Abstract

Thomas Hardy, Poet
van Doren, Mark | February 8, 1928 issue

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The reason, and the chief reason, for the rank in poetry achieved by Thomas Hardy before he died was that his poems were interesting. His only competitor for the highest rank of all among twentieth-century British poets, William Butler Yeats, is in certain aspects more admirable, and this can be demonstrated by reference to known laws of excellence; but Yeats is not quite so interesting, and therefore, if one is allowed to call in a consideration seldom applied these days to the criticism of poetry, not quite so good. There is reason for the fact that fiction today threatens to put down poetry, that a novelist finds thousands of readers to a poet's hundreds.

See Also:

POETS; HARDY, Thomas, 1840-1928; YEATS, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939; CRITICISM; LITERATURE; POETRY; GREAT Britain
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