Australia Poem by A.D.Hope

The powerpoint present a brief detail about the poem "Australia" written by A.D.Hope.

1. AUSTRALIA - A.D.Hope Assignment Submitted by M. Tharani II M.A. English Indo-American College, Cheyyar. Submitted to S . Mohan Raj Assistant Professor, Indo-American College, Cheyyar .

2. Biography Name : Alec Derwent Hope Born : 21 July 1907, Cooma New South Wales Died : 13 July 2000 (age 92) Canberra, Australian Capital Territory Occupation : Poet and Essayist

3. Introduction: Australia was a poem by A.D.Hope . He was educated at home and at Tasmania, he graduated Bachelor of Arts with majors in English and philosophy. He was appointed lecturer in education at the Sydney Teachers college in 1937 , later becoming lecturer in English from 1938-44 . Hope did not publish any of his poems until the 1930 s. His first collection, “The wandering Islands”, did not appear until 1955. It was praised for Hope’s Skilful use of traditional verse forms and critique of contemporary values and received the Grace Leaven poetry prize. His second collection, “Poems” (1960), was published in London, for many years Hope was the best-known Australian poet internationally. Hope was a widely published critic, reviewer and editor. He received the Arts council of Great Britain poetry Award in 1965 and In 1968 , the Levinson prize for poetry and in 1969 the Ingram Merrill Award for Literature .

4. Outline of the poem: Hope opines that Australia is a country filled with migrating people who came from many part of world. Most of them were dependent people and government took care of each and individual. The author wanted to convey their manners and really what they were. The poem gave negative perception and affected the life of survival in Australian Country. The poem reflected the lack of individualism and spiritual poverty. It was the continent with ambiguous state. Generally the term ‘NATURE ’ was a charm thing but in this continent it looked like a desolated one. Nobody cared about it. Many people gave importance to face only. They didn’t care about inner heart. The author compared this character as ‘Sphinx’. The people in this continent were not living, they were surviving. Five teeming sores indicate Melbourne, Sidney, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide. The people in these were not had their own identity. They were like parasites which dependent on others. Poet was waiting whether anyone of prophet would come and tell something good about Australia. They themselves called civilized people but there was no civilization.

5. Critical Analysis: The poem narrates about the people, spirituality, emptiness, nature and privation of real values in the new world of protection. The poem criticizes the attitudes, ethics and lifestyle in description of the empty land which lacks of cultural identity. The poet gives us nationalistic views, of he stands on the side of Australian and merely considers detractors to be very cultured apes. The morality of modern population is overwhelming. The people believes false conviction that being a materialistic, numb and unconscionable person is being real and mature human. People pass and have no impact on reality. They lost their individuality and uniqueness, they lose everything what is typically human. Hope attached the very serious problem which concerns not only here in Australia but the whole modern world. A.D.hope is looking do urn on Australia and our way of life. The sombre images of ‘ a nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey’ indicate that Australia is a monotonous and dreary place.

6. Technical Devices in this poem: Each stanza consists of four lines with the rhyme scheme being ABBA. Little enjambment exists in the poem; most of the stanzas stand alone as paragraphed. A.D.Hope uses imagery as a means to convey meaning to the poem. The alliteration helps to once again convey an image ‘drab green and desolate grey’. A.D.Hope uses the metaphor to give the concrete reality that Australia does have human qualities an abstract idea. The tone is mocking Australian culture, our history, our land and they way live our life. The sphinx was a figure from Egyptian myths, where it possessed the body of a lion, and the head of a man, ram or hawk.

7. Comparison in the poem: “A women beyond her change in life, a breast still tender but within the womb is dry” Hope criticize Australian society and the country itself. Those lines refers the fact that Australia is empty and its inability to bear fruitful children of change, being infertile a change of life.

8. Conclusion: Australia was once a land of trees, but today it is full of war and soldiers. The lands are now covered by the military uniforms-green and grey. The poet is hopeful. He ends the poem with a positive note. He says that some prophet wold emerge or come from the Australian ground, who would claim freedom and rights to liberate the aborigines and Australian culture from the colonisers.

9. Thank You