Customer Reviews

Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

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If you are looking for a collection of Hardy's poetry, look no farther than this collection. The Penguin editors have done an incredible job of organizing the dense, complex body of Hardy's work into a very readable collection. This is more than just a simple "Hardy's greatest hits." Yes, there are the standard favorites here, but there is also an impressive collection of the writer's more obscure work. Reading the entire contents of this book is the best way to see the breadth of Hardy's existential and metaphysical angst.

After the Library of America edition of Robert Frost's poetry, this might be the best collection of poetry there is. Not only is Hardy one of the best poets ever (easily top five in the English language), but Mezey does a great job at putting together this collection. He selects the best of Hardy's poetry and a highly representative selection as well. His introduction is very well written and highly informative. It's like taking a quick class on Hardy. The poems are very much annotated, almost too much, but the notes are at the back of the book, so they are unobtrusive. There is a chronology and Mezey includes a few quotes, some of them quite witty, from Hardy. And all for an affordable price. You really can't beat this, and Hardy is one of those poets that should be on everyone's shelf.

A quick list of my favorite Hardy poems: Hap; Neutral Tones; At a Hasty Wedding; The Last Chrysanthemum; The Darkling Thrush; Mad Judy; The Ruined Maid; The Man He Killed; Channel Firing; Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?; Without Ceremony; The Haunter; The Voice; His Visitor; She Charged Me; At Tea; Over the Coffin; In the Moonlight; Near Lanivet, 1872; Something Tapped; The Ballet; A Backward Spring; At a Country Fair; A Night in November.

The introduction by Robert Mezey was expecially gratifying. This was the right quantity of poems to suit my interest. The format of the book was pleasing. Everything about the book and the anthology has the right feel about it to my taste.

I have no idea what to do but I would like to thank Amazaon for having this book (Thomas Hardy Selected Poems) because I really need this book for my English Literature class since I'm taking the course for my A-levels!!!!

Despite the increasing place Hardy's poetry has in the canon of English Literature it seems to me that he falls short of the very first rank. While he has a clanking originality of his own his poetry always seems to me lacking in a deeper soul music and sympathy. Consider one of his most well- known poems, 'Hap'
HAP

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh:"Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then wouldI bear it , clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
-Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan...
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

This poem centers on a basic Hardy theme, the cruelty of chance and accident which rule the world. Or to say this another way the lack of a traditional caring God who makes order and sense of the world.
While it is true that I am not especially enamored of this idea as basis for one's ultimate world- view my objection to the poem comes for other reasons. I do not think that this kind of abstract explaining is very effective as poetry.I again do not feel its music or deep soulfulness.
Again I may be completely wrong about this.