A Preface to Hardy
(Merryn Williams
)
Excellent introduction to one of the great Victorian novelists! Looks at Hardy the man and the intellectual, and the cultural climate in which he lived. Examines a variety of Hardy's work from the major phases of his career, concentrating particularly on The Mayor of Casterbridge and outlines the short stories and their relation to the major novel. Covers Hardy's extraordinary verse epic The Dynasts and explores his second career as a poet, from early work such as Neutral Tones to the haunting poems about Emma Hardy. Thomas Hardy is one of the great Victorian novelists. The author of classic works of fiction such as Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Hardy later gave up writing fiction and concentrated on writing poetry. Increasing importance has been placed on his poems and some critics now regard Hardy as the major influence on the development of modern British poetry. This invaluable account provides an excellent introduction to the life and works of Thomas Hardy and provides biographical analysis, setting Hardy's works in the context of his time which encourages readers to understand his work in the period and style it was written.
Haunted Hardy : Poetry, History, Memory
(Tim Armstrong)
Hardy was a poet of ghosts. In his poetry he describes himself as posthumous; as rekindling the cinders of passion; as the guardian of the dead forgotten by history; and as haunted by ghosts, particularly the specter of the lost child (as in the rumor that he fathered a child in the 1860s). Using Derrida, Abraham, and Torok and other theorists, and referring to Victorian debates on materialism, this book investigates ghostliness, historicity, and memory in Hardy's poetry.
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
(Dale Kramer (Editor)
)
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is an essential introduction to this most enigmatic of writers. These newly commissioned esays from an international team of contributors comprises a general overview of all Hardy' s work and specific demonstrations of Hardy's ideas and literary skills. Individual essays explore Hardy's biography, aesthetics, his famous attachment to Wessex, and the impact on his work of developments in science, religion and philsophy in the late nineteenth century. The volume also contains a detailed chronology of Hardy's life, and a guide to further reading.
