Kenneth Slessor

Kenneth Slessor has long been hailed as one of Australia's finest and most important poets. His work has been studied by generations of school childred and university students. Critical approbation has been long lived and widespread. But the terms of this praise have often echoed Slessor's own aesthetic principles - that poetry transcends social and political issues; that poetry is imbued with magic; that poetry should deal with 'verities' assumed to be 'eternal'.This book approaches...
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Kenneth Slessor has long been hailed as one of Australia's finest and most important poets. His work has been studied by generations of school childred and university students. Critical approbation has been long lived and widespread. But the terms of this praise have often echoed Slessor's own aesthetic principles - that poetry transcends social and political issues; that poetry is imbued with magic; that poetry should deal with 'verities' assumed to be 'eternal'.This book approaches Slessor's work from a different angle, attempting to place both his life and his work in political and cultural context. By re-reading and re-writing aspects of Slessor's biography, Caesar shows the formation and evolution of ideological attitudes and tensions which inform his writing. He also demonstrates that the conflicts at work in Slessor's life and art have a relevance to an understanding of Australian society in the first half of this century.This book offers a contemporary reading in plain language of Slessor's poetry and poetics, which concentrates on social and political meanings rather than aesthetic considerations, thereby offering a challenging and stimulating argument accessible to a wide range of readers.