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Thomas Hardy
In "Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems" Tim Armstrong brings together over 180 poems in the first comprehensively annotated selection of Hardy's poetry. Unlike most previous selections, this edition preserves the shape of the poet's career by presenting the poems in the order in which they appeared in the "Collected Poems" of 1930, rather than re-ordering them thematically.
Head notes to each poem give the reader information about its composition, publication, sources and metrical scheme; on-the-page notes list significant variants in Hardy's manuscripts, point out literary and other allusions, and give explanatory glosses. An appendix contains a selection of relevant passages from Hardy's notebooks, letters, and autobiography; and a bibliography suggests further reading.
Tim Armstrong's critical Introduction discusses Hardy's career, his poetics, his use of memory and allusion and examines his position in the context of Victorian debates on aesthetics and belief. The generous selection of poems includes many lesser-known poems as well as those which have received most critical commentary, and the important elegiac sequence 'Poems of 1912-13' is included in its entirety.
Head notes to each poem give the reader information about its composition, publication, sources and metrical scheme; on-the-page notes list significant variants in Hardy's manuscripts, point out literary and other allusions, and give explanatory glosses. An appendix contains a selection of relevant passages from Hardy's notebooks, letters, and autobiography; and a bibliography suggests further reading.
Tim Armstrong's critical Introduction discusses Hardy's career, his poetics, his use of memory and allusion and examines his position in the context of Victorian debates on aesthetics and belief. The generous selection of poems includes many lesser-known poems as well as those which have received most critical commentary, and the important elegiac sequence 'Poems of 1912-13' is included in its entirety.
- GenresPoetry
392 pages, Paperback
Published April 14, 2009
14 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Hardy
2,400 books6,818 followersThomas 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 5, 2017
Hardy's poetry is exceptionally harsh and difficult, and this excellent collection does its best to help with the understanding. The poems are not really at all like his books, they are far more modernist, and of all the books in the Powys list, this one seemed to reach the most into the future; unsurprisingly Yeats was heavily influenced.
The poems are very heavy on the meter, rhyme is rare, and the word choice is singular, unique. The very first poem of Wessex is completely indigestible. Later poems are generally more approachable, and some are quite excellent. I'm going to say "Wessex Heights" was my favorite, and most representative, although it's hard to pick one.
Hardy's world view is exceptionally bleak, it is a world of pain and death, a pervasive fatalism. Nature provides some relief. He doesn't seem to have any joy or humor. Nothing in it is memorable or quotable. And yet his poems have a distinct quality of genius, a strange greatness, that is really unlike any other poet.
This is truly poetry for the discerning, like an extremely harsh, peaty scotch, terrible stuff to the novice but liquid gold to the knowing. The reward is hard to describe, it's an appreciation for a unique and uncompromising quality of language and vision. It's painfully great, no question. I'm not taking it to my desert island though.
The poems are very heavy on the meter, rhyme is rare, and the word choice is singular, unique. The very first poem of Wessex is completely indigestible. Later poems are generally more approachable, and some are quite excellent. I'm going to say "Wessex Heights" was my favorite, and most representative, although it's hard to pick one.
Hardy's world view is exceptionally bleak, it is a world of pain and death, a pervasive fatalism. Nature provides some relief. He doesn't seem to have any joy or humor. Nothing in it is memorable or quotable. And yet his poems have a distinct quality of genius, a strange greatness, that is really unlike any other poet.
This is truly poetry for the discerning, like an extremely harsh, peaty scotch, terrible stuff to the novice but liquid gold to the knowing. The reward is hard to describe, it's an appreciation for a unique and uncompromising quality of language and vision. It's painfully great, no question. I'm not taking it to my desert island though.
February 17, 2023
It wasn't as dreadful as expected.
Most of the poems assigned to read are somewhere between 2.75 to 3.25 stars. And they were quite short, so that's always wonderful in my eyes. The one I enjoyed the most was The Convergence of the Twain. That poem alone is worthy of 4 stars.
Most of the poems assigned to read are somewhere between 2.75 to 3.25 stars. And they were quite short, so that's always wonderful in my eyes. The one I enjoyed the most was The Convergence of the Twain. That poem alone is worthy of 4 stars.
November 16, 2010
Excellent edition
Want to read
April 5, 2012It looks like this edition contains the poems from 1912-1913. If I am not mistaken, those are what are referred to as the Emma poems. The author Natasha Solomons mentioned those as favorites.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews