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"The "Bulletin Debate" was a well-publicised dispute in The Bulletin magazine between two of Australia's best known writers and poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. The debate took place via a series of poems about the merits of living in the Australian "bush", published from 1892 to 1893."
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_Debate

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "Bulletin Debate" was a well-publicised dispute in The Bulletin magazine between two of Australia's best known writers and poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. The debate took place via a series of poems about the merits of living in the Australian "bush", published from 1892 to 1893.

At the time, The Bulletin was a popular and influential publication, and often supported the typical national self-image held by many Australians, sometimes termed the "bush legend." Many Australian writers and poets, such as Banjo Paterson, were based primarily in the city, and had a tendency to romanticise bush life.

On 9 July 1892, Lawson published a poem in The Bulletin entitled "Borderland", later retitled " Up The Country". In this poem (beginning with the verse "I am back from up the country-very sorry that I went,-"), Lawson attacked the typical "romanticised" view of bush life.

Paterson's response

Henry Lawson (right) with J.F. Archibald, editor of The Bulletin

On 23 July 1892, Paterson published his reply to Lawson's poem, titled " In Defense of the Bush". While Lawson had accused writers such as Paterson of being "City Bushmen", Paterson countered by claiming that Lawson's view of the bushlife was full of doom and gloom. He finished his poem with the line "For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush." Other Australian writers, such as Edward Dyson, also later contributed to the debate.

In 1939, Banjo Paterson recalled his thoughts about the Bulletin debate:

Henry Lawson was a man of remarkable insight in some things and of extraordinary simplicity in others. We were both looking for the same reef, if you get what I mean; but I had done my prospecting on horseback with my meals cooked for me, while Lawson has done his prospecting on foot and had had to cook for himself. Nobody realized this better than Lawson; and one day he suggested that we should write against each other, he putting the bush from his point of view, and I putting it from mine.

"We ought to do pretty well out of it," he said. "We ought to be able to get in three or four sets of verses before they stop us."

This suited me all right, for we were working on space, and the pay was very small ... so we slam-banged away at each other for weeks and weeks; not until they stopped us, but until we ran out of material ...

The Bulletin Debate was followed closely by widespread readers of the publication, reinforcing "the Bush" as a significant part of Australia's national identity. There was never any clear "winner" to this debate. However, Paterson presented Australia with the desired image of its national identity, and his short story collections received spectacular sales. Despite their vastly differing perspectives on Australian bush life, both Lawson and Paterson are often mentioned alongside each other as Australia's most iconic and influential writers.

The Debate did not pass without receiving criticism in regards to its attempts to define Australia's national identity. One British reviewer of the 1890s declared:

The delusion these writers [of 'The Bulletin' school] labour under is trying to be too exclusively Australian, by which they come merely provincial. That a man's lot should be cast in the wilds of Australia is no reason that his whole inner life should be taken up with the glorification of shearers or the ridicule of jackaroos. And a genuine Australian poetry can only arise when such matters fall into their true place and assume their relatively small artistic importance.

Tony Moore, in his 1997 paper about bohemian culture, says:

The bohemian traits revered by 'The Bulletin' writers are almost a caricature of the Australian national type propagated by the journal: mateship and blokey bonding to the exclusion of family life; hostility to religion, personified by the Protestant wowser; ironic humour; a fondness for alcohol, pubs and gambling; pre-occupation with a free-wheeling Australian identity (overlaid with francophilia and Irish nationalism) invariably opposed to a conservative Englishness; and an occasional flirtation with political causes such as socialism and republicanism. The identification of the bohemian with male mateship remains a strong thread in the Australian tradition, but one contested by women like Mary Gilmore in the 1890s, Dulcie Deamer in the 1920s, Joy Hester in the 1940s and Germaine Greer in the 1960s.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The "Bulletin Debate" was a well-publicised dispute in The Bulletin magazine between two of Australia's best known writers and poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. The debate took place via a series of poems about the merits of living in the Australian "bush", published from 1892 to 1893.

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In 1939, Banjo Paterson recalled his thoughts about the Bulletin debate:

Henry Lawson was a man of remarkable insight in some things and of extraordinary simplicity in others. We were both looking for the same reef, if you get what I mean; but I had done my prospecting on horseback with my meals cooked for me, while Lawson has done his prospecting on foot and had had to cook for himself. Nobody realized this better than Lawson; and one day he suggested that we should write against each other, he putting the bush from his point of view, and I putting it from mine.

