my Xu Zhimo

Mr Hardy's new volume of poems is a very interesting, and in some ways a baffling book...

It is full of poetry; and yet it is also full of ugly and cumbrous expressions, clumsy metres, and flat, prosaic turns of speech.

a curious mixture of the contorted and the jog-trot

Even Mr Hardy's grammar is not impeccable.

And his vocabulary, though in general it is rich and apt, has occasional significant lapses...

It is important to observe such characteristics, because, in Mr Hardy's case, they are not merely superficial and occasional blemishes; they are in reality an essential ingredient in the very essence of his work. The originality of his poetry lies in the fact that it bears everywhere upon it the impress of a master of prose fiction.

...Mr Hardy... has brought the realism and sobriety of prose into the service of his poetry. The result is a product of a kind very difficult to parallel in our literature.

...but what gives Mr Hardy's poems their unique flavour is precisely their utter lack of romanticism, their common, undecorated presentments of things. The are, in fact, modern as no other poems are.

Many of the poems - and in particular the remarkable group of 'fifteen glimpses' which gives its title to the volume - consist of compressed dramatic narratives, of central episodes of passion and circumstance, depicted with extraordinary vividness. A flashlight is turned for a moment upon some scene or upon some character, and in that moment the tragedies of whole lives and the long fatalities of human relationships seem to stand revealed...

Review in New Statesman (19 December 1914).

Meredith and Mr Hardy, coming at the end of the Romantic movement and contemporaries of that extreme poet Swinburne, have been prose writers who have tried to impart some of the virtues of prose to poetry.

But there is a section of this book, the fifteen 'Satires of Circumstance' which give it its title, in which we feel that Mr Hardy would have done better in prose. It is not that they are prosaic, but that he does not manage to tell enough in verse. In each he gives us merely a situation, an ugly sitation, with all the emphasis of verse laid on the whole ugliness, as if he had a brief against life; and in each case we feel that the whole truth is not told and could not be told in this medium.

Unsigned review in the Times Literary Supplement, (19 November 1914).

The main impression left upon the mind after perusal of Mr Hardy's new volume is admiration, mingled with some perplexity, at his mastery of technique. It is surprising that gifts so high should be contentedly devoted to subjects on the whole so narrow; and as we consider the manner in which these subjects are handled, we are confronted by a further problem; for how is it possible for a writer to be at the same time so poetic and so casual?

Mr Hardy pursues his course with excellent skill, avoiding every pitfall. His poetic tact is unsurpassable. The temper he writes in is exactly that which could alone give credibility, artistic justice, and a natural appeal to the point of view he is expressing.

What is the force of such a passage as this, if not the easy nonchalance, the unconscious, conversational tone given to a statement against which every fibre of poetry in us stiffens and rebels? If it were less casual, might it not be almost offensive?

Mr Hardy, in using these queer conversational forms...

Mr Hardy is, in fact, casual or coversational in tone, but not in workmanship.

Like Meredith, Mr Hardy, whatever else he disbelieves in, believes in the strength and permanence of truth. Like Meredith, he aims at adhering in his poetry with scrupulous care to the facts which he believes to be before him.... But Mr Hardy will not, any more than whould Meredith, have poetry at the expense of truth...

Unsigned review in The Ahenaeum (8 January 1910), No. 4289.

Mr Hardy's Wessex Poems were perplexing in the unevenness of their literary quality. The contained much that was inconsiderable and that failed to distinguish itself from the most commonplace productions of early Victorian art.

(Wessex Poems)They suggested a temperament which had never learnt, as professed poets to some extent learn, to evoke the rhythmic mood at will, but which was stirred from time to time, perhaps at rare intervals, by some inner fluctuation of its own to this kind of utterance. It must be owned with regret that but few such moments seem to have gone to the making of Poems of the Past and the Present... That he should have considered that the large majority of the verses in this volume give worthy form to his thoughts and feelings can only show that he is almost wholly devoid of the faculty of self-criticism. The diction is persistently clumsy, full of ugly neologisms, with neither the simplicity of untutored song nor that of consummate art. The matter is colourless and abstract, although Mr Hardy's strength lies essentially in the actual and the concrete.

Unsigned review in The Athenaeum (4 January 1902), No. 3871.

Mr Hardy is too selfconscious, too deliberately rhetorical, too monotonously disenchanted, for the word poet to spring naturally to our lips at all in connection with this book. There is more of sheer poetry in his novels. Mr Hardy has his lyrical moments...although we fell that he has had difficulty in urging his vocabulary to keep pace with him...

Unsigned review in The Academy (23 November 1901)

Much that Mr Hardy has amused himself by collecting is quite trifling, conceived in the crude ferments of youth, and expressed with woodenness of rhythm and a needlessly inflated diction.

We do not conceal our opinion that Mr Hardy's success in poetry is of a very narrow range. He is entirely dependent for his inspiration upon this curiously intense and somewhat dismal vision of life, which is upon him almost as an obsession. Where he is not carried along by this, his movement is faltering, and his touch prosaic.

