Poetry
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
C. J. Dennis · 1915
Opening lines
The world 'as got me snouted jist a treat;
Crool Forchin's dirty left 'as smote me soul;
An' all them joys o' life I 'eld so sweet
Is up the pole.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Bill, a ruffian in a gang from Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, falls in love with Doreen, who sticks labels in a pickled-goods cannery and at first turns him down. A mutual acquaintance introduces them; he promises to stop drinking and takes her to see Romeo and Juliet, whose feuding families he likens to the gangs of his neighbourhood. His jealousy of a dandy in a boater turns into a brawl, and Doreen breaks with him, before a reconciliation. Then comes Doreen's mother, who calls him Willy and expects a respectable son-in-law.
Context
The poems first appeared in part in the Bulletin, from 1 April 1909; the complete collection came out in Sydney from Angus and Robertson on 9 October 1915, illustrated by Hal Gye, with a preface by Henry Lawson and a glossary of slang. Three editions were needed as early as 1915, then a pocket edition in 1916, which many soldiers carried on them. Raymond Longford made a silent film of it, The Sentimental Bloke, and Bert Bailey took it to the stage in 1922.
Who it is for
Fourteen poems in English that form a narrative, in the slang of the suburbs; the original glossary remains indispensable.
Prizes and reception
The best-selling verse collection in the country: fifty-seven editions and some two hundred and eighty-five thousand copies in 1976.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.