{"product_id":"thomas-hardy-and-john-cowper-jeremy-mark-robinson-9781861711236","title":"Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys: Wessex Revisited","description":"WESSEX REVISITED: THOMAS HARDY AND JOHN COWPER POWYS \u003cp\u003e Both Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys created a poetic Wessex landscape. Hardy's Wessex has entered popular folklore and myth, and is used in the promotion of holidays, walks, tours, museums, hotels, even town councils. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e John Cowper Powys's Wessex, explored in A Glastonbury Romance, Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle and Weymouth Sands, among other novels, is less well-known: a place of secret corners, mossy walls, ancient earthworks, Somerset wetlands and ferny hollows. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e Both writers are discussed thematically for their sense of nature, mythology, philosophy, painting, sensualism, labour, folklore and the family. D.H. Lawrence is referenced throughout as a bridge between Hardy and Powys. Finally Jeremy Robinson considers the film versions of Hardy's novels. This is a valuable addition to the criticism of Hardy and Powys. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e John Cowper Powys is difficult to categorize. We place him (usually) in amongst D.H. Lawrence, Mervyn Peake, Robert Graves, William Blake and Thomas Hardy. At first glance, Powys seems to be working in the British nature poetry tradition of William Wordsworth and Edward Thomas. His immediate predecessors are Hardy and Lawrence. In Hardy;s fiction (and Emily Bronte's), one finds that fierce enmeshment of nature mysticism and character. But Powys's novels wholly lack Hardy's narrative drive and feeling for drama and development. From Hardy, however, Powys learnt how to interrelate landscape and psychology in an authentic manner. Whereas Hardy is concerned with the furtherance of the dramatic story, above all, Powys is more interested in the ecstatic states of beingness. In this Powys has much in common with Lawrence. These writers use the details found in nature as vehicles for their characters' feelings. Lawrence uses these musings to open up his text to wider issues of human emotions or politics. In Powys's work, the movement in meditation is inward, downward and backward - into the worlds of history, mythology, and the claustrophobia of the self. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jeremy Mark Robinson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1861711239\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781861711236\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Crescent Moon Publishing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/01\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 276\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.86lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.58d","brand":"Jeremy Mark Robinson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48153858834687,"sku":"9781861711236","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_20bf6707-9c61-4971-b1da-448d164b1652.jpg?v=1770786312","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/thomas-hardy-and-john-cowper-jeremy-mark-robinson-9781861711236","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}