Why are European influences to be seen in major Australian writers?

Brennan ignored the Australian scene and turned to Europe and Western philosophical thought, more specifically, the movement which was most important in contemporary literature and poetic thought – the Symbolist movement. He used myth to present a problem of choice, relating the story not for its own sake but using it as a symbol, a vehicle to convey a purpose beyond it.

The new writers were different – while many of them had their roots in the bush, most were of middle class origin and of higher and more systematic education and almost all turned to the cities for intellectual sustenance. These writers were caught between two conflicting impulses – a conflict which is perhaps characteristic of all colonial literatures. On the one hand was the urgent need to express the land to which they belonged and on the other was the demand that universal standards be imposed on the literature. There was the feeling that the bush and the outback, the distance and the emptiness were unique to Australia