A. D. Hope
| A. D. Hope | |
|---|---|
A.D. Hope c 1969
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| Born |
Alec Derwent Hope 21 July 1907 Cooma, New South Wales |
| Died | 13 July 2000 (aged 92) Canberra, Australian Capital Territory |
| Occupation | Poet and essayist |
| Spouse(s) | Penelope Robinson |
Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE (21 July 1907 – 13 July 2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic. He was referred to in an American journal as "the 20th century's greatest 18th-century poet".
Hope was born in Cooma, New South Wales. His father was a Presbyterian minister and his mother a teacher. He was educated partly at home and in Tasmania, where they moved in 1911. Three years later they moved to Sydney. He attended Fort Street High School, the University of Sydney, and then the University of Oxford on a scholarship. Returning to Australia in 1931 he then trained as a teacher, and spent some time drifting. He worked as a psychologist with the New South Wales Department of Labour and Industry, and as a lecturer in Education and English at Sydney Teachers' College (1937–44).
He was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne from 1945 to 1950, and in 1951 became the first professor of English at the newly founded Canberra University College, later of the Australian National University (ANU) when the two institutions merged. At the ANU he and Tom Inglis Moore created the first full year course in Australian literature at an Australian university. He retired from the ANU in 1968 and was appointed Emeritus Professor.
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1981 and awarded many other honours. He died in Canberra, having suffered dementia in his last years, and is buried at the Queanbeyan Lawn Cemetery.
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