Compare the ways in which Hardy’s Poems of 1912-13 and Andrea Levy’s Small
Island present an attachment to place.
In Hardy’s Poems of 1912-13 and Levy’s Small Island, an attachment to place is
explored in depth, considering the connections between physical places and the larger
issues of identity, time and hope. The interest in the exploration of the significance of
place and people’s relationships to places was exemplified by the context of Hardy’s
remorse in the wake of his wife Emma’s death in 1912, and Levy’s multicultural identity
as a British author with Caribbean heritage, brought up by parents of the Windrush
generation. The attachment to place is a prominent motif within both works.
Both Hardy and Levy recognise the emotions associated with an attachment to
place often resemble a sense of longing. Whilst in Poems of 1912-13, this yearning is for
a reprise of the past, in Small Island, the characters long for a better future. In I Found
Her Out There, Hardy ruminates on the location of his and Emma’s first meeting, the
Cornish coast “where the ocean breaks”. The speaker imagines that while her body is
held “in a noiseless nest” in Stinsford churchyard where Emma is buried, her “shade,
maybe // Will creep underground” back to Boscastle. Here, his attachment to a
memorable place of their courtship conveys Hardy’s yearning for the past and to relive
the early days of their courtship. The abrupt shift in places from “I found her out there” to
“I brought her here // And have laid her to rest” – as though her life with Hardy is
forgotten, or did not occur – may also be a manifestation of Hardy’s desire to expunge
1
, the estrangement which characterised the latter years of their marriage, and return to the
past to mend their relationship. Mallett states that Hardy told Florence Henniker that he
intended to publish Poems of 1912-13 as “the only amends he could make for his
inconsiderate treatment of Emma” 1 Where the Picnic Was also explores the return to a
place of significance. The picnic Hardy might have recalled was presumably the one in
1912 when Hardy and Emma entertained fellow poets Yeats and Newbolt. In the third
stanza, the speaker confesses that he is “here // Just as last year”, revealing that this isn’t
the first time that the speaker has revisited this place alone. The speaker personifies the
sea as breathing out “brine” from the shoreline (“its strange straight line”) inland. This
use of sensory language emphasises that the place in a physical sense is unchanged; to the
eyes, the sea looks much the same as it did before and the sea air smells and tastes as
salty as it ever did. However, emotionally the polar opposite is true. To the speaker, his
attachment to this place has transformed from symbolising jubilance to a yearning for the
past. Much like Hardy, Levy also uses an attachment to place to portray a sense of
longing in Small Island. However, rather than a longing to relive the past, Levy’s
characters yearn for a better future. Queenie’s disgust with her parents’ butchery drove
her to move to London in search of a life away from the farm which “smelt acrid like
vinegar made from rotting flesh”. Gilbert is also motivated to migrate to “the Mother
Country” where opportunities are “ripe”. The lexical choice of “ripe” which belongs in
the semantic field of fruits carries of sense of foreboding of Gilbert’s disappointment
upon his arrival to England, for even as he describes the perceived myriad of
1 Mallett, P. (2004). “YOU WERE SHE”: HARDY, EMMA, AND THE “POEMS OF 1912-13.” The Thomas
Hardy Journal, 20(3), 54–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45274749
2
Island present an attachment to place.
In Hardy’s Poems of 1912-13 and Levy’s Small Island, an attachment to place is
explored in depth, considering the connections between physical places and the larger
issues of identity, time and hope. The interest in the exploration of the significance of
place and people’s relationships to places was exemplified by the context of Hardy’s
remorse in the wake of his wife Emma’s death in 1912, and Levy’s multicultural identity
as a British author with Caribbean heritage, brought up by parents of the Windrush
generation. The attachment to place is a prominent motif within both works.
Both Hardy and Levy recognise the emotions associated with an attachment to
place often resemble a sense of longing. Whilst in Poems of 1912-13, this yearning is for
a reprise of the past, in Small Island, the characters long for a better future. In I Found
Her Out There, Hardy ruminates on the location of his and Emma’s first meeting, the
Cornish coast “where the ocean breaks”. The speaker imagines that while her body is
held “in a noiseless nest” in Stinsford churchyard where Emma is buried, her “shade,
maybe // Will creep underground” back to Boscastle. Here, his attachment to a
memorable place of their courtship conveys Hardy’s yearning for the past and to relive
the early days of their courtship. The abrupt shift in places from “I found her out there” to
“I brought her here // And have laid her to rest” – as though her life with Hardy is
forgotten, or did not occur – may also be a manifestation of Hardy’s desire to expunge
1
, the estrangement which characterised the latter years of their marriage, and return to the
past to mend their relationship. Mallett states that Hardy told Florence Henniker that he
intended to publish Poems of 1912-13 as “the only amends he could make for his
inconsiderate treatment of Emma” 1 Where the Picnic Was also explores the return to a
place of significance. The picnic Hardy might have recalled was presumably the one in
1912 when Hardy and Emma entertained fellow poets Yeats and Newbolt. In the third
stanza, the speaker confesses that he is “here // Just as last year”, revealing that this isn’t
the first time that the speaker has revisited this place alone. The speaker personifies the
sea as breathing out “brine” from the shoreline (“its strange straight line”) inland. This
use of sensory language emphasises that the place in a physical sense is unchanged; to the
eyes, the sea looks much the same as it did before and the sea air smells and tastes as
salty as it ever did. However, emotionally the polar opposite is true. To the speaker, his
attachment to this place has transformed from symbolising jubilance to a yearning for the
past. Much like Hardy, Levy also uses an attachment to place to portray a sense of
longing in Small Island. However, rather than a longing to relive the past, Levy’s
characters yearn for a better future. Queenie’s disgust with her parents’ butchery drove
her to move to London in search of a life away from the farm which “smelt acrid like
vinegar made from rotting flesh”. Gilbert is also motivated to migrate to “the Mother
Country” where opportunities are “ripe”. The lexical choice of “ripe” which belongs in
the semantic field of fruits carries of sense of foreboding of Gilbert’s disappointment
upon his arrival to England, for even as he describes the perceived myriad of
1 Mallett, P. (2004). “YOU WERE SHE”: HARDY, EMMA, AND THE “POEMS OF 1912-13.” The Thomas
Hardy Journal, 20(3), 54–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45274749
2
