James McAuley
James McAuley was a prominent Australian Catholic poet and intellectual, active primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1917 in Sydney, he demonstrated academic excellence as a student, ultimately earning a master's degree from Sydney University. His early career included military service during World War II, where he famously created a satirical poetry collection to critique modernist poetry. McAuley underwent a significant transformation in the early 1950s after encountering influential figures in New Guinea, which led to his conversion to Catholicism. This newfound faith profoundly impacted his work, reflected in his poetry collection "A Vision of Ceremony" and his role as editor of the anticommunist journal Quadrant.
In addition to poetry, McAuley was a political activist and authored essays that critiqued modernity and liberalism, showcasing his deep engagement with literature and culture. He held a teaching position at the University of Tasmania, where he contributed significantly to literary education and published various works, including textbooks and anthologies. Despite being diagnosed with colon cancer in 1970, he continued to write, producing more introspective and autobiographical poetry until his death in 1976. McAuley's legacy is marked by his exploration of spirituality, culture, and the human condition through his literary endeavors.
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James McAuley
Poet
- Born: October 12, 1917
- Birthplace: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Died: October 15, 1976
Biography
James McAuley was one of Australia’s leading Catholic poets and intellectuals during the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was born James Phillip McAuley in 1917 in a faceless Sydney suburb. His father, Patrick McAuley, was a property speculator who retired early on his profits. Patrick had been a Catholic but had abandoned that religion to marry James’s mother, Mary Judge.
Young McAuley was a precocious high school student, becoming school captain and winning academic prizes in English. At Sydney University, he majored in English, Latin, and philosophy, graduating in 1937 and winning the university medal for English. He earned his M.A. from Sydney University in 1940, writing a master’s thesis on symbolism and poetic theory. He then earned a teaching certification and married a teacher, Norma Abernathy, in 1942. The couple had five children.
During World War II, McAuley was enlisted into the army’s Directorate of Civil Affairs. While there, he and another poet played a joke on a modernist poet, Max Harris; they produced a satirical set of poems in a few hours, which Harris praised excessively. The literary spoof aimed to expose the shallowness of modernist poetry and the lack of discernment among the Australian literary establishment. A collection of McAuley’s poetry, Under Aldebaran, appeared in 1946. The poems in this collection attack Australia’s “slum culture” while attesting to his own personal malaise and searching.
In the early 1950’s, McAuley was sent to New Guinea to conduct fieldwork for the Australian School of Pacific Administration. While there, he had close contact with a retired Catholic archbishop, Alain de Boismenu, who had worked with Sister Marie-Thérèse Noblet. McAuley was profoundly affected by Boismenu’s deep spirituality and by Noblet’s encounter with demonic forces. After a bout of malaria, he converted to Catholicism and was received into the Catholic church in 1952. McAuley read widely in Catholic theology and wrote extensively. His poetry collection, A Vision of Ceremony, demonstrated his new-found faith and his return to more formal poetic structures. The final poem in the collection, “A Letter to John Dryden” addresses a fellow Catholic convert and poet.
In 1956, McAuley became editor of Quadrant, an anticommunist periodical. He became committed to political action, joining the newly formed Democratic Labour Party, and stood, unsuccessfully, for election. In 1959, he published an important set of essays, The End of Modernity: Essays on Literature, Art, and Culture. In these essays, his wide reading is evident as he attacks liberalism, modernity, and poor academic standards in Australia. His poem Captain Quiros, published in 1964, is a verse equivalent of the essays.
In 1961, McAuley accepted a teaching appointment at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, where he later became head of the English department. While there, he wrote a number of significant textbooks, published additional collections of verse, and edited an anthology of poetry. In 1970, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, but this did not halt his poetic output. His work became less polemical and more reflective and autobiographical. His last work, A World of Its Own, was a collection of nature poems. McAuley died in 1976.