2004/01/01 by Peter J. Love · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Australian History and Society #Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism #Persona #Identity (music) #Politics #Cynicism #HERO #Commonwealth #Reputation #Law #Sociology #Political science #Aesthetics #Literature #Art #Humanities
paper · doi:10.2307/27516002
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Frank Anstey's political career in the Victorian and Commonwealth parliaments (1902–34) centred around his reputation as a working-class hero and harbinger of revolution in the 1917–21 'red dawn'. The volatile energy that drove his indefatigable organising, passionate oratory and dramatic writing was such that the public persona it fuelled gradually suffused his private identity. But when political Labor surrendered to the strictures of orthodox economics and the people acquiesced in the wretched compromises of 1930–31, his public persona collapsed into an embittered cynicism and, as death approached, his personal identity retreated in time to a smaller, private world through a romantic reconstruction of childhood.