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’.