Professional Documents
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Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Bernard Shaw
Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Bernard Shaw
IMAGINATIVE WOMAN BY
THOMAS HARDY
April 23, 2010
This is the first of Thomas Hardy’s short stories that I’ve read but I would
now like to read more. As you might expect from Hardy, An Imaginative
Woman is well-written and descriptive but with a slightly dark and
melancholy feel.
Ella Marchmill, the ‘imaginative woman’ of the title is an aspiring poet,
writing under the male pseudonym of John Ivy because ‘nobody might
believe in her inspiration’ if they knew she was a woman. Her husband, a
gunmaker, is her exact opposite in temperament and interests. When the
couple and their three children go on holiday to Solentsea in Upper
Wessex, Ella becomes obsessed with the previous occupier of their
lodgings – a fellow poet by the name of Robert Trewe. During their stay in
Solentsea she convinces herself she has fallen in love with a man she has
never even met and desperately tries to arrange a meeting with Trewe. As I
don’t want to spoil the story for you I won’t reveal any more of the plot and
will leave it to you to find out whether or not Ella succeeds in meeting
Robert Trewe.
No, he was not a stranger! She knew his thoughts and feelings as well as
she knew her own; they were, in fact, the self-same thoughts and feelings as
hers, which her husband distinctly lacked; perhaps luckily for himself,
considering that he had to provide for family expenses.
“He’s nearer my real self, he’s more intimate with the real me than Will is,
after all, even though I’ve never seen him,” she said.
The theme of this story was actually very similar to the Mary Elizabeth
Braddon novel The Doctor’s Wife which I reviewed a few weeks ago, in
which a woman becomes bored with her marriage and develops an
obsession with another life that exists only in her fantasies. The outcome of
the two stories, however, is very different. There’s a clever plot twist at the
end of An Imaginative Woman but I found the final few paragraphs a bit
too harsh and cruel.
The illustration by Arthur J. Goodman shown at the top of this post
originally appeared in The Pall Mall Magazine in April 1894 and depicts
Robert Trewe and Ella Marchmill – Picture courtesy of Philip V.
Allingham
https://shereadsnovels.com/2010/04/23/short-story-mini-review-an-imaginative-woman-
by-thomas-hardy/
“O Coração das Trevas”
A destruição foi tão intensa, que não sobrou uma única presa
de elefante no país inteiro, em cima ou embaixo da terra.
https://mariosusumikunofilho.jusbrasil.com.br/artigos/448398510/analise-do-romance-ingles-
o-coracao-das-trevas-heart-of-darkness-de-joseph-conrad
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
n/a
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-
coming
A Segunda Vinda
https://www.jornalopcao.com.br/opcao-cultural/destarte/visoes-da-poesia-de-yeats-2-
130835/
The Second Coming by William Butler
Yeats: Critical Appreciation