Essay How is an Australian Voice transgressed through the texts studied? The Australian voice is highlighted extensively throughout the inspirational texts, this creates credibility therefore helps the composers shape ideals. This is shown in the poem My Country composed by Dorothea Mackellar and in the visually stimulating urban poem, William Street written by Kenneth Slessor. Kenneth Slessor’s poem William Street demonstrates the use of an Urban Australian voice through the use of techniques and effects. Slessor takes a real scene and situation and recreates it so that the reader can imaginatively experience the situation through the use of sensory imagery, sounds and emotions associated with the Kings Cross. The opening stanza focuses on William Street, on a rainy night through “The red globe of light”.
The visual imagery of the Cross portrays the radiant colours and lights as if it is photographed. The symbolism showed in “red globe of light” connotes the prostitution displayed in Kings Cross which portrays the danger placed in the word “red”. Slessor uses this poem to defend against those who believe the city is “ugly”. The repetition of “You find it ugly, I find it lovely” states in clear colloquial language that the contrast in response concerns the poet. He also uses tone in this sentence, to show that he stands firm with his opinion and Is defiant, as it shows he views things differently and finds the beauty in all things. People may have the opinion of how the country has more beauty than a city, and one of those reasons could be that the city changes and not necessarily in a good way. This sentence “ You find this ugly, I find it lovely”, explains that even though millions of people find this street ugly, he finds the love in the smell, feel and atmosphere of William street. The poem My Country composed by Dorothea Mackellar uses techniques to highlight the use of rural Australian Voice.
Mackellar uses romantic language to give the reader an understanding on her views of the perfect country. The romantic words she uses such as, “I love her jewel like sea”, allows the reader to create a picture of the image she produces in their head. This describes the beauty of Australia and the not so beautiful country side represented in the poem due to unexpected natural wraths at times. Descriptions such as “sapphire” and “opal”, which show a special uniqueness that only her love of country reflects. She shows emotion with words such as “my country”, “my heart”, which represent her love and patriotism towards Australia.
This poem is full of metaphors, such as personification which is commonly used to show meaning of the land. Mackellar uses the first person throughout the whole poem which suggests that the theme of this poem has been evoked by personal experiences. Mackellar introduces the idea of Australia’s distinctiveness firstly in the opening two stanzas, by comparing Australia’s wild landscape to England’s tame landscape. England’s landscape is described with “grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft, dim skies”. Whereas Australia’s landscape is described as “a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains”. This comparison of the two countries implies that Australia’s wildness makes it beautiful and incomparable to England’s landscape, which described as completely opposite. In the two poems “My Country” and “William Street”, the two poets Mackellar and Slessor use imagery to convey Australia and how they see it.
