Haunted Hardy
Hardy was a poet of ghosts. In his poetry he describes himself as posthumous; as rekindling the cinders of passion; as the guardian of the dead forgotten by history; and as haunted by ghosts, particularly the specter of the lost child (as in the rumor that he fathered a child in the 1860s). Using Derrida, Abraham, and Torok and other theorists, and referring to Victorian debates on materialism, this book investigates ghostliness, historicity, and memory in Hardy's poetry.
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Hardy was a poet of ghosts. In his poetry he describes himself as posthumous; as rekindling the cinders of passion; as the guardian of the dead forgotten by history; and as haunted by ghosts, particularly the specter of the lost child (as in the rumor that he fathered a child in the 1860s). Using Derrida, Abraham, and Torok and other theorists, and referring to Victorian debates on materialism, this book investigates ghostliness, historicity, and memory in Hardy's poetry.BooknewsArmstrong (modern English and American literature, U. of London) argues that the idea of haunting is central to the work of British writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). He finds evidence in Hardy's second career as a poet; the phantom of the lost child that permeates his writings; his elegiac writings and intertextual references; and how he thinks about history, language, and consciousness. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
AcknowledgementsviiList of AbbreviationsviiiIntroduction11Supplementarity8Poetry as afterlife10Typology and syntax16Latency232The Ghosts of Thought30Haunted materialism31Series and selfhood in 'The Pedigree'38'Ghost theory' versus fetishism43Language and psychical research51Coda: 'The Photograph'583The Child in Time62'Family Portraits': haunting pain65Randy's hand, or the lost son72'A deed back in time'794The Politics of the Dead89'Hurt, misrepresented names'90Mute witnesses99The history of the same1045History, Catastrophe, Typology111'The Convergence of the Twain': history as coincidence112Two solutions to the problem of agency117The construction of history121Zionism and typology1276Mourning and Intertextuality134Cinders134Dantean purples148Crossed voices: dialogues with the dead156Notes173Index192
\ BooknewsArmstrong (modern English and American literature, U. of London) argues that the idea of haunting is central to the work of British writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). He finds evidence in Hardy's second career as a poet; the phantom of the lost child that permeates his writings; his elegiac writings and intertextual references; and how he thinks about history, language, and consciousness. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
