Victorians! discussion

Hello all

I'm going to be away from the poetry corner for the month of May but will return in June. Because our next novel is a Hardy I thought it would be interesting to look at a poem or two of his in June.

If you have any poems that you have enjoyed of his, or there is a poem that you would like to discuss please post the title here. I will check to see if there are any suggestions at the end of May and post your selections for June.

Much of Hardy's poetry was written after 1901 so it is technically not within our guidelines, but I won't tell if you don't.

Enjoy your month and we'll talk soon.

I'll propose one that's a bit before, rather than after, our time period, but if you don't tell, I won't.

It's Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and I propose it because it's the poem from which Hardy took the title of Far from the Madding Crowd, and also because I think it is talking of the same rural English virtues and people that Hardy writes so movingly about. So maybe it's appropriate to talk about it in conjunction with our reading of Hardy.

There are copies of it all over the Internet, as well as in most anthologies of English poetry. Here's just one source:
http://www.bartleby.com/101/453.html

I'll never tell and what can be more relevant than studying a poem that was obviously seminal to Hardy in the writing of a Victorian novel?

Good poetry deserves its place. If there are no other suggestions let's do it.

If there are other suggestions well do them too. Back in three weeks.

Peter wrote: "Back in three weeks.."

You're missing some great Spring weather. Hope where you're going is as nice and as enjoyable.

Everyman wrote: "Peter wrote: "Back in three weeks.."

You're missing some great Spring weather. Hope where you're going is as nice and as enjoyable."

My wife and I are doing an art museum cruise from Rome to Amsterdam via the Med. Two extra days in Amsterdam to soak in the Rijksmuseum and then back home.

We have waited literally decades for the perfect opportunity and jumped on the chance when it came.