae, friend of Lindsay Gordon, and poet of aboriginal legendry. Among others worthy of mention are : Philip Joseph Holdsworth, Francis Adams, Robert Richardson, James Lister Cuthbertson, William Gay, Grace Jennings Car michael, W. H. Ogilvie, E. J. Brady, Roderic Quinn, C. J. Dennis, author of The Sentimental Bloke, Hugh McCrae, and more re cently Shaw Neilson author of The Heart of Spring, Mary Gil more (Hound of the Road) and Leon Gellert. Such Australian poets, however, as Francis Adams, and later, W. J. Turner belong to English rather than Australian literature.

Fiction.

Although the novelists have not been so prolific as either the poets or the historians, they have done some excellent work. Most famous of all Australian novels is Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life, that vivid and sinister story of life in one of the early penal settlements. Clarke, who came to Australia as a boy, and had a varied career as worker in the bush, banker and librarian, wrote plays, short stories, two novels (Heavy Odds is vastly inferior to his masterpiece) and a large amount of journalism. Henry Kingsley (183o-76), brother of the more famous Charles, wrote in Geoffrey Hamlyn a fine novel about an immigrant which has become something of a classic. Much more robust was "Rolf Boldrewood" (Thomas Alexander Browne) who died in 1915. His Robbery under Arms (1888) is one of the most famous stories of bush-ranging. His other novels The Squatter's Dream (1890) and The Miner's Right (1890), still enjoy great popularity. George Lewis Becke ("Louis Becke"), who died in 1913, was the author of many short stories about the southern Pacific, the best of which are to be found in By Reef and Palm (1894). A much abler short story-writer was Henry Lawson (vide supra), whose bush tales, such as While the Billy Boils, Joe Wilson and his Mates and Children of the Bush, have won for him in the affection of Australian readers a place beside Bret Harte and Maxim Gorki. Another writer of fine short stories, though in a quieter vein, is Barbara Baynton, the author of Bush Studies. In The Little Black Princess and We of the Never-Never (1912) Mrs. Aeneas Gunn has shown herself to be a writer of delicate fancy with her accounts of life in the backwoods of northern Australia, while realism is well represented by C. A. Bean, whose The Dreadnought of the Darling is a fine piece of writing.

In the sphere of literary criticism, such books as A. T. Strong's volume of essays, Peradventure (1912) and T. G. Tucker's criti cal edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1924) may be mentioned. Gilbert Murray, though an Australian by birth, belongs both as critic and poet to English rather than to Australian literature.

History and Topography.

Like poetry, historical and topographical works have been hardy growths in Australia. As long ago as 1819 we find A Statistical, Historical and Political Description of New South Wales, by that passionate man of ad venture, pioneer and journalist, William Charles Wentworth This remarkable compilation, the first of its kind in Australian literature, which contains the germs of much of the economic theory of later writers on immigration, was responsible (it has been said) for the great influx of immigrants into Australia in the years immediately following its publication. An even more romantic figure was Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796 5862), a Londoner, one of the most vigorous and important writers on colonization, who, while imprisoned in Newgate gaol on a charge of abduction, published anonymously Letters from Sydney (1829) in which he put forward a new system of coloniz ing Australia. On his release Wakefield gathered round him an enthusiastic group of supporters and formed the National Colo nization Society which led to the Government attempting to estab lish two important colonies in New South Wales and South Aus tralia. In 1834 Wakefield published his New British Province of South Australia. Another early historian of importance was the Scottish missionary and journalist, John Dunmore Lang 1878), whose Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales and Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation (1834) are still a source of information for historians. A generation later came George William Rusden (18'9-1903), whose monumental History of Australia and History of New Zealand were both pub lished in England in 1883, revised editions not being published in Australia till 1895 and 1897.

In more recent years a number of outstanding historical and topographical works have appeared, notably Henry Gyles Turner's A History of the Colony of Victoria and The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth (i9ii) ; B. R. Wise's The Making of the Australian Commonwealth (i913) ; R. L. Jacks's Northmost Australia (1921) ; Baldwin Spencer's Across Australia (1912) ; The Colonisation of Australia (1915) by R. C. Mills; Prof. Ernest Scott's A Short History of Australia (1916) ; G. Arnold Woods's The Discovery of Australia (1922) ; and T. Dundabin's The Making of Australasia (1922). Works dealing with the Aborigines are numerous. Among the most important may be mentioned Dr. A. W. Howitt's The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904) ; E. M. Curr's The Australian Race (1886) ; A. R. Wallace's Australasia (188o) ; G. T. Bettany's The Red, Brown and Black Men of Australia (189o) ; and Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899) by B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen.

(H. L. Mo.)