Digger Smith — Background and Themes

(0 User reviews) 648

In Category - Adventure Picaresque Fiction

Authors: Dennis, C. J. (Clarence James), 1876-1938, Gye, Hal, 1888-1967 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Australian poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 14,582

Reading time 64 min

Text sections 2

The catalog record for Digger Smith — Background and Themes provides practical reading context through 14,582 words, 1 hr 4 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 13.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Australian poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #15524

C.J. Dennis's verse novel uses a laconic Australian narrator to explore the impact of WWI on a rural community, focusing on the returning soldier Digger Smith. The poem shifts between domestic comedy and somber reflection, with a distinctive vernacular voice and a structure that builds from anecdotal scenes to broader meditations on war and memory.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg15524

Read the Text

There was the day the parson come to tell The news about our Syd. . . . An', yet, some'ow . . . . My little Jim!" She pauses for a spell. . . . "Your 'olly'ocks is doin' reely well," She sez, an' battles 'ard to brighten up. "An' them there pinks uv yours, 'ow sweet they smell. An'--Thanks! I think I will 'ave one more cup."

As fur as I can get the strength uv it, Them Floods 'ave 'ad a reel tough row to hoe. First off, young Jim, 'oo plays it 'igh a bit, Narks the ole man a treat, an' slings the show. Then come the war, an' Syd 'e 'as to go. 'E run 'is final up at Suvla Bay-- One uv the Aussies I was proud to know. An' Jim's cracked 'ardy since 'e went away.

'Er Jim! These mothers! Lord, they're all the same. I wonder if Doreen will be that kind.. Syd was the son 'oo played the reel man's game; But Jim 'oo sloped an' left no word be'ind, His is the picter shinin' in 'er mind. 'Igh-spirited! I've 'eard that tale before. I sometimes think she'd take it rather kind To 'ear that 'is 'igh spirits run to war.

"Before the war," she sez. "Ah, times was good. The little farm out there, an' jist us four Workin' to make a decent liveli'ood. Our Syd an' Jim! . . . Poor Jim! It grieves me sore; For Dad won't 'ave 'im mentioned 'ome no more. 'E's 'urt, I know, cos 'e thinks Jim 'urt me. As if 'e could, the bonny boy I bore. . . . But I must off 'ome now, an' git Dad's tea."

I seen 'er to the gate. (Take it frum me, I'm some perlite.) She sez, "Yeh mustn't mind Me talkin' so uv Jim, but when I see Your face it brings 'im back; 'e's jist your kind. Not quite so 'an'some, p'r'aps, nor so refined. I've got some toys uv 'is," she sez. "But there-- This is ole woman's talk, an' you be'ind With all yer work, an' little time to spare."

She gives me 'and a squeeze an' turns away, Sobbin', I thort; but when she looks be'ind, Smilin', an' wavin', like she felt reel gay, I wonders 'ow the women works that blind, An' jist waves back; then goes inside to find A lookin'-glass, an' takes a reel good look. . . . "'Not quite so 'an'some, p'r'aps, nor so refined!' Gawd 'elp yeh, Jim," I thinks. "Yeh must be crook."

"IF I'd 'a' played me Jack on that there Ten," Sez Peter Begg, "I might 'a' made the lot." "'Ow could yeh?" barks ole Poole. "'Ow' could yeh, when I 'ad me Queen be'ind?" Sez Begg, "Wot rot! I slung away me King to take that trick. Which one! Say, ain't yer 'ead a trifle thick?

"Now, don't yeh see that when I plays me King I give yer Queen a chance, an' lost the slam." But Poole, 'e sez 'e don't see no sich thing, So Begg gits 'ot, an' starts to loose a "Damn." 'E twigs the missus jist in time to check, An' makes it "Dash," an' gits red down 'is neck.

There's me an' Peter Begg, an' ole man Poole-- Neighbours uv mine, that farm a bit close by-- Jist once a week or so we makes a school, An' gives this game uv Dummy Bridge a fly. Doreen, she 'as 'er sewin' be the fire, The kid's in bed; an' 'ere's me 'eart's desire.

'Ome-comfort, peace, the picter uv me wife 'Appy at work, me neighbours gathered round All friendly-like--wot more is there in life? I've searched a bit, but, better I ain't found. Doreen, she seems content, but in 'er eye I've seen reel pity when the talk gits 'igh.

This ev'nin' we 'ad started off reel 'ot: Two little slams, an' Poole, without a score, Still lookin' sore about the cards 'e'd got-- When, sudden-like, a knock comes to the door. "A visitor," growls Begg, "to crool our game." An' looks at me, as though I was to blame.

