Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Thomas Hardy
-
Standard Name: Hardy, Thomas
TH
was a poet by vocation and became a novelist by profession. The Wessex of his novels has made him arguably a regional novelist. As well as a prolific output in both these forms, he published a unique verse epic bringing together human and supernatural characters, short fiction, a volume for children, and two volumes of actual autobiography masquerading as a biography by his second wife. Since his career as a publishing novelist ran from the 1870s to the 1890s, and his first volume of poetry post-dated his final novel, he has been seen as a Victorian novelist but a mostly twentieth-century poet. This description, however, is not true to the facts of composition. He wrote poetry from early in his life, but did not publish it in volume form until his final novel.
As a story-teller Evans has a sure grasp, making every tiny detail contribute to an effect which is understated but emotionally powerful. The named character in Miss Potts and Music is largely a peg for...
Intertextuality and Influence
Margiad Evans
Several poems in A Candle Ahead invoke ME
's teachers: Milton
, Thomas Traherne
, Walter de la Mare
, and Thomas Hardy
, the theme of whose The Well-Beloved is that of her closing...
Literary responses
T. S. Eliot
During TSE
's last years he reaped a rich harvest of public honours, both in Britain and internationally. Since then his standing as leading poet of the modernist movement and dominant figure of twentieth-century English...
Intertextuality and Influence
Helen Dunmore
These poems deal in passing time and final partings, with the sudden recognition of changes accumulated over years. The magic cloak of invisibility longed for by children comes in the end unsought for and the...
Textual Production
Margaret Drabble
MD
edited a book of essays entitled The Genius of Thomas Hardy.
Imagery of postpartum fluidity, particularly lactation, characterizes the lovers' growing passion and the descriptions of female sexual desire and orgasm. The narrative alternates between a schizoid third-person dialogue
She opens and closes the collection with two poems printed in italics. Her list of titles provides their opening words: an unnumbered poem placed before number one (from the first Verses) and another unnumbered...
Textual Production
Ella D'Arcy
Six stories by EDA
have been identified as published between 1899 and 1910 (after the demise of The Yellow Book in April 1897) in Century Magazine, Temple Bar, and The English Review (which...
Friends, Associates
Victoria Cross
Possibly because VC
spent so much time travelling, it is difficult to judge the extent of her social circle. She is unmentioned by many literary autobiographies of the period. Charlotte Mitchell
suggests that she may...
Literary responses
Victoria Cross
Sewell Stokes
, in a brief portrait of VC
in 1928, described her as one who had at one time been accused of poisoning the purity of British homes with her sordid writings ....
Who Was Who in Literature, 1906-1934. Gale Research.
vol. 1
She also belonged to the Society of Authors
, and acted as a steward (along with over a hundred other luminaries including Walter Besant
Friends, Associates
Frances Cornford
Frances's association with Rupert Brooke
began with the rehearsals for the play and grew into friendship. They discussed their poetry with each other, and Frances counselled and consoled Rupert in his many love affairs. She...
Literary responses
Wendy Cope
Reviewer Andrew O'Hagan
, however, applies a withering pen to WC
in a tirade about a general style of anthology which is, he says, frivolous or aimed at the lifestyle or selfhelp markets. His complaint...