Review in The Athenaeum (14 January 1899)

But as we read this curious and wearisom volume, these many slovenly, slipshod, uncouth verses, stilted in sentiment, poorly conceived and worse wrought, our respect lessens to vanishing-point, and we lay it down with the feeling strong upon us that Mr Hardy has, by his own deliberate act, discredited that judgement and presentation of life on which his reputation rested. It is impossible to understand why the bulk of this volume was published at all - why he did not himself burn the verse, lest it should fall into the hands of the indiscreet literary executor, and mar his fame when he was dead.

Last of all comes a veritable poem, 'I Look Into My Glass'. It is an original thought realised and felt completely; and the expression is so clear and simple, that it will surely live when the rest of the book has been forgotten...

Unsigned review in The Saturday Review (7 January 1899), LXXXVII, 19.

在沒人在思想上比他更陰沈更嚴肅，更認真。不論他寫的是小說、是詩、是劇，他的目的永遠是單純而且一致的。他的理智是他獨有的分光鏡，他只是，用亞諾德的名言，「運用思想到人生上去，」經過了它的稜晶，人生的總複的現象頓然剖析成色素的本真。

如其有人說在他的宇宙裏氣候的變化太感單調，常是這陰凄的秋冬模樣，從不見熱烈的陽光欣快的從雲霧中跳出，他的答話是他所代表的時代不是衣理查白一類，而是十九世紀末葉以來自我意識最充分發揮的時代；這是人類史上一個肅殺的季候……

哈代的詩，按他自己說，只是些「不經整裡的印象」，但這只是詩人謙抑的說法，實際上如果我們把這些「不經整理的印象」放在一起看時，他的成績簡直是，按他獨有的節奏，特另創了一個宇宙，一部人生。再沒有人除了哈代能把他這時代的脈搏按得這樣的切實，在他的手指下最微細的跳動都得吐露它內涵的消息。

哈代的死應分結束歷史上一個重要的時期。這時期的起點是盧騷的思想與他的人格，在他的言行裏現代「自我解放」與「自我意識」實現了它們正式的誕生。從懺悔錄到法國革命，從法國革命到浪漫運動，從浪漫運動到尼采（與道施滔奄夫斯基），從尼采到哈代──在這一百七十年間我們看到人類衝動性的情感，脫離了理性的挾，火燄似的迸竄著，在這光炎裏激射出種種的運動與主義，同時在灰燼的底裏孕育著「現代意識」，病態的、自剖的、懷疑的、厭倦的、上浮的熾燄愈消沉，底裏的死灰愈擴大，直到一種幻滅的感覺軟化了一切生動的努力，壓死了情感，麻痺了理智，人類忽然發現他們的腳步已經誤走到絕望的邊緣，再不留步時前途只是死與沉默。哈代初起寫小說時，正當維多利亞最昌盛的日子，進化論的暗示與放任主義的成效激起了樂觀的高潮，在短時間內蓋沒了一切的不平與蹊蹺。哈代停止寫小說時世紀末尾的悲哀代替了早年虛幻的希冀。哈代初起刊行詩集時一世紀來摧殘的勢力已經積聚成旦夕可以潰發的潛流。哈代印行他的後期的詩集時這潛流潰發成歐戰與俄國革命。

但如其我們能透深一層看，把歷史的事實認作水面上的雲彩，思想的活動才是水底的潛流，在無形中確定人生的方向，我們的詩人的重要正在這些觀察所得的各殊的現象的紀錄中。

原載《新月》一卷一期；收全集一

哈代是現存作家中最偉大的一個……。他是一個悲觀的人，詩人兼小說家。……我覺得讀他一冊書比受大學教育四年都要好。

錄自趙景深《近代文學叢談》（新文化書社一九二五年十一月出版）；收全補三

我不諱我的「英雄崇拜」。山，我們愛踹高的；人，我們為什麼不願意接近大的？

……連著問我……「你譯我的詩？」「你怎麼翻的？」「你們中國詩用韻不用？」……（狄更生信上說起我翻他的詩）……

我說我們從前只有有韻的散文。沒有無韻的詩，但最近……但他不要聽最近，他贊成用韻，這道理是不錯的。你投塊石子到湖心裏去，一圈圈的水紋漾了開去，韻是波紋。少不得。抒情詩Lyric是文學的精華的精華。顛不破的鑽石，不論多小。磨不破的光彩。我不重視我的小說。什麼都沒有做好的小詩難……。我說我愛他的詩因為它們不僅結構嚴密像建築，同時有思思的血脈在流走，像有機的整體。我說了Organic這個字；他重複了兩遍："Yes, Organic; yes Organic: A poem ought to be a living thing"練習文字頂好學寫詩；很多人從學詩寫好了散文。詩是文字的秘密。

原載《晨報副刊‧詩鐫》一九二五年五月二十七日；收全補三