Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 ‘National Awakening’, Autobiography, and the Invention of Manning Clark
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In the late twentieth century, Australian historian Manning Clark (1915–1991) was the nation’s leading historian and public intellectual. Clark published a six-volume history of Australia (1962–1987) and was one of a vanguard of intellectuals striving to articulate a new Australian nationalism in the wake of the British Empire’s decline. His best-known volumes of autobiography were published in quick succession. Puzzles of Childhood (1989), which tells the story of his parents’ lives and the ‘nightmares and terrors’ of his childhood, and Quest for Grace (1990), which begins from his days as a student at Melbourne and Oxford universities in the 1930s and ends just as the first volume of A History of Australia is published in 1962. In addition to these two volumes, Clark’s autobiographical writings extended to reflections on historical writing, essays, speeches and interviews. This paper argues that all of Clark’s writing (including his histories) can be seen as inherently autobiographical. As Clark remarked, ‘everything one writes is a fragment in a gigantic confession of life’. Clark’s autobiographical writings point not only to the notorious unreliability of autobiography but also to much larger questions, such as the relationship between autobiographical truth and his invention as a national figure, and the author’s right to own their life story. Finally, perhaps more than any other Australian intellectual of his generation, Clark’s autobiographies narrate his life story as an allegory of national awakening. ...'

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Life Writing vol. 13 no. 2 2016 10294445 2016 periodical issue 2016 pg. 207-220
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Life Writing after Empire Astrid Rasch (editor), London : Routledge , 2017 10965257 2017 anthology criticism London : Routledge , 2017
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Clio’s Lives : Biographies and Autobiographies of Historians Doug Munro (editor), John G. Reid (editor), Canberra : Australian National University Press , 2017 12037345 2017 anthology criticism autobiography biography

    'Including contributions from leading scholars in the field from both Australia and North America, this collection explores diverse approaches to writing the lives of historians and ways of assessing the importance of doing so. Beginning with the writing of autobiographies by historians, the volume then turns to biographical studies, both of historians whose writings were in some sense nation-defining and those who may be regarded as having had a major influence on defining the discipline of history. The final section explores elements of collective biography, linking these to the formation of historical networks. A concluding essay by Barbara Caine offers a critical appraisal of the study of historians’ biographies and autobiographies to date, and maps out likely new directions for future work.'  (Publication summary)

    Canberra : Australian National University Press , 2017
    pg. 81-102
Last amended 24 Oct 2016 13:01:52
207-220 ‘National Awakening’, Autobiography, and the Invention of Manning Clarksmall AustLit logo Life Writing
‘National Awakening’, Autobiography, and the Invention of Manning Clarksmall AustLit logo
81-102 ‘National Awakening’, Autobiography, and the Invention of Manning Clarksmall AustLit logo
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