Wordsworth, Shelley, and Hardy: The Inheritance of Loss

This article calls for a revaluation of Thomas Hardy’s Poems of 1912–13, viewing them as in dialogue with William Wordsworth’s Lucy poems and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Jane poems. Though Poems of 1912–13 has been favoured with a great deal of criticism that aims to come to terms with its manifold influences, the Romantic influence upon Hardy’s collection has not been considered in this light. This article considers how Hardy brings Wordsworth and Shelley’s sequences into conversation with his elegies. Hardy reimagines both poets’ sequences to create his poetry of mourning.