Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles

Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles is the penultimate collection of poems by English poet Thomas Hardy, and was published in 1925. A miscellaneous collection, Human Shows included old, new, and updated poems.[1]

Themes and tone

The most cheerful of Hardy's collections, Human Shows has been seen as reflecting something of an Indian summer on its author's part:[2] he himself, in his introduction to Winter Words, feared that he had been “too liberal in selecting flippant, not to say farcical, pieces into the collection”.[3] A pastoral tone prevails, often dramatising characters from Hardy's fiction, and at times Hardy even seems to burlesque some of his own tragic themes - of ironic accidents and patterned fate – as in the sketch "Snow in the Suburbs".[4]

The collection includes more serious poems as well – memories of friends and family gone, as well as of his first wife Emma.[5] "Alike and Unalike" records the beginning dissension in his marriage with his attachment to Florence Henniker; [6] and "Nobody Comes" records his lonely wait for his second wife Florence Dugdale to return after an operation in London.[7]

See also

References
  1. I. Ousby ed, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1995) p. 460
  2. J. C/ Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 241
  3. D. Wright ed., Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (Penguin 1978) p. 450
  4. J. C. Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 211-2
  5. I. Ousby ed, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge 1995) p. 460
  6. M. Seymour-Smith, Thomas Hardy (London 1994) p. 460=1
  7. J. C. Brown, A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry (London 1989) p. 118
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