There's a provocative article in the current issue of the London-based magazine Standpoint titled "Eliot versus Hardy" by Dan Jacobson, an emeritus professor at University College. In it, Jacobson tells of an interesting reversal in his literary tastes: he began with a rapturous fondness for Eliot that over time was supplanted by an appreciation of Hardy's homier virtues. It's a fascinating compare-and-contrast, not least because the two were basically contemporaries. When Eliot wrote (unfavorably) about Hardy in After Strange Gods (1930), Hardy had been dead only two years. Hardy, for his part, copied verses from Eliot into his notebook.
The piece is likely to raise eyebrows and even hackles. I'd be curious to hear what people think. My favorite part of the article, though, was the inclusion by Jacobson of a lesser-known Hardy poem that I found both stark and charming. It's musical and strange--pure Hardy--and it's called "Waiting Both."
A star looks down at me,
And says, ‘Here I and you
Stand, each in his degree:
What do you mean to do, —
Mean to do?'
I say: ‘For all I know,
Wait, and let Time go by,
Till my change come.'-‘Just so,'
The star says. ‘So mean I: —
So mean I.'