"We ought to do pretty well out of it," he said. "We ought to be able to get in three or four sets of verses before they stop us."

This suited me all right, for we were working on space, and the pay was very small ... so we slam-banged away at each other for weeks and weeks; not until they stopped us, but until we ran out of material ...

-https://web.archive.org/web/20050301224743/http://www.uq.edu.au/~mlwham/banjo/bush_controversy.html

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John Longstaff - BgHT9n2WvDN1gg at Google Cultural  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_Debate#/media/File:John_Longstaff_-_Henry_Lawson_-_Google_Art_Project.jpgInstitute

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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20050301224743/http://www.uq.edu.au:80/~mlwham/banjo/bush_controversy.html

In 1892, Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, his friend and co-contributor to The Bulletin, decided to have a little fun, and to stir up a controversy in their poems. Henry Lawson set out to criticise the optimistic picture The Banjo painted of the Bush, and The Banjo in turn railed against the doom and gloom of Lawson's outlook.

Other poets became willing participants in this poetic altercation, and their poems are represented here.

Paterson described the " Bulletin battle" in these words:

Henry Lawson was a man of remarkable insight in some things and of extraordinary simplicity in others. We were both looking for the same reef, if you get what I mean; but I had done my prospecting on horseback with my meals cooked for me, while Lawson has done his prospecting on foot and had had to cook for himself. Nobody realized this better than Lawson; and one day he suggested that we should write against each other, he putting the bush from his point of view, and I putting it from mine.
"We ought to do pretty well out of it," he said, "we ought to be able to get in three or four sets of verses before they stop us."

This suited me all right, for we were working on space, and the pay was very small . . . so we slam-banged away at each other for weeks and weeks; not until they stopped us, but until we ran out of material . . .

"Banjo Paterson Tells His Own Story",
Sydney Morning Herald, 4 Feb-4 Mar 1939

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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20050301224743/http://www.uq.edu.au:80/~mlwham/banjo/bush_controversy.html In 1892, Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, his friend and co-contributor to The Bulletin, decided to have a little fun, and to stir up a controversy in their poems. Henry Lawson set out to criticise the optimistic picture The Banjo painted of the Bush, and The Banjo in turn railed against the doom and gloom of Lawson's outlook.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_Debate#/media/File:Banjo_Patterson.jpg

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9 July 1892

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Poem 2 - Banjo Paterson's Reply - In Defence of the Bush

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Poem 2 - Banjo Paterson's Reply - In Defence of the Bush

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23 July 1892

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So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went,
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent;
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer,
And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view --
Well, you know it's not so often that he sees a swell like you;
And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown,
And no doubt you're better suited drinking lemon-squash in town.
Yet, perchance, if you should journey down the very track you went
In a month or two at furthest, you would wonder what it meant;
Where the sunbaked earth was gasping like a creature in itts pain
You would find the grasses waving like a field of summer grain,
And the miles of thirsty gutters, blocked with sand and choked with mud,
You would find them mighty rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood.
For the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes in the street,
In the sullen line of buildings and the ceaseless tramp of feet;
But the bush has moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall,
And the men who know the bush-land -- they are loyal through it all.

But you found the bush was dismal and a land of no delight --
Did you chance to hear a chorus in the shearers' huts at night?
Did they "rise up William Riley" by the camp-fire's cheery blaze?
Did they rise him as we rose him in the good old droving days?
And the women of the homesteads and the men you chanced to meet --
Were their faces sour and saddened like the "faces in the street"?
And the "shy selector children" -- were they better now or worse
Than the little city urchins who would greet you with a curse?
Is not such a life much better than the squalid street and square
Where the fallen women flaunt it in the fierce electric glare,
Wher the sempstress plies her needle till her eyes are sore and red
In a filthy, dirty attic toiling on for daily bread?
Did you hear no sweeter voices in the music of the bush
Than the roar of trams and buses, and the war-whoop of "the push"?
Did the magpies rouse your slumbers with their carol sweet and strange?
Did you hear the silver chiming of the bell-birds on the range?
But, perchance, the wild birds' music by your senses was despised,
For you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilized.
Would you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band
Where the "blokes" might take their "donahs", with a "public" close at hand?
You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the "push",
For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.

The Bulletin, 23 July 1892
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses
20 October 1895

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So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went, And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent; Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer, And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view -- Well, you know it's not so often that he sees a swell like you; And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown, And no doubt you're better suited drinking lemon-squash in town.