Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems Literary Elements

The poem “Sleep” is told from the perspective of a first person subjective point of view.

The poem “Five Visions of Captain Cook” is written in a heroic couplet form.

In the poem “Country Towns” the narrator describes an important building in the unnamed town, the School of Arts. The town where the action takes place is described as being a small one and as such the School of Arts remains largely unused and is as such used as a metaphor to represent all those things a person thinks they need in their life but which are in reality unnecessary and have no real value.

The line “The words choke as they begin” in the poem “Beach Burial with German Translation” contains an alliteration.

N/A

The poem “Sleep” is a meditative poem on the way in which death can affect a person’s life.

The action in the poem “Country Towns” takes place in an unnamed little town during a single day in the middle of the summer.

The tone used in “Beach Burial with German Translation” is a macabre and violent one.

The protagonist in “The Night Ride” is the will to live and the antagonist is death.

The major conflict in “Country Towns” is between the things which are necessary for survival and those elements which are not necessary but which are still desired by the vast majority of the population.

The poem “Five Bells” reaches its climax when the five bells described in the poem start ringing at the same time.

The death of the characters in “Five Bells” is foreshadowed by the initial description of the bells towering over the town in which everyone is unhappy.

In the first line of the poem “Five Bells”, the narrator implies time only moves if there are clocks to signal the passing of time. This is however an understatement as later the narrator admits there is nothing which can influence the passing of time and nothing which can make time pass faster or slower.

In the poem “Sleep”, the narrator compares the act of dying with the way in which a person may allow themselves to be taken care of by their parents. This comparison is used here as an allusion to the idea that at times, death is not something to be scared about but rather something which can bring a person peace and allow them to feel protected.

The term “drugged” is used in “The Night Ride” as a general term to make reference to a constant state of unconsciousness and disassociation.

The line “their engines go wink” contains a personification and can be fine in the poem “Five Visions of Captain Cook”.

The poem “Country Towns” contains a hyperbole in the line “Verandas baked with musky sleep”.

We find onomatopoeia in the line “Between the sob and clubbing of the gunfire” in the poem “Beach Burial with German Translation”.