When comparing and contrasting the arguments put forward by historians Richard White, Graeme Davison, and Sean Glynn, with regard to the urban context of the bush legend, a number of significant similarities and differences arise. While their essays within Images of Australia present differing views on the development of the bush legend, all three historians raise issues both relevant and confronting to the discussion.

In his essay Urbanisation in Australian History, Sean Glynn argues that historians need be wary of contemporary prejudices and definitions that shroud the proper examination of the subject matter. Glynn states that historians should closely examine supporting and contrary evidence for the existence of certain characteristics in the past. When examining this popular mythology, Glynn points out that Australians are supposed to be identifiable by a set of features variously defined and sometimes contradictory.

Glynn argues that nineteenth century bush ballads collected by writers like “Banjo” Paterson may or may not represent Australian rural values. He cities the use of literature as historical evidence (as opposed to illustration) is not an adequate substitute for lack of information. To emphasize, Glynn asks the reader if it is possible to gain an accurate social history of the 1960s based on the songs of the Beatles and other groups?

Glynn believed as the optimism and provincial metropolitan pride, which was displayed in the 1880s, gave way to the scandals, hardships and uncertainties of the 1890s, the elevation of the bush legend was one way for urban society to deal with their difficulties. Glynn states the key to the cultural changes of the 1890s lies in Australian urban mentality rather than in the views held beyond the ranges. He believed Australia’s emergence from colony to nation owed more to regional provincialism and the distance from England than to a bush lifestyle.

Citing links between urban escapism and the rise of national sentiment, Glynn, draws a comparison between Britain, who looked to it glorious past for nationalistic tendencies, and the problems associated with the scarcer European histories of their new colonies. Glynn states the Australian legend – or the idea of a truly distinct and unique national character and culture – was created suddenly, at a critical time, on a somewhat flimsy and unrepresentative basis. Nineteenth century Australia, burdened with convict beginnings, had little White history to base national pride upon. It was largely due to this lack of history that the “noble frontiersman” became the bases of Australia’s national sentiment.

In his essay, Glynn seek answers to why “bush virtues” came to be accepted by the nation as a whole and why, paradoxically, did one of the most highly urbanised countries in the world seek its national inspiration in the bush. Glynn states the literary search for a distinct local character, which went hand in hand with chauvinism, was by no means entirely directed towards the bush, nor was it a product of the 1890s.

It is the same 1890s in which Graeme Davison’s essay Sydney and the Bush: An Urban Context for the Australian Legend identifies as the birth date of the bush legend. Davison states that “Bush” and “city” were plainly important literary touchstones to the writers of the 1890s and their symbolic counterpoint provides a vital clue to the sources of the “Australian Legend”. As the bush became the Bush, traditional folk songs and stories were repositioned into Australian literature.

Davison differs in his opinion with Sean Glynn as to the motivations that inspired the adaptation of the bush legend into the “Australian Legend”. While Glynn regards the rise of the bush legend was caused by a feeling of urban claustrophobia, Davison offers the opinion that it was the images created by writers, poets and painters, coupled with stories published by papers like the Bulletin, which awakened the city to the bush. In short, it was the urban intelligentsia’s collective ideas and experiences that gave rise to the creation of a bush legend.

The bohemian lifestyle of many of these artists became imbued in the bush stories retold to an eager city of consumers. Many writers lived alone within numerous over-crowded boarding houses situated along the city‘s transportation zones. Davison writes, this was the sleazy urban frontier which provided the social context for the Bulletin writer’s confrontation with the city and from which, as we shall see, they fashioned reactively their conception of the “bush”.

In his essay, Davison outlines how the Bulletin played a major role in the advancement of the bush legend. Davison points to men like the Bulletin’s J. F. Archibald who, after living in England for a few years, became influenced by the London scene and modern British literature including George Robert Sims. The historian speculates that Sims’ use of colloquial speech and the ballad convention, and his theme of “rural influence and urban degeneration” may have exerted a powerful stimulus on the style and anti-urban bias of Australian popular verse. Davison states, the projection of these values, born of urban experience, onto the “bush” must be understood in terms of concurrent movement to establish the “city” as a symbol of their negation.

This urban alienation amongst Bulletin writers in the 1890s can be seen through the correlation between the rise of the bush ideal and their increasingly dismal view of the city. Writers like “Banjo” Paterson regarded the city and the bush as two separate moral universes. The reality was of course very different. When Henry Lawson embarked on his journey inland he met nothing but disillusionment. The build up fell way short of expectations and Lawson returned to Sydney vowing never to face the bush again.

In comparison, Richard White, in his essay Inventing Australia, puts forward the argument that many hands went into the creation the Australian Legend. White makes the comment that a number of historians contribute to the mystification of the Australian identity during their attempts to search for its origins. He argues historians need to look at other forces, not those particularly distinctive, which may affect the way certain accounts were put together. White states, the national identity is not “born of the lean loins of the country itself”, as one ardent nationalist puts it, but is part of the “cultural baggage” which Europeans have brought with them and with which we continue to encumber ourselves.

In Australia, White argues, the new image would prove to be more powerful than all others. Essentially it was the city dwellers image of the bush, an image of sunlit landscapes, faded blue hills, cloudless skies and the noble bushman heavy in toil. This shift towards a distinctively national culture was thanks largely to a younger generation, which was more likely to be Australian-born. White states, the contrast between the cramping, foetid city and the wide open spaces became a cliché for that generation: Paterson’s “Clancy of the Overflow” was its most famous expression. It is a view both Sean Glynn and Graeme Davison hold, although for Glynn it was the urban desire to break free from their day to day existence, while for Davison it was the writers way to correlate their bohemian lifestyles and the freedom of the country.

For the Bulletin, the desire to promote an “Australian Legend” was also a sensible commercial enterprise. White argues this self-advertisement was part of the new journalism. White states, thus this new intelligentsia carried into their image of the bush their own urban bohemian values – their radicalism, their male comradeship, their belief in their own freedom from conventional restraints – and presented it as the “real” Australia.

Richard White, like his fellow historians Graeme Davison and Sean Glynn, corroborate that the economic depression of the 1890s was a factor in the rise of the bush legend. It was here in urban Australia that society began to look to the bush as a romantic means of escape from their increasingly structured lives. Writers like Paterson, Dennis and Lawson all contributed to the notion of a bush lifestyle that celebrated the “Australian Legend”. Influential papers like the Bulletin spoke of a wide open country which the reader, crowded into an ever growing city landscape could only dream of.

Glynn sums up Australia’s fascination with the bush with the statement, although Australia forged a national legend based in the bush, the acceptance of this legend must be related to the ideological needs of a highly urbanised population. The bush legend became the creation of urban Australia in an effort to meet the emotional demands of city life. These distinct characteristics allowed urban society to not only escape from the confines of day to day life but to also adopt the bush legend as their national identity, which many Australians living in cities felt they apparently lacked. As Australians changed their view on urban life, bush life became more appealing. Yet few would venture far from home, and when they did, some like Lawson, had their perceptions severely altered.

Bibliography
Glynn, S. 1975, Urbanisation in Australian History 1788-1900, Nelson, in Whitlock, G. & Carter, D. (eds.) Images of Australia, UQP, Brisbane 1992
White, R. 1981, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, in Whitlock, G. & Carter, D. (eds.) Images of Australia, UQP, Brisbane 1992
Davison, G. 1982, Sydney and the Bush: An Urban Context for the Australian Legend, in Carroll, J. (ed.) Intruders in the Bush: The Australian Quest for Identity, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, in Whitlock, G. & Carter, D. (eds.) Images of Australia, UQP, Brisbane 1992