‘Song of Hope’: not a title we’d necessarily associate with Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), who elsewhere even coined the word ‘unhope’ to convey his own deep despair (in his poem ‘In Tenebris’). But ‘Song of Hope’ is the title of a Thomas Hardy poem, which we reproduce below, followed by a […]
On one of Hardy’s best-known poems – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was a prolific poet, with his Complete Poems running to 1,000 pages. Yet he’s not generally known for being a satirical poet. ‘The Ruined Maid’, one of his earliest and best-known poems, is a rare […]
‘Wessex Heights’ shows more clearly than most why Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) has been seen as a ‘belated Romantic’: there is something of Wordsworth and Coleridge in ‘Wessex Heights’, a classic poem about the English countryside which sees Hardy standing from this high vantage point and surveying the area of Dorset […]