A Text Is Worthy of Acclaim If It Presents Valuable Ideas in an Engaging Way - Kenneth Slessor

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Adv English Essay - Kenneth Slessor “A text is worthy of acclaim if it presents valuable ideas in an engaging way”. Discuss with reference to your Module B text. Kenneth Slessor’s poetry is worthy of acclaim as it focuses on universal themes. In his suite of poetry, poems are linked by common imagery used to convey his thematic concerns. This gives his poems a rich intertextuality with each other, providing a body of work with textual integrity. Slessor’s primary concerns of time and memory are thoroughly explored in his work. These are presented in an engaging way due to his poetic treatment, manipulating imagery and structure in his poems. Slessor’s poems Out of Time, Five Bells and Elegy in a Botanic Gardens all explore his thematic concerns of time, memory and the power of nature. Slessor addresses the constant progression of time in his suite of poetry. Out of Time’s structure reflects this nature of time. The poem is composed of three sonnets, which form a corona as each last line relates to the first line. This reflects the cyclical and constant nature of time. This is contrasted with the human perception of time, with the pace quickened in the second stanza through alliteration like “kiss and kill”. Time is viewed as having duality, being described calmly as a wave and aggressively as a knife. Time is a natural part of human experience, but our human nature makes us dread the passage of time. In Out of Time, time is metaphorically described as “the wave, enfolds me in its bed.” This water imagery is also employed for Five Bells, “the turn of midnight water’s over you.” In Out of Time, time is also personified as “the bony knife, it runs me through.” The repetition of the suffixes in “Vilely, continuously, stupidly, Time takes me, drills me” aurally mirrors the embodiment of time as a knife. This ties into one interpretation of the title as constantly

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