検索キーワード： 著者 "Thomas Hardy" すべてのカテゴリー

January - the first month of the year in the Gregorian calendar ushers in the New Year. the cold and bleak landscape of winter nevertheless provides a rich background for our esteemed poets, such as Byron, Longfellow, Cowper, and Dickinson, to offer us their reflections and counterpoints.

This volume of poetry brings together poems throughout history with very special women. The relationship with our Mother is one of the most powerful many of us will ever feel. It rivals those with our children and partners in a way that both permeates and challenges how and on what terms we live our lives. A woman giving birth is not only bringing life into the World, she is doing so, usually, at great pain to herself.

We begin with one of Hardy’s best regarded stories, 'The Fiddler of the Reels'. Here Hardy exposes a supernatural and demonic theme, against a realistic and historical background of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the first trains. A typical Wessex girl is gripped by the power of music and dance when a lone fiddler casts his spell on her, causing her cloying but plain suitor to leave suddenly for London.

Death is a subject that few of us talk about, but many think about and more than a few of us dread. Whether it is the actual end of our life’s journey or merely a transit point to heavenly glory, its actual point of impact is, obviously, life-changing. But what do poets think of it? How do their minds tangle with the subject and make sense of this? That’s what we wondered too. Poets as rich and diverse as Tennyson, Hardy, Shelley, and Poe here share their words, thoughts and visions with us.

Simon Cliffe reads some of the greatest Christmas poems for the 12 days of Christmas. Day 1 - Merry Christmas by Louise May Alcott. Day 2 - Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan. Day 3 - Ceremonies for Christmas by Robert Herrick. Day 4 - New Prince, New Pomp by Robert Southwell. Day 5 - Christmas Cheer by Thomas Tusser. Day 6 - Ring Out, Wild Bells by Lor Alfred Tennyson. Day 7 - The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. Day 8 - Nativity by John Donne. Day 9 - A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton.

At this time of the year, as the nights close in and the temperature drops, winter seems like a season that nobody really enjoys, and we look forward all the more to spring. For many children, however, it is the bounty of Christmas that steals their attention, and for others the renewal of the New Year. But for Nature it is a pause for breath, to take stock of what has gone by in the year to date and ready herself for the energies and dramatic development to the landscape that spring will bring.

Our Laodicean Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy Victorian railway engineer, is the sole inheritor of the ancient De Stancy Castle. The castle requires much modernization and repair so she sets about securing a young, up-and-coming architect, George Somerset, to undertake the project. Immediately captivated Somerset falls in love with our heroine but alas, he is not her only suitor. Paula, "the modern flower in a mediaeval flower-pot" while attracted to him yearns for the dashing Captain De Stancy and the aristocratic background he represents.

On her morning journey to earn money for her impoverished family, Tess' horse has an accident, forcing her to seek assistance from some newly rich relatives. There, she is vigorously pursued by Alec, who corners her in a field one night and takes advantage of her.

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel. It centers on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr Boldwood, Sgt. Troy, and Fanny Robin. The plot involves love, loyalty, death, and betrayal, and all this is delivered to us in Hardy's most eloquent prose. The images of character and nature are painted for our mind's eye with sublime style.

The Return of the Native (1878) is one of Hardy's most popular novels. Set on the brooding Egdon heath it traces the lives and loves of five people. Clym Yeobright, the native, returns to Egdon from a successful career in Paris to pursue a dream of educating the poorer local people. Eustacia Vye, a young woman unhappy with life on Egdon wishes for love and life in a city. Damon Wildeve, an innkeeper and ex-engineer is a young womaniser.

Sophie lebt als eine Frau der oberen Klasse. Da sie jedoch die Arbeiterklasse geprägt hat, kann sie die Erwartungen und den Standard der Oberklasse nicht erfüllen...

The story of Tess, daughter of a poor peddler, is one of heartbreak and sorrow, deception and indecency. When sent to live with a wealthy family, the D'Urbervilles, who are not who they appear to be, Tess endures many hardships and abuse, while trying to make a fortune with the family to whom she believes she is related to. The abuse leads to her getting pregnant by a man named Alec.

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, as you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own.

A Group of Noble Dames is an 1891 collection of short stories by great English novelist Thomas Hardy. The ten stories focus on "store of ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence". Hardy delves into the hidden depths of country families to reveal what went on behind the scenes.

Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, "A Pure Woman", infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. The novel tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbeville.

Eustacia Vye's great desire in life was to be loved to madness, and in this, one of Thomas Hardy's best-loved novels, one of his most superb female characters conducts her wild and lethal campaign against her rival - the innocent, rather conventional Thomas - against the backdrop of Egdon Heath, the equally wild and lethal Dorset moorland on which Hardy grew up.

In a fit of drunken bitterness, a young hay trusser, Michael Henchard, sells his wife, Susan, to Mr. Newson, a sailor, at a country fair. The transaction also includes their daughter, Elizabeth Jane. When sober the next day, he regrets his action but looks for them in vain and is eventually told they may have emigrated. Eighteen years later Henchard is the Mayor of Casterbridge, and the people of the town believe him to be a widower.

August - the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and the full palette of nature is on glorious display. Our poets, Wordsworth, Swinburne, Alford, Riley, and Hardy, describe and reveal their thoughts on the month and notable dates within it.