Thomas Hardy: Selected Writings

by Ralph Pite (Editor)

Overview

This volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series offers students a comprehensive selection of the work of Thomas Hardy—the first for nearly thirty years. The edition presents the poetry in a new way by using the text of Hardy's individual volumes, as they appeared originally, instead of the revised text he later produced for his Collected Poems. This edition reveals the range and variety of his output—qualities he later tended to disguise. His most famous sequence, Poems of 1912-13, appears in a radically different form.

Selections from his epic drama, The Dynasts, are given within the chronological sequence of his poetry, illustrating the power of this neglected work. Notebook and journal entries where Hardy puts forward his understanding of poetry and the role of the poet are also included.

Uniquely generous in the number of poems it contains, this edition also provides extensive annotation, locating Hardy's work in its cultural context and reading it in the light of the critical reception. The notes direct attention towards Hardy's regional heritage, and they show his response to the issues and debates of his day—to discussions surrounding war, patriotism, the treatment of animals, marriage, and religion, among others. The annotation identifies, in addition, how Hardy's work has continued to speak to present-day readers, by addressing present-day concerns—in particular, gender, including the gender(s) of the poetic voice, the global and (or versus) the local, and humanity's place within the natural world.

The edition also includes an Introduction to the life and works of Hardy and a Chronology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198904861
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2024
Series:	21st-Century Oxford Authors
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Ralph Pite, University of Bristol

Ralph Pite is Professor of English at the University of Bristol. He has published extensively on Thomas Hardy, including the biography, Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life (2007) and Hardy's Geography: Wessex and the Regional Novel (2002). He has also published on classical reception and on ecocriticism, particularly in connection with the Romantic period; he is currently completing a study of Edward Thomas's prose. He developed the smartphone app, Romantic Bristol: Writing the City, first launched in 2013, and is a published poet.

