''Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles'' is the penultimate collection of poems by
English poet
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
, and was published in 1925. A miscellaneous collection, ''Human Shows'' included old, new, and updated poems.
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: 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”. A
pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
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".
The collection includes more serious poems as well – memories of friends and family gone, as well as of his first wife
Emma
Emma may refer to:
* Emma (given name)
Film
* Emma (1932 film), ''Emma'' (1932 film), a comedy-drama film by Clarence Brown
* Emma (1996 theatrical film), ''Emma'' (1996 theatrical film), a film starring Gwyneth Paltrow
* Emma (1996 TV film), '' ...
. "Alike and Unalike" records the beginning dissension in his marriage with his attachment to
Florence Henniker
Florence Henniker (December 1855 – 4 April 1923) was a British poet and novelist.
Biography
Florence Ellen Hungerford Milnes was born in December 1855 in London. The daughter of Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, and his wife, the ...
; and "Nobody Comes" records his lonely wait for his second wife
Florence Dugdale to return after an operation in London.
[J. C. Brown, ''A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry'' (London 1989) p. 118]
See also
*
Thomas Hardy's Wessex
References
External links
*
1925 poems
English poetry collections
Poetry by Thomas Hardy
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