Wessex Poems is the first volume of poems that Thomas Hardy wrote, and printed in 1898, marks the end of his career as a novelist. Although the corpus of Hardy's poetry is extensive, none of his volumes has been examined separately and formally. His stature as a major poet, the lack of criticism on Wessex Poems, and the premise that traditional criteria can serve to evaluate his poetry all justify the investigation of these poems. Many of the poems are similar to balladic form because they incorporate native material, employ the dramatic mode, and imitate the prosody and musicality of the folk genre. A few of the poems are noteworthy, but most of these verses are too lengthy and too historical in treatment to strictly qualify as folk ballads. The non-balladic poems are lyric in form and are grouped according to their use of natural imagery, their love theme, and their meditative mode, all of which elements are often found in the later poetry. Because of their formal conventions, the non-"inspiring" function of the poet's imagination, and the non-alienation of his poetic characters, the poems in this first collection provide the evidence that Hardy is neither romanticist nor modernist, but can be definitely classified as a poet of the English ballad and the traditional personal, meditative lyric. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-09, Section: A, page: 2774. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75169 |
| Contributors | MORAN, JUDITH V., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 140 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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