DOI: 10.5176/2251-2853_2.2.128
Authors: Chihsin Chiu, Chih-chun Tang
Abstract:
“Poems of 1912-13” are elegies that Thomas Hardy composed after the sudden death of his wife, Emma Gilford. The psychological impact of her death on Hardy is suggested by both his mental images of and real visits to Cornwall and Dorset, England. In the twenty-one poems, the landscapes not only represent sceneries, but also epitomize Hardy’s subconscious mind and long-buried affections. The space in which he traveled helps to construct a distinct image of the poet, harrowed with a doleful conscience, whose memories and imageries are aggregated in collages of phantasms and phantasmagorias. In order to explore the geographical, temporal and perspectival contrasts in the “Poems of 1912-13,” I intend to apply Kevin Lynch's and Henri Lefebvre’s theories to examine Hardy’s spatial practices, namely, practices that consist of both his “representation of space” and “representational space.”
Keywords: Poems of 1912-13; Thomas Hardy; Henri Lefebvre; Kevin Lynch Landscape, Space; Spatial Imagination
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