C. J. Dennis
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main otherScript error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis (7 September 1876 – 22 June 1938), better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet and journalist known for his best-selling verse novel The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915).[1] Alongside his contemporaries and occasional collaborators Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, Dennis helped popularise Australian slang in literature, earning him the title "the laureate of the larrikin".
When Dennis died, Australia's then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons said he was destined to be remembered as the "Australian Robert Burns".[2]
Biography
C. J. Dennis was born in Auburn, South Australia the first of three sons to Irish-born parents James Dennis (born 1828) and his second wife Katherine "Kate" Frances (nee Tobin) (1851-1890),[1] both had emigrated to Australia in the 1860s, his father leased hotels in Auburn, and then later in Watervale, Gladstone and Laura. His mother suffered ill health, so Clarrie (as he was known) was raised initially by his great-aunts, then went away to school, Christian Brothers College, Adelaide as a teenager.[1]
Dennis left school at 17 and worked as a junior clerk for an Adelaide stock and station and wool-buying firm, by the age of 19 he was employed as a solicitor's clerk.[1] It was while he was working in this job that, like banker's clerk Banjo Paterson before him, his first poem was published[1] under the pseudonym "The Best of the Six".[3] He later went on to publish in The Worker, under his own name,[4] and as "Den", and in The Bulletin. His collected poetry was published by Angus & Robertson.
He joined the literary staff of The Critic in 1897, and after a spell doing odd jobs around Broken Hill, returned to The Critic, serving for a time c. 1904 as editor, to be succeeded by Conrad Eitel.[5] In 1906 he co-founded and edited The Gadfly as a literary magazine; it ceased publication in 1909.
Dennis himself left The Gadfly and Adelaide for Melbourne in November 1907. In 1908, he camped with the artist Hal Waugh at Toolangi, north-east of Melbourne, near Healesville. Toolangi was his home for most of the rest of his life.[1] C. J. Dennis married Margaret Herron in 1917. She published two novels and a biography of Dennis called Down the Years.
From 1922 he served as staff poet on the Melbourne Herald.[6]
C. J. Dennis died in 1938 from cardio-respiratory failure and is buried in Box Hill Cemetery, Melbourne. The Box Hill Historical Society has attached a commemorative plaque to the gravestone. Dennis is also commemorated with a plaque on Circular Quay in Sydney which forms part of the NSW Ministry for the Arts – Writers Walk series,[7] and by a bust outside the town hall of the town of Laura.[8] At Auburn, the South Australian place of his birth, a drinking fountain and birdbath were unveiled in 1953 in his honour.[9]
In 1976, ABC produced and broadcast The Life And Times Of C. J. Dennis, timed to coincide with the 100th year of Dennis' birth. The docu-drama starred John Derum as Dennis and is set around the time when Dennis produced The Gadfly.[10]
Books
- Backblock Ballads and Other Verses (1913)
- The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915)
- The Moods of Ginger Mick (1916)
- The Glugs of Gosh (1917)
- Doreen (1917)
- Digger Smith (1918)
- Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (1918)
- Jim of the Hills (1919)
- A Book for Kids (1921) (reissued as Roundabout, 1935)
- Rose of Spadgers (1924)
- The Singing Garden (1935)
- The Ant Explorer (posthumously, 1988)
Poems
- "The Austra-laise" (1908)
- "An Old Master" (1910)
See also
Script error: No such module "Portal".
Further reading
- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
References
Template:Sister project Template:Reflist
External links
Template:Wikisource/outer coreScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Australian Dictionary of Biography entry
- Script error: No such module "Gutenberg".
- Template:Internet Archive author
- Works by C. J. Dennis at Project Gutenberg of Australia
- Template:Internet Archive author
- Template:Librivox author
- Australian Authors – C. J. Dennis
- Philip Template:Proper name " Your Vote is Wanted": C. J. Dennis at the Call' JASAL 7 (2007)
- Jack Thompson reads poems by C. J. Dennis
Template:The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke Template:Authority control
- ↑ a b c d e f Template:Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". This article reproduces the poem, The Singular Experiences of Six Sturdy Sportsmen as well as other information about Dennis.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". The writer has a poor opinion of Mr. Dennis.
- ↑ W. H. Wilde et al, eds, The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1994 Template:ISBN
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with Project Gutenberg links
- 1876 births
- 1938 deaths
- Australian humorists
- Australian poets
- Australian fantasy writers
- 20th-century Australian novelists
- People from Auburn, South Australia
- People from Laura, South Australia
- Australian film studio executives
- Burials at Box Hill Cemetery
- The Herald (Melbourne) people
- The Australian Worker
- Australian male novelists