Hardy insisted that his poetry steadily grew in skill and maturity. Hardy's Poetry, 1860-1928 traces this development. Gradually Hardy makes his lyric poem the model of a man's life: the way the lyric speaker forms his thoughts within the few moments of a reverie recapitulates the way a man has thought over a lifetime; the smaller interruption of the reverie portends the larger interruptions of life. This lyric model is supported by a distinctive imagery of visual patterns whose implications Hardy explores. These patterns come to symbolise the patterns of life and mind which crystallise over a lifetime and are belatedly revealed.

Richard Hoffpauir argues that the works of the best poets have found ways of not capitulating to contemporary reality and outlines the terms of the debate by setting the weaknesses of Yeats against the strenghts of Hardy. Subsequent chapters discuss the nature poetry of Edward thomas; the war poetry of Graves, Blunden, and Gurney; the love poetry of Bridges, Lawrence, and Graves; and the political and social verse of Rickword, Daryush, Betjeman, and Larkin.

Challenging the generally accepted critical constructions of the novels of Thomas Hardy, this book explores the historical, social, aesthetic and ideological determinants of Hardy's novels. Analyzing the ways in which Hardy's writings have been variously reproduced in literary criticism to produce certain social and ideological effects. Wotton also discusses the relation between Hardy's writing and Hardy criticism.

D. H. Lawrence's 'Study of Thomas Hardy', written in the early months of World War I, was originally intended to be a short critical work on Hardy's characters, but developed into a major statement of Lawrence's philosophy of art. The introduction to this work shows its relation to Lawrence's final rewriting of The Rainbow and its place among his continual attempts to express his philosophy in a definitive form. Previously published posthumously from a corrupt typescript, the 'Study' is now more firmly based on Koteliansky's typescript - Lawrence having destroyed the manuscript. The other essays in this volume span virtually the whole of Lawrence's writing career, from 'Art and the Individual' (1908) to his last essay 'John Galsworthy', written in 1927. The introduction sets these essays in the context of Lawrence's life and work. The textual apparatus gives variant readings, and explanatory notes identify references and quotations, and offer background information.

The celebrated novelist and poet presents his philosophy of literature and art through an in-depth analysis of Thomas Hardy in this restored edition. Though D. H. Lawrence was one of the great writers of the twentieth century, his works were severely corrupted by the stringent house-styling of printers and the intrusive editing of timid publishers. A team of scholars at Cambridge University Press has worked for more than thirty years to restore the definitive texts of D. H. Lawrence in The Cambridge Editions. Originally intended to be a short critical work on fellow English novelist Thomas Hardy’s characters, D. H. Lawrence’s Study of Thomas Hardydeveloped into a sweeping articulation of his views on literature and art. Though Lawrence destroyed the original manuscript, the work was published posthumously. This restored and authoritative edition also includes essays spanning the whole of Lawrence’s writing career, with an introduction contextualizing them within Lawrence’s life and work.