Smithies, J.2015-06-222015-06-222008Smithies, J. (2008) Post-War New Zealand Literary Critique. Thesis Eleven, 92(1), pp. 87-107.http://hdl.handle.net/10092/10538For most of the 20th century literature and criticism of literature functioned as central engines of cultural change across the western world. This was especially the case in ex-colonial societies like New Zealand where writers and intellectuals frequently expressed a desire to create sophisticated local cultures which could compete with the foundation societies in Europe. Between 1940 and 1984 New Zealand writers and intellectuals developed a mode of literary criticism which this essay refers to as ‘Literary Critique’ for this very reason. In the absence of well established cultural traditions and a sense that they had a duty to import and indigenise western intellectual thought in order to further the evolution of New Zealand culture, a series of writers wrote often scathing critiques of their culture, using literature as their point of entry. Post- War New Zealand Literary Critique stands as evidence of a provincial, masculine, and angry intellectual culture.encritiquecultureliteraturemasculinismmodernismNew Zealandpost-modernJournal ArticleFields of Research::47 - Language, communication and culture::4705 - Literary studies::470522 - New Zealand literature (excl. Māori literature)https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513607085046