'It was Arthur Phillip (ironically the namesake of an early colonist) who, in the 1950 summer issue of the Australian magazine Meanjin, coined the phrase “cultural cringe”. He took as his exemplum a radio programme in which the work of a foreign composer was played along with an Australian composition; listeners were supposed to try to guess which was which, and were supposed to fail, demonstrating, in Phillip’s sardonic words, that “the local lad proves to be no worse than the foreigner. This unexpected discovery is intended to inspire a nice show of patriotic satisfaction . . . .” Phillip’s essay has been, deservedly, influential; it picks out an attitude which, in its different forms, once underwrote many of the schools of Australian poetry in the mid- to…' (Introduction)
