Selected Poems

by Thomas Hardy

Overview

After the hostile reception of Jude the Obscure in 1896, Thomas Hardy devoted the last thirty years of his life to poetry. This generous selection of poems displays the wide variety of his metrical styles and stanza forms, as well as the philosophical scope of his work. While his verse is often seen as the culmination of late Victorian moods, Hardy combines irony and stoicism to forge a thoroughly modern stance against ruin. His poems illustrating the perversity of fate are some of the most authentic expressions of human sorrow and regret in the English language; and the love lyrics written for his deceased first wife constitute the best examples of the modern elegy. This volume includes an insightful introductory essay along with textual and explanatory notes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420937473
Publisher:	Digireads.com Publishing
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Tragedy haunts the works of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), whose fiction abounds in star-crossed lovers and other characters thwarted by fate or their own shortcomings. Hardy's outspoken criticism of Victorian society excited such profound controversy that the author abandoned fiction and published only poetry in the 20th century.

Date of Birth:

June 2, 1840

Date of Death:

January 11, 1928

Place of Birth:

Higher Brockhampon, Dorset, England

Place of Death:

Max Gate, Dorchester, England

Education:

Served as apprentice to architect James Hicks

Table of Contents

From Wessex Poems and Other Verses
Hap
A Confession to a Friend in Trouble
Neutral Tones
Her Initials
San Sebastian
The Burghers
Her Death and After
Her Immortality
Friends Beyond
Nature's Questioning
I Look into My Glass
From Poems of the Past and the Present
The Going of the Battery
Drummer Hodge
The Souls of the Slain
Rome: The Vatican: Sala delle Muse
A Commonplace Day
Doom and She
The Subalterns
His Immortality
An August Midnight
The Darkling Thrush
A Wasted Illness
A Man
The Levelled Churchyard
The Ruined Maid
In Tenebris I
In Tenebris II
In Tenebris III
Tess's Lament
From Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses
Bereft
Shut Out That Moon
The Night of the Dance
Julie-Jane
A Church Romance
The Rambler
A Wet Night
God's Education
The Man He Killed
An uncollected poem
The Calf
From Satires of Circumstance
Channel Firing
The Convergence of the Twain
Beyond the Last Lamp
The Face at the Casement
"Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?"
The Going
I Found Her Out there
The Haunter
The Voice
At Castle Boterel
The Phantom Horsewoman
The Moth-Signal
The Death of Regret
Exeunt Omnes
From Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Versus
We Sat at the Window
Afternoon Service at Mellstock
To My Father's Violin
The Pedigree
The Oxen
Transformations
Great Things
Overlooking the River Stour
During Wind and Rain
Who's in the Next Room?
The Masked Face
The Clock of the Years
The Shadow on the Stone
An Upbraiding
In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'
Afterwards

Editorial Reviews

To recite the titles of poems by Thomas Hardy—‘The Darkling Thrush,’ ‘Channel Firing,’ ‘The Going,’ ‘During Wind and Rain,’ a list that could go on and on—is to compose a love letter to poetry in English. Hardy’s poems have lodged themselves in the heart of the language. In this magnificent selection, David Bromwich presents the verses chosen by the poet himself in 1929, adding a rich further gathering and a graceful and learned introduction. This book is a treasure. An essential volume.”—Rosanna Warren, author of Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters

“David Bromwich has produced a memorably good selection of Hardy. All those who already love the poetry will appreciate having a portable anthology done with such intelligence and taste, while new readers could not find a better introduction to this most individual of English poets in all his variety and range. The heart of this volume is the selection that Hardy made from his own poetry—so we have the interest of seeing what Hardy made of himself as well as an open invitation to decide what we make of him ourselves. ‘One can read him for years and years,’ as Philip Larkin said, ‘and still be surprised.’”—Seamus Perry, Balliol College, Oxford

“This selected volume brings Hardy’s most memorable and moving poems to a new generation of readers in an edition that respects the poet by reprinting his own Chosen Poems, respects the reader by adding further poems that speak to the twenty‑first century, and offers an introduction that brings Hardy’s life and poetry into clear and convincing focus.”—Edward Mendelson, Columbia University

From the Publisher