WEEK TEN: Bohemianism and Respectability

(May 17 -)

Is nostalgia essential for the construction of Bohemia? Does Mimi's death really represent a loss of youth? Do Bohemians inevitably turn into bourgeois suburbanites? Compare the Bohemian circles of the 1860s, the 1890s and the 1920s? And a student culture of the 1990s? How self-conscious is their Bohemianism? Who is threatened by the amorality and drug cultures of Bohemia (Marcus Clarke on marihuana, Lawson and alcohol, smoke nights etc)? Explain working class respectability. Does Gramsci help? Are respectability and wealth incompatible with art? Explain sex and gender in Bohemia. How do you explain the class position of Bohemians? Of intellectuals in general? How does Bohemianism relate to the old romantic movement and the new modernism? To Nietzsche? To wowsers? Note the similarities and differences in the accounts of Davison, White and Lake. Can bohemianism survive in a post-modern world where culture can no longer shock?

You might also consider Puccini's opera, La Bohème(1895) - performed in Australia in 1900 and 1901 - and the autobiographical sketches it was based on, Henri Murger Scènes de la vie de Bohème as sources.

For field work see:

Dimond, Jill and Peter Kirkpatrick Literary Sydney: a walking guide St Lucia 2000

A general introduction:

Moore, Tony ‘Triumph in the labyrinth’ in Finch, Lynette and Chris McConville (eds) Gritty cities : images of the urban Sydney, 1999
Moore, Tony ‘Romancing the city : Australia's Bohemian tradition’ Journal of Australian Studies, no.57 & 58 1998

Australian Bohemianism in the 1860s:

Elliott, Brian Marcus Clarke Oxford 1958
*Hergenhan, L T (ed) A Colonial City: High and Low Life: Selected Journalism of Marcus Clarke, St Lucia 1972
Jordens, Ann-Mari The Stenhouse Circle: Literary Life in Mid-Nineteenth Century Sydney Melbourne 1979
Love, Harold Neild Melbourne 1991
Stewart, Ken 'Journalism and the World of the Writer: The Production of Australian Literature 1855-1915' in Hergenhan, Laurie(ed) the Penguin New Literary History of Australia Melbourne 1988
Stuart, Lurline James Smith: the Making of a Colonial Culture Sydney 1990
*Wilding, Michael ‘Marcus Clarke - Bohemian’ hemisphere 26(3) Nov 1981
The Yorick Club: Its Origin and Development: May, 1868, to Dec 1910 Melbourne 1911

In the 1890s:

Astbury, Leigh ‘Cash buyers welcome: Australian artists and bohemianism in the 1890s’ Journal of Australian Studies, 20, May 1987
Bedford, Randolph Naught to Thirty-Three Melbourne 1944
Clark, Axel Christopher Brennan: A Critical Biography Melbourne 1980
*Davison, Graeme 'Sydney and the Bush: an urban context for the Australian legend' Historical Studies 18(71) October 1978 [Download]
Fredman, L E 'Melbourne Bohemia in the Nineteenth Century' Southerly 18(2) 1957
*Galbally, Ann Charles Conder : the last Bohemian Melbourne 2002
McQ RobertsJose, Arthur The Romantic Nineties Sydney 1933
*Lake, Marilyn 'The politics of respectability: identifying the masculinist context' Historical Studies 22(86) 1986 [Download]
Lawson, Sylvia The Archibald Paradox Penguin 1983
*McCalman, Janet 'Class and respectability in a working class suburb: Richmond, Victoria, before the Great War' Historical Studies 20(78) April 1982
Stephen, Sarah 'Marriage and the Family in Bohemian Melbourne 1890-1914' Australia 1888 Bulletin 9, 1982
*Stephen, Sarah '"Women, Wine and Song": The Bohemians of Melbourne' Royal Historical Society of Victoria Journal 55(3) 1984 [Download]
Taylor, George Those were the Days: Being Reminiscences of Australian Artists and Writers Sydney 1918
Tyrrell, James Old Books, Old Friends, Old Sydney: The Fascinating Reminiscences of a Sydney Bookseller, Sydney 1987
*White, Richard Inventing Australia Sydney 1981 ch.6

In the 1920s:

Deamer, Dulcie The queen of Bohemia : the autobiography of Dulcie Deamer : being "The golden decade" St. Lucia, 1998
Docker, John Australian Cultural Elites: Intellectual Traditions in Sydney and Melbourne Sydney 1974
Dutton, Geoffrey Kenneth Slessor: A Biography Melbourne 1991
Hetherington, John Norman Lindsay: The Embattled Olympian Melbourne 1973
*Kirkpatrick, Peter The Sea Coast of Bohemia: Literary Life in Sydney's Roaring Twenties UQP, St Lucia 1992
Lindsay, Jack Life Rarely Tells: An Autobiography in Three Volumes Melbourne 1982 (originally 1958, 1960, 1962)
Lindsay, Lionel Comedy of Life: An Autobiography Sydney 1967
Lindsay, Norman Bohemians of the Bulletin, A Curate in Bohemia, My Mask, Rooms and Houses
Mendelssohn, Joanna Letters & liars: Norman Lindsay and the Lindsay family Sydney 1996
Mendelssohn, Joanna Lionel Lindsay: An Artist and his Family London 1988
Slessor, Kenneth Bread and Wine: Selected Prose Sydney 1970
Stewart, Meg Autobiography of my Mother
Tsokhas, Kosmas ‘Modernity, Sexuality and National Identity: Norman Lindsay’s Aesthetics’ Australian Historical Studies 107, Oct 1996
Walker, David Dream and Disillusion: A Search for Australian Cultural Identity Canberra 1976

The Push and beyond:

Kennedy, Brian A passion to oppose : John Anderson, philosopher Melbourne, 1995
Coombs, Anne Sex and anarchy : the life and death of the Sydney Push Melbourne, 1996
Harrison, Graeme Night Train to Granada: from Sydney’s Bohemia to Franco’s Spain - a offbeat memoir Sydney 2002
Mendelssohn, Joanna The Yellow House, 1970-72 Sydney, 1990
Moore, Tony Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels of Australian Culture [video] ABC 1997

On Bohemia elsewhere:

Carey, John The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939 London 1992
Easton, Malcom Artists and Writers in Paris: The Bohemian Idea 1803-1867 London 1964
Franck, Dan The bohemians : the birth of modern art : Paris 1900-1930 London 2001
Gaunt, William The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy London 1975
Grana, Cesar Bohemian Versus Bourgeois:French Society and the French Man of Letters in the Nineteenth Century New York 1964 (also titled Modernity and its Discontents)
Miller, Richard Bohemia: The Protoculture Then and Now Chicago 1977
Ransome, Arthur Bohemia in London London 1907
Richardson, Joanna The Bohemians: La Vie de Bohème in Paris 1830-1914 London 1969
Seigel, Jerrold Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life 1830-1930 Penguin 1986
*Smith, Bernard 'The Death of the Artist as Hero' in his The Death of the Artist as Hero: Essays in History and Culture Melbourne 1988
Stanford, Derek(ed) Writing of the Nineties: From Wilde to Beerbohm London 1971
*Wilson, Elizabeth Bohemians : the glamorous outcasts New Brunswick, NJ, 2000