An Intellectual Aristocrat In A Secular World

Martin Boyd is no doubt a strongly-scented flower in the history of Australian literature, whose unique "double-alienation" cultural identity and life experience open up a whole new world of literature that belongs to him only, and also distinguish himself from other native Australian writers. He looked out upon the international world with his broader perspective on one hand, and confined his eyes to only upper-class people as well as aristocrats on the other hand. He tried to reproduce and reconstruct the life of British aristocrats in the new land of Australia with painstaking efforts, and committed himself to voicing their true feelings in the painful searches for identities among different cultures and a secular world, thus establishing him the reputation as an important writer in Australian and even the world literary firmament. Travelling across the vast ocean, the Boyd family immigrated to Australia in the 18th century. But even they settled down in Australia, they never really severed the umbilicalcord to their Old Country England. Martin Boyd, who breathed the traditional British cultures since he was only a child, contained the germs of expectation and prospect to it naturally. Stemming from this, a deep resignation from the efforts to seek balance between the two worlds, the two cultures as well as the ferry of the past and the future, but fail, the embarrassing situation as an Anglo-Australian who embraced the delusion to attend faithfully to the two, pushes Martin Boyd to explore a self-salvation road for himself. The paper tries to discuss and study the self-salvation attempts of Boyd as well as his characters in the conflicts of different cultures and values on the basis of the previous researches, with a view to presenting a new perspective for further learning of this Australian writer and his works. Exclusive of introduction and conclusion, the text falls into three parts:Chapter One traces the objective and subjective reasons for the origin of Martin Boyd’s self-salvation consciousness. Firstly, starting from the historical origin and background, it explores the influence of the early colonial history, social evolution and both wars on the development of Martin Boyd’s self-salvation consciousness; Secondly, it tries to make judgments about the ideological foundation of Martin Boyd’s self-salvation consciousness by the analysis of the popular non-rationalist views at that time; Thirdly, with a detailed explanation of Martin Boyd’s personal tragic experience and determined idealism, it attempts to discuss the personal preference for the exploration of self-salvation.Chapter Two centers on the three main characters created in Lucinda Brayford and A Difficult Young Man, namely Lucinda Brayford, Stephen Brayford, and Dominic Langton, with which to analyze Martin Boyd’s self-salvation consciousness in his masterpieces and characterization. Lucinda who began to question and self-examine after her failure to seek identity, Dominic who rose up against his hostile environment, and Stephen whose ideal resurrected from death, all achieved their final spiritual sublimation with different self-salvation methods.Chapter Three seeks to interpret and conclude Martin Boyd’s self-salvation choices based on the above two chapters. With loyalties to nature and religion, holding an unswerving faith upon youth, Martin Boyd tries hard to maintain a high fervidity to noble spirit. As it puts it, "Cherish one’s nobleness as a nobody, endeavor the society’s righteousness as a somebody", Martin Boyd who clearly knows that his one hand and one feet cannot reverse the tide of history in the secular world, still works tirelessly to inspire and awake the future generations in his relentless endeavor to pursue self-salvation with his undying belief in morals and spirit.The whole life of Martin Boyd is unequivocally caught in misery. Neither Australia nor Britain has ever given him a feeling of being at home. Deeply influenced by the bygone traditional cultures, Martin Boyd is always suffering from a social and psychological misfit for his remoteness from hedonism in that materialism-centered secular world. He is fastened by an overwhelming passion of "the lost and gone" throughout his long life, influenced by which he externalizes his sincere affection with the past into firm obsession and high praise of nature, religion and childlike innocence. Like a naive child who is intently immersed in his painting, Boyd enwraps himself in fond desire to add all the beautiful colors to his work, however, to his disappointment, he never draws up a colorful castle, but only to find himself a dirty face. If aspiration is said to be the wistful form of Martin Boyd’s romantic feelings, then Boyd’s wonderful dream about his ideal world would never be a certain system or thought, but just a land to settle, an anchorage to pin his spirit.