SOURCE: Kiernan, Brian. In Criticism, pp. 15-23. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1974.

In the following excerpt, Kiernan examines Australian literary criticism of the 1890s, focusing on A. G. Stephens as “the critical patron of Australian literature” and his twentieth-century successor, Vance Palmer.

Generally [Australian] critics were in basic agreement on their assumptions about the relationship between literature and society. They differed mainly in their opinions on the way in which the future ‘national literature’ could be best encouraged—by a disinterested appeal to the highest standards or by an encouraging response to the gallant efforts of those who were destined by History to be the pioneers preparing the soil for a later harvest (it was perhaps no coincidence that so many books of poetry were offered as ‘first fruits’ or other horticultural tributes). A. G. Stephens, who is often seen as the literary-critical prophet of a new epoch creating...