LACUNAE: ON THOMAS HARDY’S HUMAN SHOWS, FAR PHANTASIES, SONGS AND TRIFLES (1925)

Abstract

In Hardy’s Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925) one stumbles upon a surprising variety of lack, expressed through the expiration of beloved people, the departure of sustainable hopes for a more humane future, the unsuccessful attempts to revise life, the fleetingness of natural beauty, as well as through all sorts of metaphorically indicated interruptions, omissions, fragmentation and anonymity (suggested in the titles of poems). The absence of a steady point of reference (seen in the persistent images of incompletion) speaks of an irreparable existential chasm and of the disintegration of the lyrical self’s internal autonomy both of which have ontological validity in the perception of the modern individual – an alien survivor amidst history as a caricature of seriousness and order, a disfigured mosaic of interchangeable mocked reveries about achievability of meaning.