A. D. Hope (Alec Derwent Hope) Biography

Australian poet and critic, born in New South Wales, educated at Sydney and Oxford Universities. Indefatigable defender and articulator of the central role of poetry in life, Hope has also directed his erudite wit at individuals, institutions, and values which, he believed, threatened such vital elements. Hope's writing was first collected in The Wandering Islands (1955), by which time he already had a reputation as a poet. Subsequent verse includes Collected Poems: 1930–1965 (1966), Collected Poems: 1930–1970 (1972), Antechinus: Poems 1975–1980 (1981), The Tragical History of Dr Faustus (1982), and The Age of Reason (1985). The Drifting Continent, and Other Poems (1979) included several comic bush ballads. His works of literary criticism include The Cave and the Spring (1965), Native Companions (1974), which gathered articles over forty years, and The New Cratylus (1979). As a poet and critic Hope's position has always been enigmatic: learned and traditional in his references, techniques, and symbolism, he has also demonstrated an iconoclastic relish in social and moral matters. Much of his energy in all his writings has been devoted to reinvigorating Australian life through imaginative access to the enduring and life-enhancing patterns of myth and symbolism as well as the literature and forms of the past.