This document provides a summary and analysis of the poem "Australia" by A.D. Hope. It outlines Hope's biography and background. The summary then analyzes key themes in the poem, including Hope's criticism of empty spiritual values and lack of cultural identity in Australian society. Technical elements like rhyme scheme and imagery are discussed. Hope's negative portrayal of Australia as lacking humanity is analyzed through metaphors like comparing the country to a sphinx.

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 1930s. 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.