Australian literature : a study of the construction of short fiction in the Australian literary field

摘要

On the face of it, terms like 'the author,' the canon,' literature' -udand its many sub-categories, 'lyrical poetry,' Australian short fiction,'udand so on - appear simply to describe essential, objective, positive,udthings. While such terms are certainly descriptive, they have audmuch more fundamental function, in fact constructing the twoudmain properties that make up cultural activity of a text-based kind:udwho can be thought of and who counts in cultural production; andudwhat can be thought of what counts as a cultural product.udQuestions about who makes and values certain kinds of textsudare questions about the nature of the cultural field in which agentsudand their products compete. They are questions which attempt touddislodge the view that literature can be thought of as a set of culturaludproducts which exhibit special features (literary features) that can beudidentified by disinterested users of this literature. In order to answerudsuch questions, as I try to do in Part 1, I have cast my net widelyudacross a range of literary, sociological, historical and institutionaludtheories to uncover some of the practices that determine how agentsudoperate in the cultural field, to show how 'the author' and 'the text'udare not simple, objective categories to be consumed by 'the reader.'udRather, 'the author,' the text' and 'the reader' are the outcomes ofudcontests between various players, embedded for longer or shorter periodsudin the practices current in the field. So-called post-structuralist theory and the cultural theory ofudMichel Foucault, in problematising cultural production, provide auduseful starting point for an examination in Chapter 1 of the problemudof the author, authority and authorising as social practices. Noudlonger free-standing and neutral, cultural producers and the textsudthey produce become interested parties in a cultural system. Butudsuch a view opens up a new set of problems: to do with the view of audcultural producer or text as a kind of automaton in the system; andudto do with the question of the capacity for social agents to effectudchange in that system. I turn to social theory in order to explain howudit is that social agents are more than the ghosts in the machine thatudpost-structuralist theory might suggest, at once able to obey and to change the prescriptions that pre-exist at any particular culturaludmoment in which texts are used.udTo see why particular kinds of cultural agent and productudcharacterise and endure in the cultural field requires an understandingudof the historically constructed and institutional ways in whichudthe field works. Writing and reading books are institutional practicesudand the agents who have, since the eighteenth century, been creditedudin western culture with the central place in this cultural productionudhave, as I try to show in Chapter 2, continued to occupy this positionudby virtue of institutions which foreground writing as a product ofudthe originary genius of the individual, autonomous and copyrightowningudauthor. Authors, that is, are products of historically particularudsocial practices which apply in the field of cultural production.udThey occupy a social position which has been reasonably durable, myudfocus in Chapter 3, because the chronically recurring commercialudand pedagogical practices embedded in institutional behaviour continueudto have a hand in the consecration of the individuals whoudachieve the name 'author' and in the initial production and subsequentudvalorising of particular 'literary' texts. udMy method in Part 2 is to examine several case studies in order toudsee how agents and institutions in the cultural field work in moreuddetail. My focus is to show how short story anthologies, critical studiesudand other key practices construct 'Australian short fiction.'udAnthologies are a major institution in the production and reproductionudof the sub-field of 'Australian short fiction.' They help to determineudwhat is to count as 'Australian short fiction,' who are toudcount as writers, editors and critics of 'Australian short fiction' andudhow 'Australian short fiction' is to be read. Apparently objective culturaludlandmarks like 'The Bulletin style,' Australian women's writing'udand 'The Balmain school' - case studies examined in Chapters 4udand 5 - each owe a great deal to short story anthologies.udAnthologies are not, of course, the only institutions that determineudthe sub-field, as I show in Chapter 6. Reference guides andudcritical studies function in the same way, determining, for example,udwhat 'fiction' or 'the work of David Malouf means and how it is toudbe read. But the personnel who produce, deliver and consumeudcertain kinds of content, the activity that dominates the sub-field of 'Australian short fiction,' are also maintained by means of otherudinstitutions, like 'small magazines,' Australia Council grants andud'Writers in Residence' programs, writers' festivals, and so on, myudfocus in Chapter 7.udIn the pages that follow I suggest that there is some kind ofudbedrock 'reality,' an objective mechanism that constructs the objectudcalled 'the cultural field' that my analysis has 'uncovered.' Besidesudthis archaeological trope, a favourite of mine, my 'case studies' alsoudimply a kind of quasi-scientific objectivity. Analytical 'study' standsudoutside, usually above, the 'cases' which I scrutinise in Part Two. Butudif I am right, if texts are the products of always contestable and historicallyudcontingent social practices, then the same must be true ofudmy own text too: it is as much a case to be studied and, if studied, canudbe shown to be equally the product of always contestable and contingentudsocial practices. This is not cause for panic, merely for caution.udMy thesis is not an attempt to get any closer to the truth, only to suggestudhow we might reorientate ourselves to some texts.