The New Wessex Selection of Thomas Hardy's Poetry

by Thomas Hardy

Genres: Poetry

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Thomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain.

The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Emelia Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found some of these poems rather shallow to read. He also doesn’t incorporate much variation in terms of writing styles/ themes which makes it rather monotonous. I found it useful in terms of immersing myself into literature of different eras, but a lot of these I won’t choose to re-read

[Siteri R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've found five new favourite poems from Hardy's collection: An August Midnight, At Tea, In the Cemetery, In the Study, At the Draper's. They're short, simple glimpses into the often brushed aside moments of life.