Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/255



Until recently, the poetry of Thomas Hardy has been very generally ignored, and when noticed at all, usually vastly underestimated. Ardent propagandists have been arising of late, however, and at present some of the ablest critics have shown themselves as eager champions of the veteran poet. William Archer, Edmund Gosse, and Clement Shorter formed a triumvirate of whole-hearted admirers from the start, in 1898. Alfred Noyes grew very enthusiastic over The Dynasts and the later lyrics, while Max Beerbohm, for all his flippant manner, failed to hide a considerable admiration for the great "Epic-Drama." In the United States two of the most distinguished of the newer poets have joined in regarding Hardy as the only Englishman with any real claim to be considered a great figure in the world of poetry. They are Edwin Arlington Bobinson, the representative of the more austere and restrained style of contemporary poetic composition, and John Gould Fletcher, one of the "Imagist" leaders, who has written this of Hardy: