Some Critical Views on Hardy’s Poetry
By thinking about these, and by using them directly in your essays, you are taking on
alternative interpretations about Hardy’s poetry. This is credited by AO5.
1. Do you find that you agree with any of these? Which poems lead you to this
agreement?
2. How might you use your knowledge of the poems to challenge these views?
‘From the start there were those…[critics] who found his poems to be
both pessimistic and clumsy’. Pound, A. (2001) Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems,
York Press.
F.R. Leavis argues that Hardy was ‘a naïve poet of simple attitudes and
outlook’. Leavis, F.R. (1932) New Bearings in English Poetry, Chatto and Windus.
‘Hardy’s ultimate concern is not with any immediate emotion, but
with…survival beyond emotion.’ Howe, I., (1967) Thomas Hardy, New York.
Donald Davie describes some of Hardy’s poems as ‘confessional and
painful’. Davie,D. (1973) Thomas Hardy and British Poetry, Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
‘…every new reader of Hardy’s poetry finds there what he wants to find.’
Davie,D. (1973) Thomas Hardy and British Poetry, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hardy ‘creates situations in which man has little or no control over
circumstances’. Geddes, J. et al. Selected Poems by Thomas Hardy: An A Level
English Workbook, Wessex Publications.
Hardy writes about ‘the meaningless struggle against…time’.
Geddes, J. et al. Selected Poems by Thomas Hardy: An A Level English Workbook,
Wessex Publications.