Dec 3, 2018 By: yunews
Dr. Linda M. Shires, David and Ruth Gottesman Professor and chair of the English department at , offered a keynote address for the , which ran from July 14-21, 2018, in Dorchester, England. (The conference was the 50th anniversary of the Society.)
The Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society invited Dr. Shires to lecture on Hardy鈥檚 poems rather than his novels, since two of her most recently published essays and her 2011 lecture at Yale University, 鈥淚mage and Text in Wessex Poems,鈥 dealt with his poetry. Her lecture, entitled 鈥淗ardy鈥檚 Poems and his Reader: The Power of Unmaking,鈥 will be published in .
鈥淏ecause many of Hardy鈥檚 poems illuminate how the past enters present consciousness and how the present reaches for but never truly recovers a past, the lecture opened on a personal note,鈥 she explained. 鈥淔ifty years ago, in high school, I bought Selected Poetry of Thomas Hardy, with an introduction by John Crowe Ransom. The poem I puzzled over and remembered most was 鈥楾he Convergence of the Twain: Lines on the Loss of the Titanic.鈥 I therefore began the lecture by revisiting a poem that inaugurated a teenager鈥檚 interest in Hardy鈥檚 poetry and held it for half a century.鈥 As she noted in her presentation, 鈥淧erhaps, even then, I vaguely sensed that part of the power of Hardy鈥檚 poetry lay in collisions: physical, mental, and emotional. This lecture, treating seven of Hardy鈥檚 finest, examined why Hardy鈥檚 poems last, the ethics that drive them and how they invite us specifically to think, laugh, remember and witness.鈥
