SOURCE: Steele, Peter. “Peregrinations of A. D. Hope.” In The Double Looking Glass: New and Classic Essays on the Poetry of A. D. Hope, edited by David Brooks, pp. 170-80. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 2000.

In the following essay, which was originally published in 1988, Steele examines the theme of voyage in Hope's poetry, focusing on “the character of his quest.”

Bad luck to The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (1st Edition) for leaving “peregrination” out of its record, when it runs to “percoid”—“resembling a perch”—and “perihelion”—“point in planet's orbit nearest the sun”. Perhaps they are mute witnesses to its absence, both having to do with rovers as they do. But peregrination too richly constellates meanings to be easily spared. And if anything can naturally be a place of lodgement for Hope, this may be it.

In the old days you could not be peregrine...