Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles
Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles is the penultimate collection of poems by English poet Thomas Hardy, and was published in 1925. A miscellaneous collection, Human Shows included old, new, and updated poems.[1]
Themes and tone
The most cheerful of Hardy's collections, Human Shows has been seen as reflecting something of an Indian summer on its author's part:[2] he himself, in his introduction to Winter Words, feared that he had been “too liberal in selecting flippant, not to say farcical, pieces into the collection”.[3] A pastoral tone prevails, often dramatising characters from Hardy's fiction, and at times Hardy even seems to burlesque some of his own tragic themes - of ironic accidents and patterned fate – as in the sketch "Snow in the Suburbs".[4]
The collection includes more serious poems as well – memories of friends and family gone, as well as of his first wife Emma.[5] "Alike and Unalike" records the beginning dissension in his marriage with his attachment to Florence Henniker;[6] and "Nobody Comes" records his lonely wait for his second wife Florence Dugdale to return after an operation in London.[7]
See also
References
- ^ I. Ousby ed, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1995) p. 460
- ^ J. C/ Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 241
- ^ D. Wright ed., Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (Penguin 1978) p. 450
- ^ J. C. Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 211-2
- ^ I. Ousby ed, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1995) p. 460
- ^ M. Seymour-Smith, Thomas Hardy (London 1994) p. 460=1
- ^ J. C. Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 118
External links
- Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles at the Internet Archive
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- The Poor Man and the Lady (1867)
- Desperate Remedies (1871)
- Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
- A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
- The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
- The Return of the Native (1878)
- The Trumpet-Major (1880)
- A Laodicean (1881)
- Two on a Tower (1882)
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
- The Woodlanders (1887)
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891/92)
- Jude the Obscure (1895)
- The Well-Beloved (1897)
- Wessex Tales (1888)
- A Group of Noble Dames (1891)
- Life's Little Ironies (1894)
- A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913)
- "The Three Strangers" (1883)
- "A Mere Interlude" (1885)
- "Alicia's Diary" (1887)
- "Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1891)
- "The Fiddler of the Reels" (1893)
- "A Tragedy of Two Ambitions" (1894)
- Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)
- Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)
- Time's Laughingstocks (1909)
- Poems 1912–13
- Satires of Circumstance (1914)
- Moments of Vision (1917)
- Late Lyrics (1922)
- Human Shows (1925)
- Winter Words (1928)
- "Neutral Tones" (1898)
- "The Darkling Thrush" (1900)
- "The Ruined Maid" (1901)
- "The Respectable Burgher" (1901)
- "The Man He Killed" (1902)
- "A Trampwoman's Tragedy" (1903)
- "The Convergence of the Twain" (1915)
- "The Blinded Bird" (1916)
- The Dynasts (1904–1908)
- The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall (1923)
- Thomas Hardy's Wessex
- Winter Words (song cycle)
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