Literature in Australia

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20896, 27 November 1937, Page 12

Literature in Australia

CRITICAL VIEWS FROM WITHIN

Amongst the many interesting observations on Australia passed by Mr Arnold Haskell, in his new book "Dancing Round the World,” none are more stimulative than his remarks on Australian art and literature. The Place of Gordon "The painting there is more vital than anywhere I have seen,” Mr Haskell comments, but “in literature Australia has not enjoyed the same flowering.” But he notes also a poetic revival, along with a decline in the reputation of Adam Lindsay Gordon, although he concludes that “he still remains, however much shaken in position, Australia’s leading poet.” The question of Gordon’s place in our literature, which has already roused much controversy in the past, is thus brought to the fore Once again, and at this stage we may derive literary instruction from the clash of opinions. For Mr Gaskell is only echoing a now traditional English belief in the poetic supremacy of Gordon originally due to the generous recognition of his Australian contemporaries, especially Kendall and the Yorick Club in Melbourne. His bush ballads and galloping rhymes found a warm response amongst lovers of sport, the open air, and horses, in both England and Australia, Just as the gallantry of “the brave great soul” and his tragic ending created a Gordon legend and gave glamour to his name. The enthusiastic, if uncritical, admiration of Mr Douglas Sladen was largely responsible for the setting up of a tablet to Gordon in the Poets’ Comer of Westminster Abbey as “Australia’s National Poet.” On this occasion, “The Times,” after commendatory mention of Harpur and Kendall, solemnly proclaimed —this in 1933—that the author of “How We Beat the Favourite” was “still the greatest of Australian poets.” The canon was thus laid down, but, whilst English opinion has given it almost unquestioning obedience, it has been uncompromisingly rejected by Australian critics in the last few years. Professor Murdoch dismisses Gordon as “an English minor poet,” and claims that “there is no line of his verse that is not imitative.” Mr Randolph Hughes, in his study of Christopher Brennan, looses a broadside that rakes “The Times” fore and aft, thundering at the Thunderer with indignant fervour. Gordon is described as “a rough-riding rhymster,” whose “place it a very

humble one in the hierarchy of Australian poets,” indeed, “very small fry” compared to Brennan, Hugh McCrae, Shaw Neilson, and Victor Daley. Another Point of View Mr Hartley Grattan, the American critic, in his terse evaluation of Australian literature, regards Bernard O’Dowd as “perhaps Australia’s most considerable poet." He thinks that Kendall is a “barely respectable minor poet, leaning heavily on Wordsworth and Keats. Even less can be said for Adam Lindsay Gordon. He is appallingly overrated by all except a critical minority.” Mr P. R. Stephensen condemns Gordon as simply not Australian, but “English-born, an immigrant to Australia, who never saw Australia except through his English fox-hunting squire’s eyes.” “Australia’s National Poet” is roundly attacked, therefore, as being neither national nor a poet, and the adverse opinions are significant of a growing nationalist feeling on the one hand, and a more critical sense of literary values on the other. As in many such controversies, a modicum of truth may well be found in both sides. If Gordon was a nostalgic exile from England whose poetry was not Australian in outlook, his passion for horses and his virile spirit were traits that were also Australian, and here his ringing staves expressed genuine aspects of the national character. His morallsings, if not high poetry, also embodied in memorable form some of the simpler beliefs of our pioneering age. As a poet he has historical importance as a founder of the local school of balladists. His poetical plumes, worn so carelessly. were often borrowed, but “The Swimmer” and a few of the "Ashtaroth” lyrics, if sheer Swinburne, are also undeniable poetry. As Mr H. M. Green rightly indicates in his wellbalanced estimate of the poet, “The Rhyme of Joyous Garde” catches the surge of chivalric battle better than Tennyson. Many of the poems reveal beauties of the Australian scene with true feeling, colour, and melody. If not one of Australia’s major poets, Adam Lindsay Gordon, both as poet and personality, retains a warm spot in our hearts and a distinctive place in our literature.