Introduction to Maps and Mapping in Kenneth Slessor’s Poetic Sequence The Atlas Adele J. Haft |
[email protected] Professor of Classics Hunter College of the City University of New York 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065 ABSTRACT Editor’s Note: The following article by This is the first of seven articles comprising a book-length treatment of The Atlas Dr. Adele Haft is an exciting deviation by the acclaimed Australian poet and journalist Kenneth Slessor (1901–1971). His from the typical peer-reviewed content reputation as Australia’s first modernist poet and pioneer of her national poetic that would normally serve as the entrée identity began with his 1932 collection Cuckooz Contrey, which opened with one of of our journal. This article is akin to the most original interpretations of cartography in verse: the five-poem sequence the introductory chapter of a book- The Atlas. Fascinated by maps and navigators’ tales, Slessor began each poem with length manuscript documenting the the title of a map or an atlas by a cartographer prominent during Europe’s “golden cartographic proclivities of Australian age of cartography,” and then alluded to that particular work throughout the author Kenneth Slessor in his poetic poem. The sequence celebrates the cartographic achievements of the seventeenth sequence entitled The Atlas. Adele will century while imaginatively recreating the worlds portrayed in very different bring her critical insight to bear on maps, including Robert Norton’s plan of Algiers (“The King of Cuckooz”), John each of its five poems, under separate Ogilby’s road maps (“Post-roads”), Joan Blaeu’s plan-view of Amsterdam (“Dutch cover (the first of which will appear Seacoast”), John Speed’s world map (“Mermaids”), and a map of the West Indies, in CP 71), but for now, I invite you supposedly by Nicolas or Adrien Sanson, featuring buccaneers and a seafight (“The to discover the life, times, places, Seafight”).