My Country Poem Annotation

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

11:20 AM

Initial Thoughts:

Mackellar is describing the country that she loves

"running in your veins". This represents blood and heritage.

"Strong love of grey-blue distance" speaks for the size and space of the country

Tone and Connotations:

The poem begins with Mackellar describing another country. This is because she has portrayed it as "ordered woods" and soft dim skies". But then she continues and the tone becomes more of a love affair with Australia with Mackellar saying "my love is otherwise". This brings to mind Australia's natural assets. The beauty in the abundant and varied landscapes.

Devices:

Onomatopoeia - "drumming of an army" creates a feel that soldiers are marching to the beat of nature

Alliteration - "Lithe lianas", "flood, fire and famine". The use of alliteration helps to emphasize the characteristics of Australian rural life. "Lithe lianas coil" is also a use of consonance. The use of "flood, fire and famine" makes it seem as if the flood and fire are causing the famine. It helps emphasize the struggle between man and Australia. The sound F is a desperate sound, a struggling sound

Imagery - an example of this is "of droughts and flooding rains". This describes Australia as cruel in time of droughts and unpredictable in the rainy season. There's lots of natural, colourful visual imagery used. Synaesthesia (mixing senses) 'hot gold hush of noon' is used to engage the audience in the awesomeness of Australia. The effect assists in heightening the sensation of being there.

Personification - By using words like, "she" and "her" the poet personifies Australia. The audience gets a feel that Australia is not just lifeless piece of land. The country is feminized, making the country seem as a 'dangerous mistress'. The word 'her pitiless blue sky' makes her seem powerful, and pitiless. She then goes on to describe Australia as generous 'she pays us back threefold' giving a contrast. 'an opal hearted country' it isn't a black heart, or a golden heart, making her (the country) so many things, sometimes pitiless, sometimes generous and generally unpredictable.

Form:

My Country is a rhyming poem, fourteen stanzas in length. The opening two stanzas describe the British landscape, but this is not the country the young Dorothea Mackellar yearns for. The genre is part of bush poetry and does not tell a story

Context:

Dorothea Mackellar was born on 1 July 1885. she was an Australian poet and fiction writer. Mackellar was educated at home and began writing at a very young age. Her best-known poem is My Country, written at age 19 in 1904, while homesick in England

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