Analysis of An Apt Pupil

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)



Knockin' about (said Benny, the Tough)
By the Rocks an' Woolloomooloo,
Oh, I was a low-brow, right enough,
And a bit of a bounder, too.
Kickin' about with me larrikin band,
I was always gittin' in bad;
Till the kindly cops took me in hand,
An', lissen, I've been glad.

I was a tough when life begun,
An' me ideels was not high
Doin' the things that 'are not done,'
Disgracin' me old school tie.
Me feet was set on the downward road,
A crook I was, an' a cad,
Till the genteel cops taught me a Code
An', lissen, I was glad.

Doin' sich things as I never had ort,
Soilin' the family name,
With never a notion of good, clean sport
Or the pride of playin' the game.
The dirtiest fighter in all the Rocks,
That's the sort of name I had,
Till the manly cops taught me to box;
 An', lissen, I was glad.

Playin' the game with a good straight bat,
Scornin' the bottle an' boot;
Turnin' meself from a wharfside rat
To a reel nice-livin' coot.
Learnin' to battle without 'arf-bricks
Or with pickets, as once I had
For the good cops taught me their rastlin' tricks
An', lissen, I was glad.

But flesh is weak; an' I fell from grace,
An' I goes an' I drifts right back,
An' burgled a bit of a jeweller's place;
An' a cop gets on me track,
But I meets his rush with a good straight right,
An' I reckon he got reel mad
To think that the cops taught me to fight.
 But, lissen, I was glad.

Then a crowd of his pals come off their beats;
 But I takes to me heels an' clears,
An' I leads 'em a marathon thro' the streets
While they lumbers and puffs in the rear.
Then I loses 'em all when I'd had me fun,
An' I sprints like a race-course prad.
For me cobbers the cops taught me to run,
An', lissen, was I glad?


Scheme axabcdcd efefgdgD hihijdjD klklmdmD nonopdpd qxqxebed
Poetic Form
Metre 10111001 10111 111011101 00110101 1011111 111101 101011101 11111 11011101 111111 1011111 11111 111110101 0111101 100111101 11111 111111011 101001 1100101111 1011101 0100100101 1011111 101011111 11111 10110111 101011 111011 101111 11100111 11101111 101111111 11111 111111111 11111111 11011011 1011111 1111110111 11101111 111011111 11111 1011111111 11111111 1111010101 11101001 11101111111 11110111 111011111 11111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,654
Words 339
Sentences 14
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 208
Words per stanza (avg) 56
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 10, 2023

1:42 min read
43

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century. Though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1915 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history. Together with Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, both of whom he had collaborated with, he is often considered among Australia's three most famous poets. While attributed to Lawson by 1911, Dennis later claimed he himself was the 'laureate of the larrikin'. When he died at the age of 61, the Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons suggested he was destined to be remembered as the 'Australian Robert Burns'. more…

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