How can you call Hope a misogynist? Dear me, what a label. He was a
sensualist. And every reader, remember, takes on their own interpretation.
I highly value the elevation status of women/femaleness that Hope raised in
his work, esp. in his poem *Australia* that personifies our country as
female, that juxtaposes the fagility and struggle of our environment with a
female's struggle with her body.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
and again in his poem, The Death of the Bird, I see myself in his words,
- Alone in the bright host of her companions. I see the parallels of the
the bird's life with human femaleness vis-a-vis mother/nurturer, in..
And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest,
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart's possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.
If that's not greatness - then what is?
HH
>From: [log in to unmask] Reply-To: "Poetryetc provides a venue for a
>dialogue relating to poetry and poetics, r" To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Wright and Bradman and Hope Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:39:22
>+1100
>
> >But as a reader of >both, I would say that Hope _is_ great in a very
>narrow sense, & that the >celebrated 'wit' is often interesting, but
>undermined by a hopeless >misogyny (although the misanthropy often works).
>Wright isn't quite so >'interesting' (is that the word I want?) in terms of
>using trad forms, but >her passion & emotional commitment come through more
>powerfully. And I, >unlike many of her country people, actually think her
>late experiments with >the ghazal among her most exciting work...
>
>Hope's not so easily taped as misogynist: I'm thinking of Advice to Young
>Ladies, about Postumia, a Vestal Virgin deemed too lively and prosecuted
>for sexual misdemeanour:
>
>How many the black maw has swallowed in its time! Spirited girls who would
>not know their place; Talented girls who found that the disgrace Of being a
>woman made genius a crime;
>
>How many others, who would not kiss the rod Domestic bullying broke or
>public shame? Pagan or Christian, it was much the same: Husbands, St Paul
>declared, rank next to God.
>
>And ranks this next to Galileo's and Bruno's persecution by the
>Inquisition.
>
>I'd say Wright was equally interesting and able in using traditional forms,
>but did other things with them - here's from A Child's Nightmare -
>
>So you come running from your dreams where flame and shadow one by one
>reveal and darken all that's known to sob and tremble in my arms.
>
>Spot on about the ghazals -
>
>Best
>
>Alison
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