A.D. Hope

A.D. Hope has long been Australia's most internationally renowned poet, yet Kevin Hart's new critical study of the 85 year old poet is the only one devoted to his work. Hart seeks to read Hope's poetry and criticism in terms of several overlapping contexts: critical debate about Australian poetry; twentieth-century poetry as a whole (including French, German, and Russian poets who have influenced the poet); Hope's intellectual and cultural commitments (such as his aesthetic theory, as drawn from Aquinas and others, his interest in science and mathematics, his cultural politics in the university); and contemporary critical theory. Superbly argued, and written by one of Australia's finest young poets and critics, A.D. Hope is a worthy guide to the career of one of our most notable writers.