The Lyric Poet (1898-1922)
Moments of Vision that was first directed against Wessex Poems and then against The Dynasts, and one can find, to a lesser degree, in Wessex Poems many of the qualities that raise Satires of Circumstance and Moments of Vision to the rank of "great poetry."
Before attacking the subject-matter which the poet uses, or the aspect and inner significance of the poetic edifice he has raised, the questions connected with his purely technical qualifications for executing the tasks of a lyrist must be disposed of. The language, style, and verse-structure of Hardy's lyric poems have caused more than one critic and sincere reader to throw down his books and refuse to attempt to penetrate further into the mysteries of poetry that presented such an uncouth and forbidding exterior.
Hardy's choice and use of English words in his poems has provoked and irritated many a commentator, and is a subject that demands rather close and extended comment, in spite of the warning example of George Meredith's dull professor, who "pores over a little inexactitude in phrases and pecks at it like a domestic fowl." The guiding principle that is undoubtedly at the base of Hardy's handling of the language is that of using at all times the exact and precise word for the expression of an idea. The sense of a passage, whether of prose or verse, and the clearness of the picture or impression to be conveyed, are never to be sacrificed to the sound—to the purely sensory appeal of the language. This has been noticed even by readers of his prose, and has already been discovered to be one of his few definitely expressed tenets on the subject of poetic composition. It may be of
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