Thomas Hardy – Page 5 – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Channel Firing’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘Channel Firing’ is one of his most popular poems; it was also, perhaps, the most prophetic. Written in April 1914 and published in May of the same year, just a few months before the outbreak of the First World War, it anticipates the conflict that would break out later that year. (Hardy would later write about the war in his classic poem ‘In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”‘.) A brief analysis of the poem should help to show why ‘Channel Firing’ is such a favourite anthology piece among Hardy’s poems.

A Short Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Ivy-Wife’

A summary of a Hardy poem by Dr Oliver Tearle

Thomas Hardy wrote hundreds of poems over a period spanning more than 50 years; he supposedly wrote his last poem as he lay on his death bed in 1928. Although some of his poems are anthology favourites and well-known, there are many less widely-known poems in his Collected Poems which are worth reading and, indeed, analysing. With that in mind, here is Thomas Hardy’s wonderful poem ‘The Ivy-Wife’, with a brief summary and analysis of it.

I longed to love a full-boughed beech
And be as high as he:
I stretched an arm within his reach,
And signalled unity.
But with his drip he forced a breach,
And tried to poison me.

A Short Analysis of Hardy’s ‘Thoughts of Phena, At News of Her Death’

By Dr Oliver Tearle

‘Thoughts of Phena’, subtitled ‘At News of Her Death’, is one of Thomas Hardy’s best-loved poems. Hardy (1840-1928) wrote this poem in 1890 and published it eight years later in his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems (1898). A short analysis of the poem, given its canonical status in Hardy’s poetic oeuvre, may help to shed light on its meaning and effects. The ‘Phena’ of the poem’s title refers to a real woman, Tryphena Sparks, Hardy’s cousin and possibly, in the mid-1860s, his lover. ‘Phena’ died on 17 March 1890; Hardy then wrote the poem shortly after ‘news of her death’.

10 Classic Thomas Hardy Poems Everyone Should Read

Dr Oliver Tearle selects some of the best Thomas Hardy poems

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is acclaimed worldwide as one of the best Victorian novelists, but his poetry is often eclipsed by his achievement in the realm of fiction. Still, of the hundreds of poems that comprise Hardy’s Collected Poems, there are a few favourites that are much-loved and widely anthologised. Here’s our pick of the ten best Thomas Hardy poems – often a difficult list to draw up. But if you haven’t read much of Hardy’s poetry before, we hope this selection offers a nice way in to the weighty tome that is his Complete Poems. The poems are not arranged in any preferential order, as choosing one ‘best poem’ proved too difficult. Are you a fan of Hardy’s poetry, and which would you name as his best poem(s)?

A Short Analysis of Hardy’s ‘Neutral Tones’

Thomas Hardy’s classic poem ‘Neutral Tones’ – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle

‘Neutral Tones’ was written when Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was a young man (in 1867) but not published until 1898, when his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, appeared. Much of Hardy’s vast poetic output has not had much critical attention or analysis; there is a sense that many of the poems ‘speak for themselves’, that their meaning is self-evident.