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C. J. Dennis

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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". He was Australia's most popular and prolific poet, selling more than 700,000 books and publishing more than 4,000 poems.

C. J. Dennis
Born
Clarence Michael James Dennis

(1876-09-07)7 September 1876
Auburn, South Australia
Died22 June 1938(1938-06-22) (aged 61)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Burial place
Box Hill Cemetery
37°49′21″S 145°8′8″E / 37.82250°S 145.13556°E / -37.82250; 145.13556
OccupationWriter
Notable workThe Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
Parent(s)James Dennis
Kate Francis Dennis (nee Tobin)

When Dennis died, Australia's then Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, said he was destined to be remembered as the "Australian Robert Burns".[2]

Biography

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Dennis, ca. 1890s

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 (née Tobin) (1851–1890),[1] both had emigrated to Australia in the 1860s, his father leased hotels in, successively, Auburn, 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 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 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] Dennis married Margaret Herron in July 1917.[6] She published two novels and a biography of Dennis called Down the Years.[7]

His first poem to achieve national recognition was entered in the Bulletin contest for a national song in 1908. The Real Australian Austra-laise won a special prize akin to the people's choice. This poem was re-published several times in Dennis's later works and in 1915 it was reprinted by the government as a marching song for the First AIF. Dennis's reference to the generic great Australian adjective in this poem has ensured the relevance of the poem for all subsequent generations.

Between 1913 and 1924 he published nine books of poetry, telling the stories of working class Australians during and after the Great War. Most famously he wrote The Sentimental Bloke, a love story in fourteen poems, published in Oct 1915 which sold 60,000 copies in the first twelve months, and over 300,000 copies during his lifetime: leaving us with immortal characters, The Bloke, Doreen and Ginger Mick. The Sentimental Bloke and The Moods of Ginger Mick were re-published in 1916 as special editions, Pocketbooks for the Trenches, given to departing Diggers. Dennis's books outsold the "trenches" books by Will Ogilvie and A B Patterson by a 5 to 1 ratio.

During this period in 1917 he wrote the satirical Glugs of Gosh, a Lewis Carrol-like commentary on Australia's lazy efforts, selling natural resources only to have to buy back the manufactured products. In 1921 he wrote perhaps his most enduring work, A Book for Kids. This, more than any other book, is responsible for our unprompted awareness of Dennis in the 21st Century. Generations of Australians can still recall iconic children's poems like Hist, The Traveller, The Ant Explorer, and The Triantiwontigongolope.

From 1922 until his death in 1938 he served as staff poet on the Melbourne Herald.[8] , contributing over 3000 poems observing Australian life and commenting on national events. He was acknowledged as an unofficial Australian Poet Laureate, observing and writing on events in Australian life. He wrote poems regularly during this period to commemorate Anzac Day and Remembrance (Armistice) Day and this work helped shape the Australian remembrance of the Great War amongst the returned diggers and the general public.

His poetry was also successful in lifting the spirits of Australians during the Great Depression. In 1935 he published his last book, The Singing Garden with poems describing the sounds, sights and emotions evoked by his bush home in Toolangi, north of Melbourne.

In the 1930s he also wrote some screenplays including His Royal Highness (1932) with George Wallace.[9]

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,[10] and by a bust outside the town hall of the town of Laura.[11] At Auburn, the South Australian place of his birth, a drinking fountain and birdbath were unveiled in 1953 in his honour.[12]

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.[13]

Criticism

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Dennis had his detractors: "The Insect" (perhaps Herbert Low) of The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People called him "a doleful person", calling his prose "dreary imitations of Mr. Dooley" and his topical verse "very poor". Lumping Dennis with Eitel, he opined that The Critic was "unfortunate" in its choice of editors.[14]

Bibliography

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Books
Cover of The Glugs of Gosh

Selected list of poems

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Title Year First published Reprinted/collected in
"The Austra-laise" 1908 The Bulletin, 12 November 1908[15] Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, E. W. Cole,
1913, pp. 110-111
"An Old Master" 1910 The Bulletin, 4 August 1910[16] Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, E. W. Cole,
1913, pp. 19-22
"Wheat" 1913 Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, E. W. Cole,
1913, pp. 110-111

See also

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Further reading

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  • Philip Butterss (11 April 2014). An Unsentimental Bloke: The Life and Work of C.J. Dennis. Wakefield Press. ISBN 978-1743052877.

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 McLaren, Ian F. (1981). "Clarence Michael James Dennis (1876–1938)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 8. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  2. ↑ "Australian poet". The Argus. Melbourne. 23 June 1938. p. 2. Retrieved 10 August 2011 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "Memories of Laura". The Advertiser. Adelaide. 22 June 1932. p. 8. Retrieved 26 December 2013 – via National Library of Australia. This article reproduces the poem, The Singular Experiences of Six Sturdy Sportsmen as well as other information about Dennis.
  4. ↑ "The Hurling of a Stone". The Worker. Wagga, NSW. 22 May 1913. p. 17. Retrieved 18 March 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ↑ "The Insect". The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People. Sydney. 18 November 1905. p. 13. Retrieved 23 August 2025 – via National Library of Australia. The writer has a poor opinion of Mr. Dennis.
  6. ↑ ""The Sentimental Bloke"". The Sun (Sydney). No. 745. New South Wales, Australia. 8 July 1917. p. 12. Retrieved 20 December 2025 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "Widow Sums Up". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 36, 203. New South Wales, Australia. 2 January 1954. p. 10. Retrieved 20 December 2025 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ W. H. Wilde et al, eds, The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1994 ISBN 0 19 553381 X
  9. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (10 November 2025). "Forgotten Australian Films: His Royal Highness". Filmink. Retrieved 10 November 2025.
  10. ↑ "Australian Literary Monuments #18 - C. J. Dennis - Matilda". www.middlemiss.org.
  11. ↑ "Australian Literary Monuments #3 - C. J. Dennis - Matilda". www.middlemiss.org.
  12. ↑ "C. J. Dennis". Monument Australia. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  13. ↑ Groves, Don (28 February 1976). "C. J. Dennis, Laureate of the Larrikin". TV Times. Australian Broadcasting Commission / Australian Consolidated Press.
  14. ↑ "The Insect". The Newsletter: An Australian Paper for Australian People. Vol. 9, no. 8. New South Wales, Australia. 18 November 1905. p. 13. Retrieved 27 December 2025 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. ↑ ""The Australaise"". The Bulletin, 12 November 1908, p2. Retrieved 5 May 2026.
  16. ↑ ""An Old Master"". The Bulletin, 4 August 1910, p13. Retrieved 5 May 2026.
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