Poems of the Past and the Present
Poems of the Past and the Present is the second collection of poems by English poet Thomas Hardy, and was published in 1901. A wide-ranging collection, divided into five headings, it contains some of Hardy's most powerful and lasting poetic contributions.[1]
Reception and thematics
The unusually favourable reception of the collection was due in large part to its opening with the section of 'War Poems', many previously published independently, and welcomed by the public for their treatment of the Boer War[2] — the seminal Drummer Hodge being the outstanding example.[3]
Hardy's friend Sir George Douglas called some of the collection's poems Aeschylean, and Hardy himself considered that the 'Doom' themes in the work overlapped with those in The Dynasts.[4] However, he had been careful in the collection's Preface to disclaim any organised philosophy therein, adding that "Unadjusted impressions have their value..."[5]
Notable pieces
Among other notable pieces were his poem 'Well-beloved', on the transient succession of a man's love-ideal;[6] and "The Darkling Thrush", the humorous piece "The Ruined Maid", and the dour sequence "In Tenebris".[7]
See also
- Heinrich Heine
- Rupert Brooke
- War poetry
References
- ^ I. Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1993) p. 746
- ^ M. Seymour-Smith, Thomas Hardy (London 1994) p. 637-9
- ^ I. Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1993) p. 746
- ^ T. and F. Hardy, Thomas Hardy (London 2007) p. 404
- ^ D. Wright ed., Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (Penguin 1978) p. 442
- ^ T. and F. Hardy, Thomas Hardy (London 2007) p. 294
- ^ I. Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1993) p. 746
External links
- Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) at Archive.org
- Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) at Project Gutenberg
Poems of the Past and the Present public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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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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