Review of Kenneth Slessor and The Banjo of the Bush: The Work, Life and Times of A.B. Paterson by Clement Semmler

Abstract

The first of these two books, is one of the 'Writers and Their Work' series produced by the British Council. Its aim is presumably to introduce the work of a major Australian poet to a probably ill-informed British audience. Such a purpose can fairly be served by the kind of sympathetic presentation of current orthodoxy which is one of the primary virtues of Semmler's monograph. Offering us no radical new insights into Slessor's verse, it is yet notable for the generosity and appositeness of its quotations from the poems, its sensible account of the poet's development, its just and sensitive emphases—falling on such famous pieces as 'Captain Cook', 'Five Bells', and 'Beach Burial'. In spite of one or two lapses in detail, the study admirably fulfils what it sets out to do.