Practice Essay On Kenneth Slessor (Human Experience)

Resource Description

To what extent does the exploration of human experiences in Slessor’s poetry invite you to reconsider your understanding of struggle?

Slessor’s poetry reforms the concept of struggle through illustrating the despondency of isolation, and similarly the tragedy of losing individual and collective memory to time. Though many depict struggle as simply experiences of hardship and destitution, Slessor’s authentic manifestations of struggle within his poetry redefine the idea to be the adversities experienced in solitude. Whilst the communal adversity of ‘William Street’ is romanticised, romantically nostalgically rich atmospheres such as those within ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Wild Grapes’ are layered with melancholy subtext. It is this paradox that positions the responder to reconsider their understanding of struggle.