Henry Lawson essays

Henry Lawson essays Henry Lawson, also referred to as the peoples person, was one of Australias best well-known and respected poets. His works have been said to be an integral part of our national identity and culture and reflect the current events that were occurring at a time during his life. These influences were the Asianisation of Australia, the bush and its people, his feelings, thoughts and emotions. Lawson was born on the goldfields of Grenfell, New South Wales in 1867 and later passed away in 1922. As a young child Lawson was faced with the problem of limited resources and it was because of this that all of his education was taught by his very independent and influential mother, Louisa. At only nine years of age Lawson was struck down with an ear infection that left him partly deaf. Due to this problem by his fourteenth birthday Lawson was diagnosed completely deaf. This is the reason that he obtained a great talent for observing people and the way in which they acted. This is seen in the following verse: I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet, In swallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street, Drifting on, drifting on, to the scrape of restless feet, I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street. The purpose of this poem is to help Lawson express his feelings about his profound deafness and the sorrow he feels for himself and the people in the street who are not blessed with what he thought to be beauty. Lawson was born into a poverty stricken and unhappy family and he grew up to become a bitter and confused man who always believed that life would get better......but unfortunately for him it did not. It was due to lifes though experiences that Lawson started writing to express himself. At age twenty-one Lawson started to publish his poems in the Bulletin and through these publications people sensed that he understood life in Australia and the hardship of ...