Christopher Brennan

Christopher John Brennan (1 November 1870 - 5 October 1932) was an Australian poet and academic.

Christopher Brennan (1870-1932). Courtesy University of Sydney.

Life

Youth and education

Brennan was born in Sydney, to Christopher Brennan (died 1919), a brewer, and his wife Mary Ann (Carroll) (died 1924), both Irish immigrants.

Brennan was initially sent to St Aloysius' College in Sydney but, after gaining a scholarship from Patrick Moran, he boarded at St Ignatius' College, Riverview.

He entered the University of Sydney in 1888, taking up studies in the Classics, and won a travelling scholarship to Berlin. There he met his future wife, Anna Elisabeth Werth; there, also, he encountered the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé. About this time, he decided to become a poet.

Brennan began forming a theory about the descent of Aeschylus' extant manuscripts in 1888. In 1893 Brennan's article "On the Manuscripts of Aeschylus" appeared in the Journal of Philology.

Career

Returning to Australia, Brennan took up a position as a cataloguer in the public library, before being given a position at the University of Sydney. In 1914, he produced his major work, Poems 1913. After Brennan's marriage broke up in 1922, he went to live with Violet Singer, the 'Vie' of his later poems, and, as a result of both his divorce and increasing drunkenness, he was removed from his position at the University in June 1925. The death of Violet Singer in an accident left him distraught, and he spent most of his remaining years in poverty. Brennan died in 1932, after developing cancer.

Writing

Oxford Companion to Australian Literature: "Brennan is one of the first legendary figures in Australian literature. Unresponsive to, and seemingly uninfluenced by, the forces of nationalism and radicalism that dominated the contemporary Australian scene, he was a literary enigma standing apart from his own social and literary milieu, finding instead a literary affinity with the French symbolist writers ... he is clearly part of the international mainstream of writing that gave rise to poets such as T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats."

Brennan was not a lyric poet. It was not emotion that drove his work, rather, it displays at its best an architectural, and mythological resonance that informs it. His chief work was designed to be read as a single poem, complete, yet formed of smaller works. It covers not only the basic details of his life, such as his wooing of his wife in the early portions, but also human profundities through mythology, as in the central Lilith section, and the Wanderer sequence. As such, it is among the most widely discussed works of Australian poetry, judging from the prominence of criticism about it and Brennan.

Brennan belonged to no particular group in Australian literature. Neither a balladist, nor a member of the emergent "Vision" school, his closest affinities are with the generation of the 1890s, such as Victor Daley. This is not surprising since the bulk of his work was produced during this period. However his importance in Australian letters rests upon the seriousness he approached his task as a poet and his influence upon some later poets, such as Vincent Buckley.

Recognition

Brennan influenced many Australian writers of his and the next generation, including R.D. FitzGerald, A.D. Hope, Judith Wright and James McAuley. In remembrance, the Fellowship of Australian Writers established the Christopher Brennan Award which is presented annually to an Australian poet, recognising a lifetime achievement in poetry.

Brennan Hall and Library at St John's College within the University of Sydney, the Christopher Brennan building in the University's Arts Faculty, and the main library at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, are named in his honor.

Publications

Poetry

• XVIII Poems: Being the first collection of verse and prose. Sydney: privately published, 1897.
• XXI poems, 1893-1897: Towards the source. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1897.
• Poems 1913. Sydney: G.B. Philip, 1913; Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1972.
• A Chant of Doom, and other verses. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1918.
• The Burden of Tyre. Sydney: Harry F. Chaplin, 1953.
• Verse (edited by A.R. Chisholm & J.J. Quinn). Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1960.
• Selected Poems (edited by Alan Rowland Chisholdm). Sydney & London: Angus & Robertson, 1966.
• Selected Poems (edited by G.A. Wilkes). Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1973.
• Christopher Brennan (edited by Terry Sturm). St. Lucia, Qld : University of Queensland Press, 1984.
• 13 Poems. Pearl Beach, NSW: Escutcheon Press, 1987.

Novel

• A Massacre of Innocents: A novel. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967.

Non-fiction

• Introductions & critical essays in From Blake to Arnold: Selections from English poetry, 1783-1853 (edited by J.P. Pickburn & J. Le Gay Brereton). London: Macmillan, 1900.

Collected editions

• Prose (edited by A.R. Chisholm & J.J. Quinn). Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1962.

Autumn by Christopher Brennan

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Australian poets

External links

Poems

• 2 poems by Brennan: "Autumn," "The winter eve is clear and chill"
• Christopher Brennan at Love Poems
• Brennan, Christopher John (1870-1932)] (12 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
• Christopher John Brennan at PoemHunter (50 poems)
• Christopher Brennan (1870-1932) in the Australian Poetry Library (86 poems)
• Australian Studies Resources contains texts of Brennan's poems in pdf format

Books

• The Verse of Christopher Brennan at Amazon.com

About

• Brennan, Christopher John (1870–1932) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
• Australian Authors – Christopher Brennan
• On Christopher Brennan reviewed at CliveJames.com
• Life as Whitest Flame at University of Sydney