Jist as Doreen goes out, I seen 'er grin. "Deal 'em up quick!" I whispers. "Grab yer 'and, An' look reel occupied when they comes in. Per'aps they'll 'ave the sense to understand. If it's a man, maybe 'e'll make a four; But if"--Then Missus Flood comes in the door.

'Twas ole Mar Flood, 'er face wrapped in a smile. "Now, boys," she sez, "don't let me spoil yer game. I'll jist chat with Doreen a little while; But if yeh stop I'll be ashamed I came." An' then she waves a letter in 'er 'and. Sez she, "Our Jim's a soldier! Ain't it grand?"

Continue Reading →

C.J. Dennis's Digger Smith opens with a domestic scene that immediately establishes its narrative voice: the unnamed speaker, a farmer, recounts his wife Doreen's social rituals with a mixture of exasperation and affection. The poem's first lines—"Before the war," she sighs. "Before the war"—introduce a refrain that will echo through the work, marking a before-and-after divide that the speaker struggles to articulate. Dennis uses a colloquial Australian vernacular, with dropped consonants and compressed syntax, to create a speaker who is self-deprecating yet observant. The early sections are brisk and comic, detailing the speaker's discomfort with tea parties and his wife's "social 'abit." But the tone shifts as the poem moves toward the figure of Digger Smith himself, a returned soldier whose presence prompts the speaker to reflect on what war has changed and what remains unsaid.

Vernacular Voice and the Limits of Speech

The poem's language is its most distinctive feature. Dennis writes in a broad Australian dialect, rendering the speaker's voice through phonetic spelling: "I ain't averse—one more new word I've learned—/ Averse to tea, when tea is to be 'ad." This is not mere decoration; the dialect signals the speaker's class and his resistance to pretension. He is acutely aware of the gap between his own plain speech and the polite conversation expected at tea. When he says, "I 'aven't got no comp'ny voice," he is admitting a limitation that becomes central to the poem's theme: the difficulty of talking about war. The speaker can joke about bread-and-butter duties, but when it comes to Digger Smith's experiences, he finds himself at a loss. The poem's structure mirrors this difficulty—it circles around the subject, approaching it through anecdotes, digressions, and secondhand reports, rather than direct testimony.

Pace and the Accumulation of Detail

Dennis controls pace through the accumulation of small, concrete details. The early sections move quickly, with short lines and frequent rhymes that mimic the speaker's conversational rhythm. But as the poem progresses, the pace slows. In the section "A Digger's Tale," the speaker pauses to reflect on what soldiers do not say: "On fights an' all the tale uv blood / Their talk, as they remark, is dud." Here, the verse becomes more meditative, with longer sentences and a more regular meter. The shift is not abrupt; it is achieved by layering observations—the speaker's own failed attempt to enlist ("Flat feet! Me feet 'as len'th an' brea'th / Enough to kick a 'Un to death!"), his memories of school history lessons, and his sense of a debt that cannot be repaid. By the final sections, the poem has moved from comic anecdote to something approaching elegy, without ever losing its vernacular grounding.

Recurring Motifs: The Unspoken and the Unfinished

Several motifs recur across the excerpts, creating a sense of continuity despite the poem's episodic structure. The phrase "there's somethin' yet" appears multiple times, always in contexts where the speaker gropes for words to describe what the war has done. It becomes a refrain for the inexpressible. Another motif is the contrast between public and private speech: the speaker's wife and Mrs. Flood conspire in whispers, while the speaker himself is forced into "silly grins" and forced repartee. Digger Smith, when he appears, is laconic—"'E calls me Digger; that's 'ow 'e begins"—and the poem never gives him a long speech. Instead, his story is pieced together from fragments. The glossary at the end of the text ("G. GLOSSARY") hints at the poem's self-consciousness about its own language, as if Dennis expects readers to need help with the dialect. This attention to the mechanics of speech reinforces the central tension: the poem is about things that resist easy telling.

Readers should attend to the way Dennis uses the speaker's limitations as a structural device. The poem does not attempt a panoramic view of war; it stays within the speaker's narrow range of experience, and its power comes from what it leaves unsaid. The comic passages are not distractions but counterweights, making the moments of gravity more striking. The glossary, while useful, is not essential—the dialect becomes familiar quickly. What matters is the rhythm of the verse and the way it builds meaning through repetition and variation. This is a poem that rewards careful reading, not for plot, but for the texture of its voice.

I've long kept Dennis's Digger Smith beside my chair, watching its laconic grief ripple from barked jokes to quiet memorials. Yet sometimes, turning its pages, I think of The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 2 (of 8) — Background and Themes—that other plain man, humming old hedgerows. Both knew how memory, not rhetoric, binds a wounded heart to common ground. Different tongues, same soil.