CHAPTER IX
The Cosmic Poet (1903-1908)
THE opening years of the present century witnessed the fulfilment of a project that had long been in the stage of fermentation in Hardy's mind. For many years he had quietly nursed the ambition of presenting an epic treatment of the Napoleonic conflict that should adequately show England's share in that struggle against the world-tyranny of an autocratic military genius. But, exercising that restraint which is so characteristic of genius, he deferred the execution of this plan until he had won at least some recognition as a poet with his first two volumes of verse. Two years after Poems of the Past and the Present had been launched against a world of readers still sceptical of the poet's powers and equipment, appeared Part One of The Dynasts. The title had been chosen from a phrase out of the Magnificat, which is echoed in the final chorus of Pities in Part III: "Who hurlest Dynasts from their thrones." A footnote gives the Greek of the original: "χαθετλε ΔΥΝΑΣΤΑΣ ἀπὸ θρόνων."
Much as Hardy's late turn to poetry had surprised his readers, no one was prepared to receive this stupendous torso in 1903 without feeling profound astonishment at the resourcefulness, daring or imbecility of the veteran author—particularly as the title-page announced that
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