which was still very much in force duringrnthe 50’s. Here the language is Audenesque,rncomposed in a breezy balladrnstanza like that of “Miss Gee,” but therntheme is pure Hope at his most hopeless:rnAdventure opened wide its grislyrnjaws;rnHenry looked in and knew thernHero’s doom.rnThe huge white girl drank on withoutrna pausernAnd, just at closing hme, she askedrnhim home.rnPoor Henry wound up a footrug in therngiantess’s bedroom.rnFor Hope, woman was a delight, arndanger, and an embodied sacrament.rnAccordingly, his tone in sexual poemsrnranges from bawdy to prurient to reverential,rndepending on his purpose. Inrn”Lot And His Daughters,” all three notesrnare struck for a shocking meditation onrnbiblical incest. In the sardonic “ImperialrnAdam,” the first act of procreation isrnlovingly celebrated among the innocentrnbeasts: Eve is midwifed by “the gravidrnelephant, the calving hind,” then, as thernproud but helpless father stands by, hernsees “Between her legs a pygmy face appear,rn/ And the first murderer lay uponrnthe earth.” A later poem, “The Coast ofrnCerigo,” recounts in lurid detail thernmyth of the Labra, a fatal mermaid whornclutched and crushed bewitched fishermen.rnSuch themes earned Hope a reputationrnfor misogyny, but his accusersrnmust reckon with “Clover Honey,” arnplayful tale with a persuasive and charmingrnfemale narrator, not to mention “ThernWestern Elegies,” a poignant farewell tornhis wife of 51 years, Penelope, who diedrnin 1988. Only the most callous and simplemindedrncritic could sustain a claim ofrnwoman-hatred against the author of suchrna moving work.rnForgetting Hope’s own comment inrn”Australia,” the simpleminded have alsornassailed him as a “second-hand European.”rnDuring his formative decades,rnthe 30’s and 40’s, Australian writers werernattempting to create an indigenous literature.rnIn his survey of Hope’s work,rnAmerican scholar Robert Darling reflectsrnon literary context:rnFrom the beginning, white Australiansrnhave taken two differentrnapproaches regarding their conn-rn”The British Roots of American Culture”rnThe Rockfoid Institute’srnSecond Annual Summer Schoolrn20-24 Julyrnat The Rockford Institute, Rockford, IllinoisrnFaculty include:rnThomas Reming, Samuel Francis, Fr. Ian Boyd,rnPeter Stanlis, and Scott Richert.rnOpen to students of all ages.rnRegistration is limited.rnFor further details, please callrnChristopher Check at (815) 964-5811.rntry. One is to embrace its newnessrnand proclaim their independence.rn. . . The other at its most extreme isrnan attempt to maintain their customsrnas if the old country had neverrnbeen left.rnHope was sometimes portrayed by indigenistsrnas an unregenerate Europhile,rnbut his homeland is ever present in hisrnimagination and his poetry. Sometimesrnhe depicts it as a grim yet potentiallyrnnourishing desert (“Australia”); sometimesrnit is the setting for cosmological orrnphilosophical reflections (“The DriftingrnContinent”); sometimes it is an invisiblernbackdrop, the blank page on which herndares to reinterpret literature and religion.rnAs a young man, Hope trampedrnthe countryside and often camped forrnweeks on remote shores. He knew Australia’srngeology and geography, its florarnand fauna, its natural and human historyrnat least as well as the ridiculous Jindyworobaks,rna literary movement whosernmembers’ cultivation of idiom woundrnup sounding merely provincial, even tornfellow Australians.rnLike Americans, Australians strainingrnagainst the English leash have oftenrnlurched into populism and parochialism.rnHope’s education—and the curiosityrnwhich has kept him broadening it allrnhis life—puts him at odds with the knownothingrnimpulse among his countrymen,rnwhom he has often satirized. Yetrnhe is equally brusque with the faddishrnpreoccupations of self-appointed intellectuals,rnwhose blind anti-colonialismrntempts them to denigrate the very traditionrnwhich permits, even supports, theirrncritique. Did dissidents win literaryrnprizes from the Soviets? Would aboriginalrnelders applaud adolescents who rejectedrntheir culture? Such questionsrndon’t trouble Australian academiciansrnany more than they do American ones.rnHope’s erudition, his fluency in foreignrnlanguages, his agnosticism and shamelessrneroticism have made him an objectrnof suspicion to populists and intellectualsrnalike. As Ruth Morse observes in her introductionrnto Hope’s Selected Poems,rn”hostility to education is a feature ofrnmany of flie mass democracies, where itrnis identified with the colonial experiencernand the rule of the Empire.”rnAt one time or another, Hope studiedrnLatin, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese,rnOld Norse, German, Icelandic,rnAnglo-Saxon, Russian, and Arabic. Inrnhis book-length essay on poetics, Thern42/CHRONICLESrnrnrn