Table of Contents

FROM WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES (1898)Preface [extract]The Temporary the All Hap A Confession to a Friend in Trouble Neutral Tones She Her Initials Her Dilemma She, To Him, I · II · III ·, IV · Ditty Valenciennes San Sebastian The Stranger's Song The Burghers Leipzig My Cicely Friends Beyond Thoughts of Ph a Middle-Age Enthusiasms In a Wood To an Orphan Child Nature s Questioning The Impercipient At an Inn In a Eweleaze near Weatherbury I Look into my GlassFROM POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT (1901)Preface [extract]War Poems Embarcation The Dead Drummer A Wife in London The Souls of the Slain The Sick God Poems of Pilgrimage Genoa and the Mediterranean Shelley s Skylark In the Old Theatre, Fiesole Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter Lausanne: In Gibbon s Old Garden Miscellaneous Poems The Mother Mourns A Commonplace Day At a Lunar Eclipse The Subalterns God-Forgotten The Bedridden Peasant to an Unknowing God Mute Opinion To an Unborn Pauper Child The Well-Beloved A Broken Appointment Between us now A Spot His Immortality The Superseded An August Midnight Winter in Durnover Field The Last Chrysanthemum The Darkling Thrush Mad Judy A Wasted Illness The Ruined Maid The Respectable Burgher on the Higher Criticism Her Late Husband The Self-Unseeing De Profundis I.De Profundis II.De Profundis III.The Lost Pyx: A Mediaeval Legend Tess s Lament The Supplanter : A Tale Imitations, etc.From Victor Hugo Retrospect I have Lived with Shades Memory and I, ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ. ΘΕΩFROM THE DYNASTS (1904-08)Part 3, Act VI: scene viii: the road to Waterloo (extract)Part 3, Act VII, scene ix: The Wood of Bossu Part 3, After Scene (extract)From Select Poems of William Barnes. chosen and edited by Thomas Hardy (1908)Preface [extract]FROM TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES (1909)Preface [Extract]Time s Laughingstocks The Revisitation A Trampwoman s Tragedy A Sunday Morning Tragedy Bereft The Rejected Member s Wife The Farm-Woman s Winter Autumn in the Park Shut out that Moon The Dead Man Walking Love Lyrics The Division On the Departure Platform The Phantom The Night of the Dance The Voice of the Thorn The Minute before Meeting He abjures Love A Set of Country Songs Let me Enjoy At Casterbridge Fair I: The Ballad Singer II: Former Beauties III: After the Club-Dance VII: After the Fair The Dark-eyed Gentleman To Carrey Clavel The Spring Call Julie-Jane Pieces Occasional and Various A Church Romance The Christening A Dream Question By the Barrows A Wife and Another The Roman Road After the Last Breath In Childbed The Pine Planters One We Knew Before Life and After New Year s Eve His Education Panthera The Unborn The Man He Killed Geographical Knowledge One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes G. M., 1828-1909FROM THE BOOK OF BABY BEASTS (1911)The Polar Bear The Rat The CalfFROM THE BOOK OF BABY BIRDS (1912)The Yellow-Hammer The Duckling The Tropic BirdFROM SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE, LYRICS AND REVERIES WITH MISCELLANEOUS PIECES (1914)Lyrics and Reveries In Front of the Landscape Channel Firing The Convergence of the Twain The Ghost of the Past When I set out for Lyonnesse A Thunderstorm in Town Beyond the Last Lamp Lost Love My spirit will not haunt the mound"Wessex Heights The Place on the Map Where the Picnic was Satires of Circumstance I: At Tea II: In Church VIII: In the Study X: In the Nuptial Chamber XI: In the Restaurant XIV: Over the Coffin XV: In the Moonlight Lyrics and Reveries (continued)The Year s Awakening Under the Waterfall The Spell of the Rose St Launce s revisited Poems of 1912-13The Going Your Last Drive The Walk Rain on a Grave I found her out there Without Ceremony Lament The Haunter The Voice His Visitor A Circular A Dream or No After a Journey A Death-day recalled Beeny Cliff At Castle Boterel Places The Phantom Horsewoman Miscellaneous Pieces The Wistful Lady The Woman in the Rye The Re-enactment The Newcomer s Wife A King s Soliloquy A Week Had you wept Bereft, she thinks she dreams In the British Museum In the Servants Quarters Regret not me The Telegram The Moth-signal Seen by the Waits Exeunt Omnes Postscript Men who march awayFROM THE BOOK OF BABY PETS (1915)About LizardsFROM MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES (1917)Moments of Vision The Voice of Things Why be at painsa We sat at the window Afternoon Service at Mellstock Apostrophe to an Old Psalm Tune At the Word Farewell The Day of First Sight Heredity You were the sort that men forget She, I, and They Near Lanivet, 1872Copying Architecture in an Old Minster To Shakespeare Quid hic agisa Timing Her The Blinded Bird The wind blew words The Riddle To my Father s Violin The Change The Young Churchwarden Lines to a Movement in Mozart s E-flat Symphony In the seventies The Pedigree The Peace-offering Something Tapped The Wound A January Night The Announcement The Oxen An Anniversary Transformations The Last Signal Great Things The Figure in the Scene Love the Monopolist At Middle-field Gate in February The Head above the Fog Overlooking the River Stour The Musical Box On Sturminster Foot-bridge The Last Performance Logs on the Hearth The Caged Goldfinch The Five Students The Wind s Prophecy During Wind and Rain He prefers her Earthly Looking Across The Pedestrian Who s in the next rooma At a Country Fair Paying Calls Everything Comes Midnight on the Great Western The Clock-winder Old Excursions In a Whispering Gallery On the Doorstep The Clock of the Years The Shadow on the Stone An Upbraiding The Young Glass-Stainer While drawing in a Churchyard Poems of War and Patriotism His Country The Pity of It In Time of the Breaking of Nations Before Marching and After A Call to National Service I looked up from my writing Finale AfterwardsFROM LATE LYRICS AND EARLIER WITH MANY OTHER VERSES (1922)Apology [Extract]Weathers The Maid of Keinton Mandeville Summer Schemes Faintheart in a Railway Train The Garden Seat The Curtains now are drawn According to the Mighty Working Going and Staying The Dissemblers The Old Gown A Duettist to Her Pianoforte Where Three Roads joined And There was a Great Calm The Woman I met On Stinsford Hill at Midnight The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House The Wanderer At Lulworth Cove a Century back At the Railway Station, Upway Side by Side The Beauty On the Tune called the Old-hundred-and-fourth The Opportunity The Rift Voices from Things growing By Henstridge Cross at the Year s End The Chapel-Organist Fetching her Could I but will After a Romantic Day He follows Himself Without, not within Her The Little Old Table Last Words to a Dumb Friend On One who lived and died where He was born Outside the Casement The Passer-by I was the midmost The Whitewashed Wall The Seven Times The Sun s Last Look on the Country Girl An Ancient to Ancients After reading Psalms XXXIX, XL.SurviewFROM THE FAMOUS TRAGEDY OF THE QUEEN OF CORNWALL (1924)Could he but live for meFROM HUMAN SHOWS, FAR PHANTASIES, SONGS, AND TRIFLES (1925)Waiting both Any little Old Song The Turnip-hoer Circus-rider to Ringmaster The Later Autumn Let me An East-end Curate Coming up Oxford Street: Evening A Spellbound Palace When dead Sine Prole Ten Years since A Sheep Fair Snow in the Suburbs Ice on the Highway Queen Caroline to her Guests The Weary Walker Last Love-word Nobody comes In the Street So, Time Last Look round St. Martin s Fair A Leader of Fashion When Oats were reaped She opened the Door The Harbour Bridge Vagrant s Song The Shiver At the Aquatic Sports At the Mill Alike and Unlike The Thing unplanned Retty s Phases He inadvertently cures his Love-pains Known had IShortening Days at the Homestead The Paphian Ball The Bird-catcher s Boy Song to an Old Burden Why do IaFROM WINTER WORDS IN VARIOUS MOODS AND METRES (1928)Introductory Note [extract]The New Dawn s Business Proud Songsters Thoughts at Midnight I am the One A Wish for Unconsciousness To Louisa in the Lane The Love-letters Throwing a Tree Her Second Husband hears her Story Yuletide in a Younger World Lying awake Childhood among the Ferns A Countenance Silences To a Tree in London The Dead Bastard The Mongrel Concerning Agnes We Field-Women A Practical Woman He never expected much Standing by the Mantelpiece Christmas: 1924 Family Portraits We are getting to the End He resolves to say no moreFROM FLORENCE HARDY, THE EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS HARDY, 1840-1891 (1928)DomiciliumTH s remarks on poetry from journals and diariesFROM FLORENCE HARDY, THE LATER YEARS OF THOMAS HARDY, 1892-1928 (1930)TH s remarks on poetry from journals and diaries