A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry

Fülszöveg

Thomas Hardy is a twentieth century bestseller. Readers of aU kinds who find his novels compelling are now turning their eyes t» his poems.
But Hardy was a very private and complex person and a man who, though his feelings were deep and intense, prized understatement and reticence. The riches of his poetry, and his ideal of human life, often become apparent only as one reads below the surface of his poems. There one finds not only his honesty, as he constantly explored and faced up to reality, but his compassion for the disadvantaged, his joy in living and in beauty, his wit and irony and sense of the absurd - and a surprisingly modem approach to life that confronts many of the dilemmas of twentieth century men and women.
This book is a journey of exploration into Hardy's poetry and has all the delights of discovery. The author sets the theme for each poem discussed, quotes the full text, studies it and makes connections, and with the text in front of one, one can compare what... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Thomas Hardy is a twentieth century bestseller. Readers of aU kinds who find his novels compelling are now turning their eyes t» his poems.
But Hardy was a very private and complex person and a man who, though his feelings were deep and intense, prized understatement and reticence. The riches of his poetry, and his ideal of human life, often become apparent only as one reads below the surface of his poems. There one finds not only his honesty, as he constantly explored and faced up to reality, but his compassion for the disadvantaged, his joy in living and in beauty, his wit and irony and sense of the absurd - and a surprisingly modem approach to life that confronts many of the dilemmas of twentieth century men and women.
This book is a journey of exploration into Hardy's poetry and has all the delights of discovery. The author sets the theme for each poem discussed, quotes the full text, studies it and makes connections, and with the text in front of one, one can compare what she says with what one feels. As the journey develops, so the reader's sense of excitement and involvement grows: we are caught by what we find as Hardy's worid -and our own - unfolds.
This book will open windows for those who read it
Joanna Cullen Brown was bom in North China, and lived there until she was nearly seven. She came home to study at Walthamstow Hall, Sevenoaks, and took a degree in Mediaeval and Modem Languages at St ffilda's CoUege, Oxford, and the Certificate in Education at Cambridge. She has taught languages and English with children and adults, and written for various magazines. She now lives in Bristol where she lectures on Hardy for the University Extra-Mural Department She is married to a clergyman and they have a son and two daughters. Her previous work on Thomas Hardy, Figures In A Wessex Landscape, was published in 1987 by Allison & Busby.
"Her well-planned anthology, drawn fix)m the whole range of Hardy's work and from recorded conversations, should encourage the reader, as she puts it, to form a rounded view of Hardy's understanding of Nature, the country and the countryman'" - Heniy Gifford, Times Uteraiy Supplement
"A beautifully produced anthology of Hardy's verse and prose" - Terence de Vere White, Irish Times
"Joanna Cullen Brown has so arranged things that we can get at the materials of Thomas Hardy, the master-builder of a great literature centred upon farming foundations She writes well and her introductory essay is excellent And the decision to illustrate her book with hitherto unpublished watercolours of Dorset by Horace Moule's brother Heniy, as well as with old photographs, brings an unexpected radiance to the text" - Ronald Blythe, The Tablet Vissza