''Wessex Poems and Other Verses'' (often referred to simply as ''Wessex Poems'') is a collection of fifty-one poems set against the bleak and forbidding Dorset landscape by English writer
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 ...
. It was first published in London and New York in 1898 by
Harper Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
, and contained a number of illustrations by the author himself.
Reception
The collection met a broadly hostile reception, critics being accustomed to Hardy as a (controversial) writer of prose alone. Hardy himself was taken aback by the failure to recognise his dry humour, as in the (slightly bawdy) 'Bride-Night Fire'.
On a more personal note, his wife
Emma disliked the section consisting of love lyrics to various recipients; and especially 'The Ivy Wife', which she felt aimed at her.
Notable poems
Two notable early poems from the collection (1860s) were "
Hap" and 'Amabel' - the latter exploring the theme of sexual attraction impacted by age taken up by
The Well-Beloved
''The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It spans forty years, and follows Jocelyn Pierston, a celebrated sculptor who attempts to create in stone the image of his ideal woman, while he tries also to find her i ...
. 'She at His Funeral' was a tribute to Hardy's friend
Horace Moule; while the bitter "
Neutral Tones" and the cheerful 'Sergeant's Song' show further aspects of Hardy's range of poetic subjects.
[I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (Cambridge 1995) p. 1007]
See also
*
1898 in poetry
*
Thomas Hardy's Wessex
Thomas Hardy's Wessex is the fictional literary landscape created by the English author Thomas Hardy as the setting for his major novels, located in the south and southwest of England. Hardy named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxo ...
References
External links
* The complet
''Wessex Poems and Other Verses''*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wessex Poems And Other Verses
1898 poetry books
English poetry collections
Poetry by Thomas Hardy
Victorian poetry
Wessex