Winter Words: Poetry & Personal Writings

by Thomas Hardy, Janet Maw (Read by), Bruce Alexander (Read by)

Although he is best known for his great novels, author Thomas Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, and letters too, reflecting aspects of his personality that are not so readily seen in his fiction, illustrated in the recording of this special compilation.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Audiobook

Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1928

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

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful audio introduction to Thomas Hardy which 'tracks' him in poetry and prose through the snows of West Dorset where,as a joyous child, he "danced in a dream"to his father's fiddle and "everything glowed with the gleam;"to an isolated waterfall where - "now,with it's smoothness opalized"-" a tiny glass is "jammed darkly" under the stones exactly where his wife,Emma,dropped it during their romantic courtship.We can then imagine him at his desk in Max Gate,Dorchester, composing an autobiography,dedicated to his second wife,Florence Emily,in which-ever shy of direct personal disclosure-he will refer to himself in the third person.We learn that he will soon begin editing collections of his poetry to be published instead of novels which have begun to attract criticism because of their grim realism.

Each poem we hear is like a little "novel"with a story all of it's own.Listening,we can also appreciate something of Hardy's soul which was deeply moved by history,Nature and music,when "on a spectre-grey day"he hears a little thrush sing in "a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited" and,on a trip to the British Museum he ponders "the base of a pillar....from a far old hill men used to name Areopagus" and remarks:

" I know no art, and I only view
A stone from a wall,
But I am thinking that stone has echoed
The voice of Paul."

There is much more to find and explore and I shall certainly play this little audiobook,again.It is beautifully read by Bruce Alexander and Janet Maw.Indeed,I loved it so much,that even though there seemed to be a rather hurried 'edit' between poems around chapter 66,I shall NOT be returning it to Audible!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

With canon poets like Thomas Hardy, it is difficult to find individual editions of their books. You are either left to the "scraps" of Selected Poems or (at least in Hardy's case) find an edition of Collected Poems. I remember looking at in a library the "Varorium" edition of his poems. A huge book. I do, however, have the Palgrave edition of his Collected Poems and decided to read again his last collection of poems, Winter Words.

He begins with a brief introduction that states there is no "harmonizing philosophy" in this book or in any book he has written. That appears to me to be a little of too much protesting, as I'm not sure why in his 87th year he needs to sound defensive.

As with most of his poetry, his greatness lies in the short lyrics. Witty, polished, and written in different arrangements, meter -- and, as the long title says, moods. Some of my favorites include The Proud Songsters, June Leaves and Autumn, He Never Expected Much, Lying Awake, A Forgotten Miniature, and He Resolves To Say No More.

These are the poems at the end of a career. An old master looking back. And he hasn't lost a step.

[Karen Michele Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of the reason I loved this poetry collection by Thomas Hardy was the excellence of the narrators on the audio version from my library. The poems were arranged by theme and preceded by short introductions that helped guide and enhance the reading. Some of the narrative sections were Hardy’s own commentary on his work. Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite classic novelists and I was duly impressed by his poetry. I recognized some of the nature poetry, such as “The Darkling Thrush”, from other collections I have read, but primarily the poems were wonderful new discoveries. A moving section was the poetry dedicated to his deceased first wife. I recommend this collection, particularly the audio version.

[Alexander Donnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I taught a couple of Hardy's poems on the GCSE syllabus way back when, but never took a punt on him in my own time.

Bro. He is Him. The chops, the insight, the tekkers.

I'm glad I read his last book first (of poetry, that is). There is something about an old man's words I find serene, and it's probably because he knew that this was going to be his last, there is a sense of... posthumousness? (that's not a word) about it that I just can't help but feel gripped by.

Winter, indeed!

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume, containing one hundred and five poems, was published in October 1928, a few months after Hardy’s bereavement. In his last years Hardy almost certainly felt less inclined to blame some eventual cause for the griefs and hardships of mankind, “Winter Words” considerably contains poems which express his disenchantment with the human race for its “hideous self-treason”. He could most likely predict that the Second World War was almost unavoidable. The title of this volume reminds us of his poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’, which had been written by him many years back.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hardy's last work, posthumously published, is this collection of poetry. The moods are not as varied as you'd expect (unless you were already familiar with Hardy); this is a mostly sombre collection, but there are several very strong poems.

[Scott Baird (Gunpowder Fiction and Plot) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful, it was interesting to find out about Hardy's life and how the poetry relates to it.

Ultimately, I'm not sure poetry is my thing. Maybe it's just too simple and I'm waiting for the rest, maybe I'm completely missing something.

I particularly enjoyed the poem that says:

Now I've never touched a Dame
I wish my father did the same.

[Manuel Menezes de Sequeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a non-native English speaker not too versed in poetry, my first time through this book did not go well. I tried again, but this time, while listening to the audiobook, I referred whenever necessary to an ebook of the same poems, prepared by myself. A whole new experience! These poems are indeed great. Highly recommended.

[Ian Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can only admire a poet who has as the second-last poem in his final collection something called “We Are Getting To The End.” This is a great collection of poems although there an awful lot of Christmas poems. This may be expected of a great man of letters in his twilight years, however.

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I read was published in 1930 by Macmillan and Co., London and printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited in Edinburgh. It is a pocket edition, bound in red with gold embossing on the cover and spine. You can see the printer's signatures on the bottom of the pages to the right of the page numbers to indicate how the pages were cut and folded. I found this treasure at McGill's annual fall book sale.

Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres is a collection of Hardy's late poetry, published posthumously in October of 1928. Hardy died in January of that year. My edition includes a note from the editor or publisher: “This volume, though prepared for the press, would have undergone further revision, had the author lived to issue it on the birthday of which he left the number uninserted below” (v). This “number,” an introductory note signed T.H., is inserted in my edition and begins like so: “So far as I am aware, I happen to be the only English poet who has brought out a new volume of his verse on his...birthday” (v). Born on June 2, 1840, Hardy missed his birthday by six months and did not get to publish this collection of poetry as he planned. The volume did reach public audiences with its publication, 10 months after Hardy’s death, and this was the first time I read his verse (I am more familiar with his prose). His poetry takes time to digest, and I would recommend selecting one or two poems to read and dwell on rather than try to blaze through the entire volume.

[Britt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely a bit boring (particularly in audiobook form), but mind you I am not a classic literature nerd or poetry lover. I've only read one of Thomas Hardy's books, which took me forever to get through. He is an amazing writer and I can appreciate his work, but I get bored and lose interest. This book gives some background info about him along with his a selection of his poems. They are somber and good, but again, I would start to fade on them.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really an excellent way to experience Hardy's poetry. The readers are superb and bring the poems to life. There is just enough narration and it is nicely supplemented by some of Hardy's own commentary.

[Forked Radish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: First published sometime after January 11th 1928. Although, Hardy considered himself to be primarily a poet, his poetry proves that great prose writers are usually mediocre poets.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

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