HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO3020 4/3/03 "OVER THE COFFIN QUESTION"
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Subject: Student inquiry
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:12:12 -0500
From: "Suzanne Flynn" <sflynn@gettysburg.edu>


A young woman with an interest in Hardy has contacted me with
questions about "Over the Coffin" -- one of Hardy's "Satires
of Circumstances". I thought, rather than try to answer her
questions myself, I would throw them out to the world of Hardy
scholars and devotees on this listserv. So I've copied her
questions below, as well as the text of the short poem. The
question of the relationship between the poem's two wives, and
Hardy's life (he married Florence the same year this poem was
published) is intriguing. I will forward any responses that
come from this knowledgeable group back to her. Thanks so much.


Student's questions: "I'm having trouble with this poem [i.e.
"Over the Coffin"]. The other satires in its group seem fairly
obvious, but this one doesn't smack me over the head like the
others do. Is there something special about this one? Am I just
trying too hard? I keep trying to relate it to Hardy's life,
and it makes some sense that way... if it is making fun of his
first wife."


Over the Coffin
They stand confronting. the coffin between,
His wife of old, and his wife of late,
And the dead man whose they both had been
Seems listening aloof, as to things past date.
-- I have called,' says the first. 'Do you marvel or not?'
'In truth,' says the second, 'I do -- somewhat.'
'Well, there was a word to be said by me!...
I divorced that man because of you --
It seemed I must do it, boundenly;
But now I am older, and tell you true,
For life is little, and dead lies he;
I would I had let alone you two!
And both of us, scorning parochial ways,
Had lived like the wives in the patriarch's days.'

Suzanne J. Flynn
Associate Professor
Department of English
Gettysburg College

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Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 12:51:19 -0600
From: brown@jc.edu
Subject: Re: Student inquiry


I don't know about the relationship to Hardy's life, but cf.
the situation in "Her Late Husband" (from _Poems of the Past and
the Present_) and especially the widow's comments on "the Hintock
rule," "that ancient way," and "Civilized lands."

Mark Brown
Jamestown College
North Dakota, USA


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From: "Michael Barry" <michaelj.barry@talk21.com>
Subject: Re: Student inquiry
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 02:07:34 +0100