A.D.Hope's 'The End of a Journey'

Homer's story of Ulysses has attracted numerous poets over the years. In a previous episode, I read Tennyson’s, perhaps the most well known, in which the aging hero sets out again, admirable, undaunted and defiant. But the return of Ulysses to Ithaca can be read in other ways. Even within Homer's version, his actions are troubling. The wholesale slaughter of the suitors and the execution of the maids seem excessive rather than heroic.

And more prosaically, after all those adventures what would the morning after his triumph feel like. A.D Hope’s version is less heroic, less hopeful, perhaps more realistic.

A.D.Hope (1907-2000) was an Australian poet, an austere formalist, a writer of satires, considered by some to be one of the best Australian poets of the century, but often overlooked except for the much anthologised ‘Australia’. ‘The End of A Journey’ is taken from his 'Collected Poems 1930-1970'.