tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post7080142355428429676..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "That Man Couldn't Look Out Of A Window Without Seeing Something That Had Never Been Seen Before"Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-61323635878843831582015-06-26T08:41:35.007-07:002015-06-26T08:41:35.007-07:00Fred: I think you'll enjoy them. They are the...Fred: I think you'll enjoy them. They are the sort of books you can dip into, since they are collections of various short reminiscences. Thanks again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-4264096139374972662015-06-25T23:06:56.886-07:002015-06-25T23:06:56.886-07:00Stephen.
I'll keep those names in mind. Thank...Stephen.<br /><br />I'll keep those names in mind. Thanks. Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10233846613173866140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-30030730873520486502015-06-25T22:31:36.751-07:002015-06-25T22:31:36.751-07:00Sam Vega: You're welcome. I'm pleased yo...Sam Vega: You're welcome. I'm pleased you liked the paintings. I was attempting to find something that evoked Hardy and his background. Thank you for pointing out the typo in the title of Priestman's painting, which I failed to catch. I have corrected the name in the post.<br /><br />As always, thank you very much for visiting, and for your thoughts.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-190927710940641592015-06-25T22:27:30.661-07:002015-06-25T22:27:30.661-07:00Fred: Thank you very much for your kind words. I&...Fred: Thank you very much for your kind words. I'm happy you liked the post. Over the years, you and I have talked a few times about the joy of returning to Hardy, and of the surprises that always await. It seems that each time I return to him as I get older more admiration for him and for his poetry grows deeper and deeper.<br /><br />I recommend having a look at Martin Ray's Hardy Remembered, and also James Gibson's Thomas Hardy: Interviews and Recollections. They are both wonderful collections of impressions of Hardy by those who met him. Of course, one has to make allowance for the fact that the people who wrote these accounts were often expecting to meet "a great man," and, hence, that could prompt some inflation in their accounts. However, one finds that the impressions are remarkably consistent, which is what prompted my post.<br /><br />I hadn't thought of Hardy as a mystic, so I appreciate your making that suggestion. I can see what you are getting at: especially in his later years, he seems to have taken on some of those qualities, although his feet were always on the ground. I agree with your point that, if he was a mystic, it was of "the natural, human world," and there was no deity involved (e.g., "Crass Casualty" and purblind Doomsters"!).<br /><br />Thank you very much for your thoughts, and for stopping by again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-61551051021602668242015-06-25T22:11:38.296-07:002015-06-25T22:11:38.296-07:00Anonymous: Thank you very much for "Afterwar...Anonymous: Thank you very much for "Afterwards," for Heaney's thoughts on Hardy, and, of course, for your own thoughts. Actually, I had considered including "Afterwards" in the post, because I thought it was apt, but the post was getting too lengthy, so I left it out. But now it is here, which is good. Heaney has a knack for getting to the heart of the matter in his criticism, doesn't he? I am also reminded of his essay on Larkin, which is similarly acute. I think that he and Larkin were probably the finest critics of poetry in their times.<br /><br />Thank you again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-43403660054305173142015-06-25T18:55:06.891-07:002015-06-25T18:55:06.891-07:00Stephen,
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
The myst...Stephen,<br /><br />Beautiful. Simply beautiful. <br /><br />The mystics, the world over, regardless of creed, be they Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindi. . . say the same thing: to perceive the deity one must empty oneself and be receptive, be open, and above all, be quiet. <br /><br />I never realized it before, but thanks for pointing it out--Hardy is a mystic, but of the natural, human world. <br /><br />Thanks for the post. Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10233846613173866140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-75972757391711792302015-06-25T11:04:30.700-07:002015-06-25T11:04:30.700-07:00Thank you for the three beautiful paintings of Dor...Thank you for the three beautiful paintings of Dorset. Hardy would have known all three scenes very well. The Priestman one, by the way, is Wareham, rather than Warham.Sam Vegahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05978971199859845931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-13639749907352303382015-06-25T10:15:01.458-07:002015-06-25T10:15:01.458-07:00Afterwards
... Afterwards<br /> --Thomas Hardy<br /><br />When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,<br />And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,<br />Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,<br />'He was a man who used to notice such things'?<br /><br />If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,<br />The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight<br />Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,<br />'To him this must have been a familiar sight.'<br /><br />If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,<br />When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,<br />One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,<br />But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.'<br /><br />If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,<br />Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees<br />Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,<br />'He was one who had an eye for such mysteries'?<br /><br />And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom<br />And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,<br />Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,<br />'He hears it not now, but used to notice such things'? <br /><br /><br />Seamus Heaney in the introduction to his book "The Redress of Poetry" comes as close as anyone else in explaining the genius of Hardy. Heaney speaks of "the frontier of writing," which he explains is "the line that divides the actual daily lives from the imaginative representation of those conditions in literature, and divides also the world of social speech from the world of poetic language."<br /><br />Heaney goes on to say that this "dividing line is the real subject of Thomas Hardy's bewitching poem 'Afterwards.' Hardy may have begun this poem with the intention of writing about his imminent disappearance from the familiar world, but his ultimate achievement was to transform the familiar into something rich and strange."<br /><br />Heaney says that Hardy's poem "is a showing forth of the way that poetry brings human existence into a fuller life."<br /><br />Stevens says pretty much the same thing (see part II of "Sunday Morning").<br /><br />To take the familiar and transform it into something rich and strange--yes, I think this can describe Hardy. He teaches us to see anew. <br /><br /> <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com